Update on the Democrats

Hudson Democratic Committee chair Victor Mendolia told Gossips this afternoon that the opportunity to ballot petitions have been filed with the Board of Elections. Ninety-two signatures were required on the petitions; 150 signatures were secured.

An opportunity to ballot petition forces a citywide open primary for the mayoral slot on the Democratic line in November. Had an open primary not been necessary, there would only have been a Democratic primary in two wards: the First Ward and the Third Ward. In the First Ward, incumbent alderman Geeta Cheddie has filed petitions to primary the Democrat-endorsed candidates for alderman, David Marston and Larissa Thomas, and incumbent supervisor John Musall has filed petitions to primary the Democrat-endorsed candidate for supervisor, Sarah Sterling. Mendolia indicated his intention to challenge Cheddie's and Musall's petitions, which he described as "sloppy." Cheddie and Musall have the endorsment of the Republican Party. In the Third Ward, former Hudson police chief Glenn Martin is challenging three-term alderman Ellen Thurston, now running for Third Ward supervisor, for the Democratic line. Martin, too, has been endorsed by the Republicans.

Cheddie, Musall, and Martin seem to be following in the grand old Hudson tradition of trying to commandeer as many ballot lines as possible. Some may recall that, back in 2003, Cappy Pierro, Rick Scalera's longtime political ally, snagged Linda Mussmann's own party line, the Bottom Line Party, for Scalera, forcing Mussmann to create a new party, the Fair Deal Party, for her run for mayor that year. The scramble by these three Republican-endorsed candidates to try to seize ballot lines and knock out the competition seems to run counter to the thinking of the chair of the Republican Committee, George Dejesus, who was quoted in today's Register-Star as saying that residents deserve a choice.