Nothing New Under the Sun

In today's Register-Star, John Mason catches up on the story Gossips reported on Tuesday night: "Scalera changes horses, will run with GOP." Citing his reasons for declining the Democratic designation, the first mentioned are his "philosophical differences" with the Democrats' mayoral candidate, Victor Mendolia. Scalera promises to elaborate on those philosophical differences as the campaign progresses. Of course, that fails to explain why he waited until the last possible moment to decline the designation. The Democrats announced their slate of candidates weeks ago. 

Another reason is his pique that only four signatures had been gathered by others on his behalf. Scalera says that he "was given assurances the committee was obtaining names," but, unlike Scalera himself, Gossips was present at the Hudson City Democratic Committee meeting the night the petitions were distributed, and it seemed pretty clear that the expectation was that candidates would be involved in the petition process, obtaining signatures not only for themselves but for other Democratic candidates. Curious, Gossips FOILed the petitions that were turned in and discovered that Scalera obtained no signatures for anyone but himself.

Mason's article also chronicles Scalera's previous dalliances with the Republican Party, going back to 2005 when Scalera supported unsuccessful Republican mayoral candidate Dan Grandinetti and more recently in 2011 when he supported Republican Bill Hallenbeck's run for mayor. In truth, Scalera started his political career forty years ago running as a Republican. A Gossips reader found this picture of Scalera in a twelve-page Republican Party advertising supplement to the Register-Star for November 2, 1973.