State Republicans Target Mt. Pleasant Democrat With Mailer
The New York State Republican Committee sent out a mailer in the waning days of the local Mount Pleasant campaign last week to some town voters targeting Democratic Councilwoman Francesca Hagadus-McHale as “too radical.”
The mailer, which was received last Thursday, was apparently sent to Republican and independent voters in the town.
Hagadus-McHale is up for re-election a year after she won a special election for the unexpired term of former councilman Mark Rubeo, who left the Mount Pleasant Town Board after being appointed town justice. She became the first Democrat to win a seat on the Town Board in about 30 years. Hagadus-McHale is now seeking re-election to a full four-year term on a ticket with running mate Laura DiVenere against Republican nominees Danielle Zaino and Jerry Schulman.
She said that local Republicans tried a similar tactic in 2018, but went a step further this year to involve the state committee by attempting to stoke fears to boost turnout among their supporters and any potential undecided voters.
“I was thinking ‘Wow, it’s the last week in October and we haven’t had an attack yet,” Hagadus-McHale said. “Everything’s been pretty civil.”
Referring to her as Fran Hagadus, the mailer’s three main points included that she “supported two major tax hikes affecting Mt. Pleasant” in her first eight months in office, that she called law enforcement “thugs”’ and “goons” and supported sex offenders’ right to vote in elementary schools. It cites social media posts and the month of a post but no other references.
The mailer contains an image of Hagadus-McHale dressed in black with a yellow and black “warning” stripe just above and to the left of her head.
Hagadus-McHale said she wasn’t surprised by the piece, only by its viciousness.
She said all three points are fabrications or distortions. The only tax hike she has voted for since being sworn in was the 3 percent hotel occupancy tax for Mount Pleasant, which her four Republican colleagues supported unanimously.
Her references to “thugs” and “goons” was a June 2018 Twitter post assailing ICE for carrying out family separations at the southern border, and was not aimed at police or other law enforcement.
“I said my mother saw her parents taken away when she was 12 years old,” said Hagadus-McHale, referring to their disappearance in Germany at the hands of the Nazis. “That’s not law enforcement.”
She also said she has no idea what they are referring to regarding sex offenders voting in schools. Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year signed an executive order that allowed some paroled sex offenders to vote at their polling place if it was a school after 7 p.m. on Election Day.
“I think people will feel very insulted by this,” she said. “They’re insulting the voters’ intelligence. Like I said, up until now the campaign has been completely civil to the extent that people can be.”
Mount Pleasant Democratic Committee Chairman Wayne McPartland said he and other Democrats were expecting an attack and predicted it will backfire on Election Day.
“I think it will expose their dirty tactics,” McPartland said. “I think people are tired of it, especially in the age of Trump. People are disgusted with these tactics. I think it will turn off voters and we’ll get more votes for our slate with Francesca leading it.”
Town Republican Committee Chairman Kevin Hyland responded to an Examiner e-mail regarding the matter with a statement.
“The mailer released by the New York State Republican Committee is factual, as noted by the multiple citations,” the statement read. “These are Fran Hagadus’s own words and positions. We are confident that voters will reject Fran Hagadus and her radical agenda for Mt. Pleasant.”
Schulman said he and Zaino were unaware that the mailer was going out. As first-time candidates, they have been concentrating on local issues.
“That was nothing that Danielle and I had anything to do with, thank God,” Schulman said. “We had nothing to do with that. I believe it came from the state level.”
A message left over the weekend for Zaino was not returned.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/