Nassau's Grand Organized Party: The latest pecking order
The top three vice chairmen of the Nassau GOP, from left, Greg Peterson, Jim Picken, and Pete King. Credit: Newsday / Dick Yarwood, Thomas A. Ferrara, Howard Schnapp
Daily Point
Nassau GOP sets its senior leadership
Political parties, like other private organizations, often operate with an inner dynamic that falls outside the view — or interest — of most of their members. On some occasions, however, you get a glimpse of who’s really who in the formal pecking order.
Five weeks ago, the well-empowered Nassau County Republican Committee under chairman Joe Cairo held an organizational meeting, as it does annually, assigning titles to numerous party regulars. Those selected serve without pay, but the list does define an order of succession behind the chairman, party officials said.
The county GOP’s current first vice chairman is longtime party activist Greg Peterson, who’s a law partner at Berkman, Henoch, Peterson & Peddy in Garden City. He ran unsuccessfully against then-incumbent Democrat Tom Suozzi for county executive in 2005, and previously, served as Hempstead Town supervisor. Peterson previously ran for district attorney, in 1977, against incumbent Denis Dillon, then a Democrat, who prevailed in the race.
Second vice chairman is Jim Picken, the longtime Town of Oyster Bay party chairman, followed by third vice chair Pete King, the former congressman who represented his Long Island district in the House for 28 years and served as county comptroller between 1982 and 1993. Then comes fourth vice chair Kate Murray, the Hempstead Town clerk, who previously served as town supervisor and member of the state Assembly.
And the new fifth vice chairman is Michael Deery, who is spokesman for the Nassau County Republican Committee and was previously spokesman for the Town of Hempstead. He confirmed the titles, and date of the meeting, to The Point.
In June, Cairo, of Valley Stream, who’s also president of Nassau OTB, was elected to the 168-member Republican National Committee, serving alongside GOP state chairman Edward Cox and national committeewoman Jennifer Saul Rich of Manhattan.
— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com
Pencil Point
Staying alive
Credit: The Boston Globe/Christopher Weyant
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Final Point
Harris' challenges a throwback to Humphrey's, author says
Vice president Hubert H. Humphrey shakes hands with supporters at MacArthur Airport in Bohemia during a campaign rally on November 2, 1968. Credit: Newsday/Dick Benjamin
Kamala Harris isn't the first vice president to find difficulty in the job.
At Hofstra University on Oct. 26, author Samuel G. Freedman said Vice President Hubert Humphrey also faced major obstacles during his first years in office, including a major crisis with his White House boss.
During the Vietnam War era, Humphrey upset President Lyndon Johnson for privately suggesting in 1965 that they have an exit strategy out of the conflict. “Johnson took umbrage at this and basically freezes out Humphrey for the better part of a year,” recalled Freedman, a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Freedman was speaking about his new biography “Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and The Fight for Civil Rights” as part of Hofstra’s “20th Annual Great Writers, Great Readings Series.” Humphrey served as Johnson’s VP until 1968 when Johnson decided not to seek reelection. That year, Humphrey got the party’s nomination but lost the presidency to Republican Richard Nixon, who had served as a vice president to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Unlike Humphrey, Freedman said, Harris doesn’t appear to be at loggerheads with President Joe Biden, though recent press reports have termed Harris’ tenure as quite bumpy. Freedman says these judgments are unfair.
“Kamala Harris has been given terribly difficult assignments — the border in particular — almost impossible policies to move forward in a beneficial way,” Freedman said. “Although it’s interesting to see lately — on things like student loans and abortion — she’s been given a portfolio that lets her work in more productive ways.”
Like Harris with Biden, Humphrey was chosen as Johnson’s running mate in 1964 to appeal to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, Freedman said. “Biden tapping Kamala Harris was a sign of recognizing of continuing the multiracial coalition of Barack Obama and also the vital significance of Black women to the Democratic coalition of today,” he explained.
— Thomas Maier thomas.maier@newsday.com
Correction: Mike Deery is spokesman for the Nassau County Republican Committee and was previously spokesman for the Town of Hempstead. His position was misstated in an earlier version of this edition of The Point.
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