Just when I think I'm going to get out of blogging, he pulls me back in.
New York State Republican Chairman and defacto Monroe County GOP boss, Steve Minarik railed against popular Democratic figures last week by calling them "mean-spirited" and Attorney General Elliot Spitzer "a big bully".
State GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik has a new line about the statewide Democratic ticket: "The All-Mean Team."The mind boggles over this. Of course, the Republicans are going after the Dems over personality, because they've already lost the fight over issues. They have nothing else to do besides swing for the fences in hoping they don't loose both the state house and the senate this year. King-of-Mean Minarik also opens himself up to this wonderful line:
"They are mean-spirited downstaters," Minarik, also head of the Monroe County GOP, said recently. "Eliot Spitzer is a big bully. There's no question he has an attitude."
With Republican candidates far behind the Democratic ticket in statewide polls, Minarik is seemingly following the strategy of national Republicans who have tried to label Democrats as nasty. The goal, experts say, is to try to portray Democrats as unstable, to suggest that their gripes with Republicans are driven more by personality than policy.
But Democrats fired back that the tough-talking Minarik's comments may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.Yes, I'm being cravenly partisan in all this. I think I'm entitled. I have no trouble with Republicans, per se. I happen to think reasonably more of Senator Joe Robach than I think of Assemblyman Gantt. So no, I'm not a kool-aid drinking partisan gunslinger.
"Anyone who has followed Monroe County politics will know that being called mean by Mr. Minarik is like being called ugly by a toad," said Howard Wolfson, a Clinton adviser.
However, when a guy like Minarik, a man who went a great deal out of his way in a fraudulent attempt to link the Democratic Party with a terrorist sympathizer, says some stupid things, I'm going to call him a stupid man.
Steve Minarik is a small man who is coming to grips with the harsh reality that the New York Republican party is in massive decline, and it is doing so under his stewardship. It's one thing to lose some seats over the course of a few elections, it's a whole other thing to drive your state party off a cliff. You don't get a nice cushy job on the national level for accomplishing that feat. No, you get banished from the public eye and have people that you used to call friends deny ever knowing you. It's a harsh reality that certainly must be a burden on Mr. Minarik's mind right now.
And honestly, with outbursts like this one, it seems like Minarik is losing his grip, doesn't it?
