A Remarkable Turn of Events

On Monday, Rick Scalera, whose desire in the past to appear on the ballot as many times as possible led him to commandeer, in the 2003 mayoral race, his opponent's Bottom Line Party, declined the designation as the Democratic candidate for Fifth Ward supervisor and gave up his spot on the Democratic line. Scalera will be running on the Republican, Conservative, and Independence Party lines, as will his running mates in the Fifth Ward, Robert "Doc" Donahue and Bart Delaney.

It is not clear why Scalera rejected the Democratic endorsement, but there is speculation that he may have been unhappy because some members of the Democratic Committee and other Democratic candidates did not gather petition signatures on his behalf. (Apropos the party notion of "all for one and one for all," two years ago Scalera, who had the endorsement of the Democrats in his run for supervisor, did radio ads for mayoral candidate Bill Hallenbeck, the Republican candidate.)  

The officers of the Hudson City Democratic Committee--Aaron Enfield, president; Debby Mayer, secretary; Sarah Sterling, treasurer--have until Friday to designate a new candidate to run for Fifth Ward supervisor on the Democratic line, but Enfield told Gossips tonight, after the three had met in executive session, that they continued to think that Scalera would be the best representative of the Fifth Ward on the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, and they were not planning to name a new candidate.