DiPietro in SD-59

In almost every major race locally, Republicans seldom hold a primary. Instead, the relevant party bosses get together and decide whom they will endorse and run, and any other potential challengers are cajoled and convince to step aside.

It makes for a cleaner summertime political season, but it’s not really giving Republican rank and file very much of a choice. So, for what it’s worth, when Republicans locally bemoan machine politics, keep in mind that they’ve got a machine that works quite well for them.

One notable exception this year is Volker’s seat. State Senator Dale Volker, a republican, is being challenged by several people this year, including David DiPietro, former mayor of East Aurora.

When DiPietro announced that he would run, the Republican machine came out with guns a-blazing to try and first convince, and then intimidate DiPietro into dropping out of the race. This all so that do-nothing Dale can go back to the Senate and do no-brainer, looks-good-on-lit shit like cracking down on sex predators.

Back in June, DiPietro took the unusual step of press releasing the threats he had received:

I recently let it be known that I would run for the Republican nomination for New York State Senate against Dale Volker. The Republican Chairman, Jim Domagalski, a Volker supporter, called me and said the campaign would be “nasty.” He was angry that I was running because he considered this seat to be his personal property after Volker retires. He asked repeatedly and pointedly, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

On June 3rd, at my opening campaign rally, a mysterious photographer appeared who wasn’t a member of the press and wasn’t to the best of my knowledge a supporter of my candidacy. Her photo–which can seen on the web at:

http://dipietro.apollo3.com/pictures/james1.jpg

–shows her aiming her camera at my supporters, not me. For legal purposes in these litigious times, we have modified the photo to prevent her from being identified.

The day after the rally, I was informed that a photo of one of my supporters and her daughter was being sent by email to various Republican officials. This woman was then personally threatened with political retaliation against her husband. Her husband was also threatened and warned not to support my candidacy. In this atmosphere of hardball tactics, I am not going to disclose the identity of my supporter or her husband.

It has also come to my attention that threats have been made to disrupt my business and my family if I continue this candidacy.

I do not allege that Chairman Domagalski was involved in these events. Rather, I am asking him and Senator Volker to join me in condemning these despicable and possibly illegal campaign tactics.

This is a critical campaign for the future of Western and Update New York. We are in the midst of 50 straight years of economic decline and population loss and general demoralization. Let Senator Volker defend his record of presiding over 35 straight years of decline. I will run on my record as a successful private sector businessman and budget-cutter as mayor of East Aurora.

Let the voters, not political thugs, decide this election.

It’s Dale Volker’s senate seat, for God’s sake. The Republicans are going to threaten people over it?

Two months later, there are more details available. DiPietro released this yesterday:

David DiPietro’s statement in response to charges against Volker staffer Harry Wahl

This morning, EastAurora.org published an investigative report by their editor Joe Logan which charges a member of Dale Volker’s Senate staff, Harry Wahl, with possible criminal misconduct.

The story alleges that Wahl made threats against me and my family and to David and Laura Gunner if the Gunners continued to support me for state senator.

Here is the link:

http://www.eastaurora.org/article.aspx?artno=831

The article reads in part:

“Gunner went on to detail more of the conversation. “He told my wife, ‘If you are friends with Theresa DiPietro you should start saving her moving boxes, because when I am done with her husband, she will be divorced. He will lose his house and his business.’ Then he told us he had the resources available to make it happen.”

Initially he thought it was a joke, but soon found out it was not. Who was the man that approached him? None other than Harry Wahl. Wahl is husband of Town of Aurora councilmember Kelly Wahl and an Aurora resident. He is also the Chief of Staff / Director of District Operations for State Senator Dale Volker according to his page on LinkedIn.

A prior report at NewWNYPolitics disclosed threats made by Republican Party Chair Jim Domagalski that the campaign would get “nasty” if DiPietro did not drop out of the race.

http://www.newwnypolitics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=628&Itemid=1

These thug-like tactics are one of the reasons that most citizens refuse to run for office or even get involve in campaigns. This has to stop or we will never be able to reverse our half-century of decline in this region.

I call on Dale Volker to immediately fire Harry Wahl and to condemn the behavior of Jim Domagalski. If this kind of misconduct is allowed to continue, the Republicans will have little chance of retaining control of the state senate.

I am also calling on Majority Leader Dean Skelos to likewise condemn and repudiate these tactics.

And there’s a bit more from EastAurora.org:

Two days after this threat from Wahl, Gunner’s wife and four year old daughter attended DiPietro’s public announcement declaring his candidacy for the State Senate.

“You know, we almost did it out of spite. Here I am running for Highway Superintendent and some guy I don’t even know is telling me and my wife who we can and can’t support!”

Apparently someone from the party took pictures of Laura and their daughter at the DiPietro event and sent them to party leaders because only a few hours after the event he told us that Jann called him and told him ‘I warned you, you shouldn’t have been there… I’m looking at a picture of your wife at that rally right now. You were told not to go there.’ Later Ruffner called and told him ‘You’re done, you’re not gonna be on the ballot and we won’t sign your Wilson Pakula for what you’ve done,’ said Gunner. A Wilson Pakula needs to be signed by the head of the County Republican Party in order for a non Republican to get on the ballot. It is required. He also told Gunner that he wouldn’t give him petitions.

Ruffner told Laura that he got the pictures from Wahl and said he sent them to Jann. She was crying and yelled at him calling him a pervert for circulating pictures of a little girl on the Internet. “I demanded to know where he got them from and he said from Harry Wahl.”

This sort of thing is despicable; politics at its most base. I have no idea why the mainstream media haven’t picked up on this one, because it’s got everything – threats, politics, old men in the Senate, spies.

Naturally, because I think Volker is a joke, and because despise strong-arm tactics like those listed above, I wish DiPietro all the best.