Eaton versus Golden “One” — The Re-cap

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
                                      –  Winston Churchill

                                      [ Second of Two Posts about the 2013 GOP County Convention  ]


September 30, 2013  marked a watershed in the history of the Brooklyn Republican Party. Following hard fought petitioning, the BOE and court challenges period, a hard fought and well-funded pre-primary campaign between two competitive mayoral candidates, and a full-scale post-primary pre-convention proxy fight, with everything from multiple mailings and personal phone calls from Brooklyn’s only remaining elected Republican officeholder; the combined  live and proxy vote total for all sides at the 2013 GOP Kings County Convention was the lowest in recent memory.

The Golden forces came to the 2013 GOP County Convention ready to play and expecting to cast over 600 votes for Timothy Cochrane. The Eaton forces showed up ready to go to war and finesse about 450 votes. A third group, formally aligned with neither Golden nor Eaton, the Fiorello LaGuardia Republican Club came to the table with a little over a hundred votes in their pocket, perhaps leaning toward Eaton, but ready, willing and able to make a deal.

After a significant series of flaps involving proxies held by Diane Rudiano, late arriving proxies brought in by several non-delegate Golden operatives, and the previously submitted proxies held by the Convention Credentials Committee led by Gene Berardelli were hashd out; all proxies were submitted to the Republican Convention Credentials Committee for review and certification.

As told to me by some of those in attendance, 565 proxies were submitted to the Credentials Committee for Golden (the original text of this post stated "556" as a result of a transcription error), 428 proxies for Eaton, and 98 were submitted naming Lucretia Regina-Potter. Eventually, the Credentials Committee reported to the Temporary Chairman of the Convention Gerry O’Brien that 329 Eaton proxies, 270 Golden proxies and 68 Regina-Potter proxies were found to be valid by the Credentials Committee, in addition they certified that about 100 people, who had presented themselves at the convention were duly elected Members of the Kings County Republican County Committee. Chairman O’Brien accepted the report of the Credentials Committee; and he then proceeded, with more than the required quorum of delegates present and valid proxies to attempt to conduct the other normal convention business. He was interrupted by loud and disorderly shouting by almost all of the Golden folks, who made up more than two-thirds of those in the hall.

According to one press report, Golden had presented 565 proxies and  “...a four-person body appointed by Eaton to decide the legitimacy of proxies — threw out 295 of the [Golden proxies] before they could be counted, arguing that the proxies were invalid because Golden had collected them before the convention was officially called [for Sept. 30th] on Sept. 24....”  (See “Curses and accusations fly at Republican chairman election smackdown” by Will Bredderman, 10-1-13, Courier Life/ Brooklyn Daily [http://www.brooklyndaily.com/stories/2013/40/all_brooklynrepublicanconvention_2013_10_04]).  Bredderman described some of what followed, like this:  “Things got nasty when Golden stood up to protest the maneuver.... [And] Golden, Cochrane, and their backers continued to shout motions for all the proxies to be counted — motions dismissed by GOP strategist Gerry O’Brien, who acted as temporary chairman during the convention....”

My sources tell me that several different demands and propositions were advanced by the Golden faction, many being shouted simultaneously on a few were made in the form of motions from the floor. One of the clearest that was made in the form of a motion came from Diane Rudiano, who called for a division of the “vote” of the Credentials Committee so that its members could be polled as to each of the disallowed Golden proxies. Others were shouted out without seeking any recognition by the Chair or any other formalities required for making a motion. It has been indicated to me that O’Brien was advised by his Counsel, Aaron Maslow, that such motions were out of order. On that basis, Chairman O’Brien announced that no motions relative to the actions or report of the Credentials Committee would be entertained.

After the demonstrations and other disorderly activities following the O’Brien rulings resulting in the rejection of almost half of the Golden proxies had subsided, speeches were made by the candidates for Brooklyn GOP Chairman.

The “Republicans for Change” challenger, Timothy Cochrane, spoke about the need for change and that the current leadership had lost the support of the most active members of the party. And then Craig Eaton, the incumbent Kings County Republican Party Chairman, spoke out against how outsiders and certain insiders had engineered the goings-on leading up to and at the convention. There were interruptions of both speeches (but see the first comment below for another opinion of the events), but Eaton’s was certainly the more confronted, perhaps because it was the more personally confrontational. At least that was the way that Glenn Nocera saw it.

The actual vote had a drama all its own. At a key moment, Lucretia Potter announced that the 46th AD LaGuardia Club was “passing” its vote.  At that juncture it was clear that the 68 proxies that she held, together with about another four or five voters in the room, held the balance. By passing Ms. Regina-Potter held enough votes to elect either Cochrane or Eaton. In the end, Eaton sought out the votes of the LaGuardia Club and Cochrane did not. The votes were cast — Eaton won.

According to the Bredderman article in the  Courier Life/ Brooklyn Daily, Tim Cochrane and the rest of the Golden faction indicated an intention to pursue legal action against the GOP to force it to count all the votes tossed-out by the Credentials Committee.  Cochrane himself blasted the discarding of Golden’s proxies as a naked attempt by Eaton to cling to power saying, “I’m disgusted with the process.... There’s no respect for the system.”

In a telephone interview, Glenn Nocera, a newly elected District Leader and the President of the traditional Brooklyn Young Republican Club put it to the “temporary winner at the convention” this way:

“Count every vote, Mr. Eaton. ***  Is this the only way you know how to win an election ? Is it alright with you to disenfranchise fellow Republicans, who worked very hard to get on the County Committee ?   ***  That convention was a sham. This year’s election of the County Chairman of the Republican Party reminded me of  Third World dictatorships and how they like to run their elections.” Then in what sounded like very stentorian determination and resolve, “I have every confidence that what happened on Monday, September 30th will be overturned by any court of law that looks into it. If they have any sense of justice and decency, they will see to it that all the people’s voices will finally be heard at a properly run convention.”

Similar sentiments accompanied each and every statement made by any of those who supported Golden and Cochrane at the convention.

Golden’s winning opponents stressed that any attempt to bring the matter to court would fail. Furthermore, they said that it showed Golden to have been completely brainwashed by the same people who pushed Golden to take Eaton out of the Chairmanship of the GOP in the first place.

It’s safe to say things don’t look like they’re over by a long shot.