The Nassau GOP used to specialize in elections like this one, where turnout tends to be low. Putting boots on the ground and pulling voters out to the polls was its strength. But that was before Mondello's time.
Awash in cash and party workers from across the state, Mondello should have been able to get out enough voters to keep the seat in Republican hands. Instead he acted in typical fashion, allowing Democrats to take the offensive and set the campaign agenda and then countering with second-rate commercials, shlocky direct mailings and an inefficient get-out-the-vote effort. Perhaps not surprising for a 68-year-old, he also ignored the new wave of Internet campaigning that is revolutionizing politics.
The Nassau GOP once was the preeminent Republican political machine in the country. The day Mondello took over in late 1982, Nassau Republicans held virtually every countywide office, plus all four congressional seats. A local Republican, Alfonse D'Amato, held a U.S. Senate seat. The party controlled all three towns and dozens of judgeships. Today, after 24 years of iron-fisted rule by Mondello, we have become a minority party - holding just one countywide office - despite a registration advantage.
How did someone with such a miserable track record get to be state party chairman? Last November, after the Democrats had won an overwhelming statewide victory, State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno - the last remaining elected Republican leader - feared a possible coup and hand-picked Mondello so he could maintain control. With no other candidates coming forward, a shell-shocked and desperate Republican State Committee unanimously rubber-stamped this selection.
Mondello has now rewarded the party with a loss in his first crucial race as state chairman - and in his home county.
As Nassau chairman, Mondello has failed as well - at every step. He has kept his job by making the Nassau GOP his personal fiefdom and ATM, staffing it with loyalists who owe him for some past favor or government post. He has rooted out anyone who dares to disagree with him. And he has milked the chairmanship for all it is worth, cashing simultaneous paychecks from the GOP, OTB (when he was the head of Nassau County OTB) - and now the state GOP - as well as his law/lobbying firm.
The loss this week of a safe Republican seat exemplifies Mondello's political malpractice and arrogance over the past 24 years. And it highlights why the Nassau Republican Party must remove him when his term ends, about seven months from now, and start over.
The party needs to get back to block-by-block, district-by-district organizing - combining online technology with old-fashioned shoe leather. It needs a younger, dynamic leader who is open to new ideas and dissent and - most of all - views the Republican Party as a vehicle to change government, not as a tool to enhance his or her own career.
Ouch. That's gotta hurt.
Nice.
