September 14, 2005

To My Friends and Colleagues of the Feiner-Morgan-Dengler Campaign:

It would be hard for me, and my wife Linda, to say that yesterday was not a great disappointment for us personally. But I am sure that, for all of you equally, yesterday was also a shocking surprise and an unpleasant reality check regarding the phlegmatic and ephemeral nature of politics.

Many factors affected the results, and maybe in the next few days and weeks dispassionate heads will flesh out the “real” meaning of last night’s results. Certainly for starters the low turnout created a lack of political “coattails” for Kevin and Allegra. Why there was such a low turnout will cause much speculation, reflection and review. Apathy is afoot in the land and in Greenburgh it is no different. For sure primary turnouts, along with turnouts in November, have been declining. Unfortunately without other races on the ballot, along with a very hot last few weeks and days, and a lack of critical local issues, public attention was diverted elsewhere. Maybe with all the events regarding hurricanes, the price of gas, and Iraq, few cared about the primary in Greenburgh.

In the last day or so I was always reminded of the great American classic film “Citizen Kane” and Kane’s race for governor. Right before the election votes were counted the front page editor of his major newspaper had two headlines printed, “Kane Wins in Landslide!” or “Fraud at the Polls!”

Meanwhile I wanted to thank all of you for your effort and concern. Without your massive help even Paul’s incumbency may have been lost. There were many volunteers who contributed in a multiplicity of ways. We were able to carry a record number of signatures on petitions, get our positions across with clarity, create letters to the editor, and receive endorsements from the Sierra Club, the NY League of Conservation Voters, the PBA, and others. We certainly had many volunteers who manned the supermarkets and the train stations and we were able to send out about 2500 personal letters to our neighbors. Along with those positive factors we had three very hard working, talented and committed candidates.

In retrospect, even with that effort, we faced a large “frog’s” chorus of voices aligned against us. The Democratic Party leadership, all the elected officials and the editorial boards of the newspapers were opposed to our ticket. And of course, the smaller the turnout the greater the advantage is to the establishment. The past is prologue and the race is now history and we must look forward to other challenges in our public and private lives.

So again, thank you all for your contributions, and hopefully we will all learn from this long and costly lesson.

Richard J. Garfunkel