Tom Ognibene

I haven't been able to reach any officials with the city's Board of Elections yet, but if you ask Republican Anthony Como, the special election in Queens' 30th Council District is over.

"I won by 38 votes," Como told me this evening. "I feel great."

Also running in the four-way special election were Democrats Elizabeth Crowley and Charles Ober and former Republican Councilman Tom Ognibene.  read more »

As of this morning, it looked like Republican Anthony Como had edged out Democrat Elizabeth Crowley to win yesterday's special election for a City Council seat in Queens.

According to the Board of Elections, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, the results are:

Anthony Como: 2,352 votes (31.71 percent of the vote)

Elizabeth Crowley: 2,282 votes (30.77 percent)

Thomas Ognibene: 2,031 votes (27.38 percent)

Charles Ober: 752 votes (10.14 percent)  read more »

The Republican City Council candidates in the June 3 special election in Queens received money today from the Campaign Finance Board.

Anthony Como got $25,634; Tom Ognibene took $10,278.

The best-funded candidate in this race is Democrat Elizabeth Crowley, the cousin of the county Democratic leader, Representative Joe Crowley. She's the only one of the four candidates in the race who is not eligible to receive matching funds (because of violations during a 2001 race).  read more »

Democratic City Council candidate Charles Ober got the Independence Party endorsement for the June 3 special election that will determine who will finish Dennis Gallagher’s term.

“Charles Ober has a genuine affinity for, and practical track record on, the issues and processes of grassroots democracy that the Independence Party cares about," said the party’s Queens chairman, Gerald Everett, in a public statement.  read more »

Tom Ognibene's ad in the latest Queens Courier asks residents to “re-elect” him to the City Council in the June 3 special election.  read more »

Wednesday night, the Queens County Republican Party endorsed Anthony Como for the City Council seat being vacated by Dennis Gallagher.

The endorsement was made during a meeting of district leaders at the county headquarters in Middle Village, and comes amid talk that the former Republican County leader and city councilman in that area, Tom Ognibene, may enter the race also.  read more »

A Republican source who spent the night counting votes in Queens says that borough’s Republican County Leader, Phil Ragusa, was re-elected, despite a spirited challenge from the faction led by insurgent Bart Haggerty.

The vote, according to one person who was there, was approximately 76 percent for Ragusa and 24 percent for Haggerty, who has waged an interesting battle against the Queens GOP establishment.

(The formula for calculating the votes is a bit complicated. Each Assembly District has a weighted vote depending on the percentage of votes it got in the last gubernatorial election. That percentage is then split 50-50 between two groups. One group is the two district leaders in each AD. The other group consists of the County Committee members within the AD, which vary and can go up to as many as 200 people.)

Anyway, Queens has the largest number of registered Republican voters in the city and control of that county organization is a coveted prize on that side of the aisle. Remember, it’s where Michael Bloomberg’s 2005 Republican primary challenger, Tom Ognibene, came from.

The meeting, held in Glendale, ran late and a number of people who stayed till the end and know exactly what happened are still waking up. More details when they get their coffee.

Capitol Confidential reports that Joe Bruno has hired Brendan Quinn, a former state GOP executive director who has riled both Bloomberg and Pataki with his willingness to work for candidates like, for example, Tom Ognibene.

For those who haven't yet heard, CBS and the New York Times will co-sponsor a Dems' debate between the four mayoral candidates on Sunday, to air live on CBS 2 from 11 a.m. 'til noon. Andrew Kirtzman will moderate.

And, yes, Anthony will be coming back from the Catskills for it -- if a kidney stone couldn't stop him, neither shall all that late-night pizza.  read more »

In other news, Time Warner Channel 34 will be featuring the mayoral candidates in a series of four programs that start tonight at 7:30 p.m. (the others will air on 8/25, 8/26, and 9/9, also at 7:30 p.m.).

"For the first time you can see and hear Mike Bloomberg and Tom Ognibene respond to the same questions," Mr. Ognibene's press team writes.

Looking over a handy list of candidates for all New York City offices (here in .pdf form, link now working), it's become clear that the hardest-fought politics this year is going to play out at the bottom of the political food chain in Queens.

There, Bloomberg aide John Haggerty has filed rare challenges to nearly 120 members of the Republican County Committee in about 60 districts; those challenged include Tom Ognibene and his wife, Margaret. These mini-races will be fought out between now and September, though one Haggerty ally said they aim to disqualify the petitions of some rivals in the meantime.

This is, in part, the latest in a complex and age-old (think: Balkans) three-way Queens Republican squabble. But it's also prelude to a coup against County Leader Serph Maltese, who is elected by the county committee. And it's a rare and refreshing instance of Mike Bloomberg engaging in an extremely traditional local political sport: revenge.

One other Queens note: When The Politicker reported yesterday that Leroy Comrie of Southeast Queens would appear on both Republican and Democratic lines, I understated the feat Comrie had pulled off. This November, he will be the candidate of no fewer than four political parties, Democrat, Republican, Working Families, and Independence. His name will appear on the ballot four times, and his will be the only name for his race.  read more »

Southeast Queens, meet Primorsk circa 1973.

Mike may or may not, it seems, be facing a Republican primary from Tom Ognibene.

One Republican tells us Ognibene now has just about 7,500 petition signatures, and predicts that he will get enough to get on the ballot, but perhaps not enough to beat back a legal challenge from the Bloomberg campaign.

And a last-minute push is certainly underway. A GOP reader reports an unusual robo-call from Tom Ognibene. The call promised an accompanying email that would include a petition to be downloaded, signed, witnessed, and mailed in.

No email arrived in that case, but Ognibene campaign manager Brendan Quinn says he's taken in more than 1,000 petitions via mail and email.  read more »

A court fight, win or lose, would be a publicity gift to Ognibene.

"The question I have for the mayor's campaign is what is he afraid of," Ognibene advisor Brendan Quinn told The Politicker. "I have to assume he's afraid of his record versus a more conservative candidate in a Republican primary."

New York City's County Republican Parties just get sadder and sadder.

No-hope GOP mayoral challenger Steve Shaw this morning sent out a furious email complaining that the chairman of the Brooklyn Republican Party, Hy Singer, hadn't even met with Shaw before endorsing Mike Bloomberg.

"Mr. Singer's decision to not allow other candidates to come before the committee is all about insider politics rather than fielding the best candidate. His focus on the former above the latter is a complete disgrace."

Gasp. How could this possibly matter?

And as for all that stuff about Tom Ognibene running for mayor, well, never mind. He managed to raise all of $21,384 for his campaign, and less than 5% of what he needs to qualify for public matching funds.

We wouldn't typically judge a candidate by his fundraising numbers, but we know that in this case the low numbers really do represent a judgement on his candidacy by a key Republican constituency: big political donors who hate Bloomberg. Ognibene spoke to a room full of them last month at a Monday Meeting -- the city's premier conservative venue -- and had he been impressive, there was enough money in the room to fund his whole campaign.

The meeting itself was off the record, but we're told by people who heard him speak that conservatives and Republicans in the room didn't find any reason to take him seriously. Which could explain why they didn't cut any checks.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of this Sun story, Ognibene seems to be expressing some doubts about whether he'll find anybody to carry his petitions.  read more »

So it sounds like the remaining question is whether Mike Long will help Tom along onto the Conservative Party line. We asked Long about this not long ago, and he told us we could take rumors of an Ognibene endorsement "almost to the bank."

We hear that the Mayor -- who's had a lot to say lately about how he doesn't "pander" -- is likely to, er, moderate a long-held position tonight in Queens.

From his campaign days forward, Mike has backed the Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel, which is beloved of the city's wonk community but despised in parts of Brooklyn and Queens, like the one where the mayor will spend this evening.

Tonight's town meeting is with the Juniper Park Civic Association in Middle Village, political home of the Mayor's Republican opponent, Tom Ognibene, who apparently plans to heckle him. (Also tonight, the Association is giving its "man of the year" award to Ognibene's right-hand man, Dennis Gallagher.)

And in an amazing coincidence, Bloomberg has apparently just now had a chance of heart on the tunnel and the risk of truck traffic and displacement in Queens. And so, we're told, Mike is going to tell the Middle Villagers what they want to hear.  read more »

Gallagher wouldn't speculate on the substance of the mayor's remarks, but he did tell us:

"If the Mayor were to do this, it would be a very good move politically."

We hear Tom Ognibene is close to hiring Republican political consultant Brendan Quinn for his attack on Bloomberg's right flank.

Quinn is a former executive director of the New York State Republican Party and a veteran of the bitter post-election action in Florida in 2000. His presence on the campaign would indicate a level of seriousness about the political mechanics -- fundraising, petitioning, etc -- that we hadn't quite seen from Ognibene, and that his critics were hinting would not exist.  read more »

The two men had lunch at the Beekman Pub today, and we're told that Quinn is "very likely" to come on board. That probably means we'll see a real campaign from the right, and a headache for the Mayor.

For some reason, the Mayor's awkward handshake with Tom Ognibene in Queens yesterday evening went unreported. Azi, fortunately, was there with his camera. So, in honor of Valentine's Day, their affectionate grin-and-grip -- or, rather, look-pained-and-grip -- is here.  read more »

It's not on his public schedule, but we're told that Mayor Bloomberg will likely swing by Bella Sera, an Italian Restaurant in Whitestone, Queens, tonight to pick up the endorsement of a dissident faction of the Queens County Republican Party. Meanwhile, the Party leadership is likely to endorse his Republican rival, Tom Ognibene, at a separate meeting.

That's the best Mike could do after a weekend during which he hit the phones personally -- and apparently unsuccessfully -- to ask mid-ranking Queens Party officials for their support. We spoke to one of those officials, who described how awkward it was to explain to the mayor that he wouldn't be winning the Party's endorsement.  read more »

The politics of Republican Queens are hugely entertaining. The factions represented by Serphin Maltese and Frank Padavan, respectively, have been at drawn daggers for years. And picking up the endorsement of the wrong faction (Padavan's) is not, it's safe to say, a major coup.

UPDATE: Mike will be at Bella Serra at 8:00.

On the Left: The Daily Challenge has the scoop on Charles Barron's withdrawal from the mayor's race. Also, his suggestion that he'll endorse Virginia, "and for the record, before I leave this planet, I will be mayor of New York City." (You, in the comments section: No need for that 'He's already left the planet' joke. Too obvious.) On the Right: We hear that the Queens County Republican endorsement of Tom Ognibene is due Thursday, though it remains unclear if this is more than a handshake and a photo-op. In particular, it's unclear whether they'll do the drudge work of carrying the petitions he needs to get on the ballot. An Ognibene ally in Queens tells us, "It's not just going to be a paper endorsement."  read more »

We picked up Tom Ognibene's simple, photocopied fundraising letter last night, and his message is right there in the first sentence:

"I seek to restore the Giuliani tradition to New York City government."

It's still an open question whether somebody who looks a lot like a protest candidate can get people to write him checks, or give him votes, in the hope of confining Bloomberg to "Lenora Fulani's extremist 'independence' line only."

But Ognibene told us he thought he'd already had his effect in, among other things, pushing Mike to appeal the gay marriage decision.  read more »

"I put him in a squeeze," he told us gleefully.

Tom was also eager to correct any suggestion in our earlier post that there's any personal animus between him and Queens Republican leader Serphin Maltese. He also denied threatening Serph with taking away his chairmanship if Queens didn't endorse his mayoral campaign. Serph, he told us, might have been under that impression at some point, but Tom told him not to worry.

NY1 News has the story today that the Queens County Republican Party "is poised" to endorse Tom Ognibene, giving him some much-needed institutional backing.

Some have taken this for the natural result of Ognibene's old friendship with the county leader, State Senator Serphin Maltese.

But we're told by a well-informed Republican that Maltese and Ognibene are no longer on good terms, and that Maltese would prefer to back the mayor. But Ognibene and his ally, City Councilman Dennis Gallagher, threatened a coup, and Maltese wasn't sure he could hang on to power. Meanwhile, the Queens Republicans haven't gotten the kind of patronage from Mike that they got from Rudy, so the lower-level party officials are partial to Ognibene.

So Maltese backed down.  read more »

But this doesn't look like a done deal to us, and the rift between Maltese and Ognibene could be an opening for Bloomberg.

There were always two parts to the behavior of Bloomberg's aides toward Tom Ognibene -- the first fairly standard, the second a little thuggish.

First, on January 12, Bloomberg campaign chief Kevin Sheekey and City Hall aide Rich Wager meet the former Councilman in Starbucks and offer him a job on the campaign. Ognibene turns them down later that week, as he told us this morning. There's been some suggestion that the offer might have broken a law. But it's also politics as usual, and Ognibene told us he ends that day on good terms with the mayor's men, and without any plans to talk to the press -- much less his longtime tormentor at the Voice! -- about his meeting.

Then, on Saturday, there's another offer, and a threat. Ognibene wouldn't go into detail about this, but we've learned elsewhere that, on Saturday, Wager spoke to Ognibene's friend Dennis Gallagher, a Councilman from Queens. Wager told him that the title of Counsel to the Mayor was on offer. He also warned him with, Ognibene told us, "words to the effect that, 'Are you sure that case in Manhattan is closed?'" in reference to a bribery scandal in which Ognibene was never charged.

Ognibene wouldn't confirm that Wager was the one delivering what sounded to him, and to us, like an implicit threat. He only said that the conversation took place between his ally and "a very decent young man, who either made a gross mistake or was used" and who, Ognibene speculated, "is deeply pained." We learned from another source that this was Wager.

Now Wager, who works near us in the basement of City Hall, certainly doesn't have the authority to offer top city jobs. We also doubt that he would be in a position to threaten that an investigation be reopened. He hasn't responded to our voicemail as to who asked him to deliver those messages to Gallagher.

In any case, a few days later, Ognibene gets a call from the Voice's Tom Robbins, who had covered the bribery scandal. (Ognibene adamantly maintains his innocence.) Ognibene guesses that this is the consummation of Wager's threat, and that Robbins has been tipped by City Hall. So he tells Robbins the whole story.

We'd just note that the real political miscalculation here wasn't the one that has turned up in the papers and on certain sanctimonious blogs: the job offer. The miscalculation was the threat, which provoked Ognibene to go public with the whole thing. We'd love to know whose idea that was, but Wager doesn't seem inclined to tell us.

Ognibene, in any case, told us that the threat had the opposite of its intended effect. Once he'd been threatened, he felt that he couldn't let himself be intimidated. "You never threaten someone," he said. "Then they're locked in."  read more »

He also noted with a chuckle that the mayor is spending today on the Staten Island Ferry, doing what he considers make-up work with Republican voters.

"I already consider myself an effective candidate," he said.