Scudiery To Retire As Monmouth Dem Chairman
Gopal and LaRocca Set to Battle For The Seat
By Art Gallagher
Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vic Scudiery will announce his retirement next week. He will complete his current term, which ends in June. Scudiery will have served for 23 years.
Scudiery’s protoge, Vin Gopal, spent most of this week working the crowd at the League of Municipalities Convention in Atlantic City for support to take over for his mentor.
According to Blue Jersey’s Jeff Gardner, Gopal is in for a fight.
MMM has learned that the fight will be with Marlboro Councilman Frank LaRocca.
Gopal is a business owner and Scudiery’s partner in Community Publications, the publisher of four monthly newspapers and a magazine serving Aberdeen, Atlantic Highlands, Colts Neck, Fair Haven, Hazlet, Highlands, Holmdel, Keansburg, Keyport, Matawan, Middletown, Red Bank, Rumson, Sea Bright, and Union Beach. He was an Assembly candidate in the 11th legislative district this year.
LaRocca, along with his running mates, Mayor Jon Hornick and Council President Randi Marder were reelected in Marlboro earlier this month. LaRocca, Hornick and Marlboro Deputy Mayor Larry Rosen are law partners.
With the chairman’s election not until June, there is plenty of time for other players to enter the race.
There has not been a contest for the Monmouth County Democratic chairmanship since 2000 when then Red Bank Mayor Ed McKenna unsuccessfully challenged Scudiery for the post.
and too bad for a decent man, who is owed so much money from the mostly greedy clowns he supported all those years, he’ll never collect.. expect the “new” M. C. Dems to raise more and go for the jugular, more.. I do fear the Dem state bosses, as “swing” as Monmouth can go now, all they need is the infusion of the big Dem dogs’ money we saw in the past, and we could be on the run.. so, let’s pay attention and be diligent..
Gopal took an assembly race that we should have won by 8,000 votes and lost by a slim margin, only 3000 out of 35000 cast, even though we had 3 strong incumbents, we outraised them big and we had a great get out the vote machine from the county down which they dont have. the race should have never been close.
Vin Gopal should have never beaten MaryPat and Caroline in Red Bank. Its Beck’s backyard but he won by a couple hundred votes.
Hornik and marlboro whipped the marlboro gop 2 to 1 this year
Both of them could be real threats to us. They both know how to fundraise and they both have organizations that have proven their abilities. how gopal raised over 200k as a nontargeted race i still dont understand.
ethics battle in Marlboro will likely soon claim at least one of the recent winners, Larocca not likely to be a true contender under that cloud.
i hear that there is a viable ethics case that may take the whole team down.
This is a great opportunity for Monmouth Dems to revive the party. While Gopal’s already announced, there are others who’d be just as good. Mike Mangen in Manasquan or Vincent Solimino out of the Bayshore are two viable alternatives.
Mangan maybe, but Solemeno pissed off too many people with his Freeholder run. Most of the whos-who can’t stand him
If Gopal becomes the chairman alot of dems will become independent or even worse republican.
[…] balloting won’t be until mid-June 2012, but the candidates vying to replace Victor Scudiery as Monmouth County Democratic Chairman are running as if the race will be decided on January […]
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[…] McKenna ran for the Chairman of the Monmouth County Democrats in 2000 but lost to Victor Scudiery. From Congressman Pallone’s wiki page in 2000, Pallone […]