Flawed Strategy by GOP Team of Gallo and Berardelli gave Ben Akselrod a second shot at both Cymbrowitz and Gallo

Gallo's petition to open the Independence line gave his opponent Ben Akselrod a chance to stay on the November ballot

The very strong social conservative Democrat Ben Akselrod was "all in" in his Democratic primary fight, which he narrowly lost to incumbent Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz. Nonetheless, he lived to fight another day because of a strategic blunder by his Republican counterpart Russell Gallo.

For reasons that are still not very clear, even though he already had two solid lines on the November General Election ballot, the Republican and Conservative Parties' lines,  GOP insider Russell Gallo attempted to get a third line by opening the Independence line to a write-in primary by filing enough signatures on an opportunity to ballot petition. Whatever the Gallo-Berardelli strategy might have been at the beginning, it all  ultimately proved to be a counterproductive waste of time, effort and resources when Gallo lost the write-in primary to Ben Akselrod.

As I reported in November shortly after the election, in the post " Craig Eaton's Brooklyn GOP "Rebirth" is a breached delivery in 2012" the result in the  Cymbrowitz-Gallo-Akselrod  45th AD race was as follows:

State Assembly - District 45 - General
83 of 83  Precincts Reporting - 100%
Name Party Votes Vote %
Cymbrowitz, Steven (i) Dem 10,970    55%
Gallo, Russell GOP/Cons 5,141     26%
Akselrod, Ben Indp 3,938     20%

Clearly the closest race was between Gallo and Akselrod, in which Gallo running on both the Republican and Conservative Party lines bested his Independence Party opponent Akselrod by only twelve hundred votes, while losing to his Democratic Party opponent, Steve Cymbrowitz by more than two-to-one.  Even if Gallo would have  obtained all of the Independence Party  line votes that Mr. Akselrod had garnered (and he certainly would not have been able to do that) he would still have lost to Cymbrowitz.  


Thus all that was accomplished by the Gallo-Berardelli strategy of  opening the Independence Party line for a  write in primary was: 1) Gallo lost the write-in primary to Ben Akselrod, allowing Akselrod's name to appear on the General Election ballot;  2) Gallo almost lost to two Democratic  opponents in the 2012 General Election;  and  3) Gallo did not get as a good  a vote on the Republican and Conservative lines in 2012 as Joseph Hayon did in 2010.


Whoever gives any credibility whatsoever to Gene Berardelli  and/or Russell Gallo, either as "spokesmen" of the Brooklyn GOP, as experienced political operatives in Southwest Brooklyn  or as master mechanics of the political machinery in Brooklyn does so at their own peril.