Glenn Nocera, Jonathan Judge and other members of the [independent] Brooklyn Young Republican Club get a big boost in the press — and also show their frustration at the bigger Republican apparatus in Brooklyn

Today the NY Post presented a feature-length look at the traditional and now independent --  Brooklyn Young Republican Club --  as it and the rest of  the Brooklyn GOP heads into this very problematic 2012 election. The club’s leadership of Glenn Nocera, Jonathan Judge, Paul Hanson and Moshe Muratov express hope and vision for a new Brooklyn GOP  —  and feistiness and resolve against the old Kings County Republican cabal 

Picture Glenn Nocera as Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie or Jefferson Travis heroically holding out against overwhelming forces at “The Alamo” !   That’s the first image in an article in the October 19th NY Post by Chris Erickson, entitled: “Meet Brooklyn's Young Republicans —  The brave young conservatives who are stumping the people of Brooklyn.”

Even though the first part of the Post’s coverage of the Brooklyn YR Club largely focuses on the club’s President Glenn Nocera, the bulk of the feature is about the club and its members  -- what they do and the problems they face. According to the Post, “Today, members meet monthly to hear speakers and ‘talk about topics of the day and how we should move forward into the future,’ says Nocera, who majored in political science at Brooklyn College and now works for campus security. (He’s also run for office twice: for state Assembly in 1998 and state Senate in 2008.) Members also raise money and occasionally hit the streets for local candidates.”

The vagueness of the tag line. “... The brave young conservatives who are stumping the people of Brooklyn.” sounds like it might have been the tongue in cheek suggestion of Jonathan Judge, the, former President and now Chairman of the Brooklyn GOP club. He was covered and quoted in Chris Erickson’s article as follows: “Of course, stumping for a GOP presidential candidate in these parts can be a fraught pursuit. Jonathan Judge, who ran the club for three years before stepping down last year, recalls the horrified reactions he got while stumping for George W. Bush in 2008. *** ‘It was more from older people,’ says Judge, 26. ‘They’d look at me like I was single-handedly destroying the United States of America’.”

The experience of one of the club’s newest leaders, Paul Hanson, formerly from Long Island, is also similar now that he has moved to Greenpoint and tries to be an active Republican in Brooklyn. According to the Post he’s a good fit with Nocera, Judge  and company after he “found a political home when he heard about the club last year and showed up at a meeting.”

The Brooklyn Young Republican Club leadership are portrayed as realists, who often have to buck up against a bad Republican organization in Brooklyn. The Post report indicated that, “Efforts to wave the flag for the man at the top of the GOP ticket have been frustrated by the Romney campaign’s failure to deliver promotional materials — a big point of aggravation for Nocera, who attributes the lack of response in part to a belief that Brooklyn’s not worth any significant effort. *** Look, even though this city is, so to speak, a lost cause, if people who come here see a Romney sign, it sends a message... [but] All I see is Obama-Biden stickers all over the place, and it’s driving me crazy.”  Nocera was also frank about his other problems with the rest of the Brooklyn GOP. According to the Post report, “To add to the club’s enemies list, it faces opposition within its own party: There’s a second young GOP group, Brooklyn Young Republicans, that’s more closely tied to Brooklyn’s party leadership. The relationship between the two clubs is fractious, and prone to getting mired in what Nocera bemoans as ‘petty crap.’ *** ‘We can’t afford to fight each other when the real enemy is the Democrat Party and we’re outnumbered,’ he says.”

One of the Brooklyn YR President’s big problems with the party organization run by Kings County Republican Chair Craig Eaton is its failure to reach out and expand the base.  Nocera sees real potential for building the GOP’s base in the borough, especially in socially conservative immigrant communities. And no matter what the reception, Nocera says, “You have to get your message out and try to build your base. You don’t just go into the fetal position.” The Post feature demonstrated that those  sentiments were echoed by others in the club, pointing out that  — “Club vice president Moshe Muratov likes the ‘“challenge of converting people’.”

Glenn Nocera and the Brooklyn Young Republican Club also received some nice coverage in a feature post by Matthew Vann on the blog “The BrooklynInk. We’ve Got Brooklyn Covered” — that piece is entitled: “The Loneliest People in Politics”