A Tale of Two Parties – Or why it was the best of times for Craig Eaton and the worst of times for Marty Golden

Wednesday night’s fete in Aqua Blu at 150 Highlawn Avenue was a rousing success, filled to overflowing for John Catsimatidis, Craig Eaton and the Brooklyn Republican Party Organization; while the Thursday night gathering of the now insurgent band of Marty Golden’s  “Republicans for Change” might have seemed less out of place, than it did in the “expansive” Bay Ridge Manor, if they had taken their subdued affair a couple of blocks away to Clavins. Well, at least Marty Golden didn’t formally have Joe Lhota laying down in a silk-lined box in front of what looked like a room not-so-full of mourners.

The buzz has the numbers at the events favoring the Catsimatidis-Eatons over the Lhota-Goldens by more than two-to-one, but that wasn’t the only measure of the drubbing that happened to “Republicans for Change” at the Bay Ridge Manor. Marty Golden and Jerry Kassar were made to eat a humble pie of blackbirds in front of their city-wide guests. Not only was the crowd small, even by Bay Ridge standards, there was almost no representation of any key “Republicans” from most of the other neighborhoods across Brooklyn.

While the guests at Aqua Blu were given a larger than life and future oriented view of things to come, those at Marty Golden’s personal venue were treated to small potatoes and crocodile tears. The decision to have Peter Cipriano speak his piece about Craig Eaton made it Tennyson-clear to Lhota and company that “... someone had blundered” –  and that Jerry Kassar and Marty Golden were looking a lot like Raglan and Cardigan, and I’m not talking about sleeves and sweaters here. [It appears that I blundered - I misinterpreted a report from one of my Baker Street boys.  PC did not speak at the "Republicans for Change" event he was merely introduced. He was heard talking at length about Eaton, but it was in the context of a conversation during the event. I'm relatively sure the Raglan-Cardigan line can be recycled about Golden and Kassar soon enough. - GM, 5-26-13]

The neatest move of the two nights was the lit-drop by the Eatonians at the Lhota-Golden affair at the Bay Ridge Manor. That flyer was headed, as follows: “Why is Senator Marty Golden attempting to oust Republican Chairman Craig Eaton ?” The  handbill took three of Golden’s reasons for stabbing Craig Eaton in the back; and it turned them on their ear as well-thought counter-charges against Golden.

One of my Baker Street Irregulars reports that State Senator Martin Golden’s Chief of Staff Jerry Kassar was especially impressed [NOT] at Eaton’s mini-operation dropping leaflets on Golden’s doorstep. That flyer stands for an unstated principle that all Brooklyn Republicans and those who want to do work with Brooklyn Republicans need to understand  —  One can’t expect to take refuge in something called an “Eleventh Commandment” when one feels free to violate any of the first ten.