KJ ruling party launches 11th hour campaign blitz

November 8 , 2005

KJ ruling party launches 11th hour campaign blitz
"Vote Republican, Get 'KJ' "

By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
cmckenna@th-record.com
Monroe - Kiryas Joel's ruling party appears to have launched an 11th-hour campaign blitz loaded with dark humor and deep irony to re-elect their allies on the Monroe Town Board.

Monroe residents going to the polls today have gotten recorded phone messages and fliers intended to drive voters away from the challengers that Kiryas Joel's leadership must regard as the incumbents' biggest threat: the Democrats.

"Vote Republican, Get 'KJ,' " reads one flier handed out at polling stations today. "Vote Democrat, Get 'KJ-Lite' " Kiryas Joel's leaders, recognizing their community's unpopularity with Monroe voters, have the political savvy and mordant humor to use that reputation to try to hinder the Democrats, one of two slates vying to unseat three longtime Republican board members.

Residents of the Camp LaGuardia homeless shelter, who often perform menial labor in Kiryas Joel, were hired to stand outside onroe polling stations today and distribute fliers supporting the aveMonroe-endorsed candidates or tainting the Democrats with Kiryas Joel ssociations.

Shelter residents also plastered the fliers on the windshields of hundreds of cars parked at the Metro-North station in Harriman, leading to an altercation this evening with members of the Woodbury activist group, SOCA At Work.

Monroe residents have gotten recorded phone messages the last two days pursuing the same tactic - either cheering for SaveMonroe or trumpeting the support of the Kiryas Joel Alliance party for the Democratic candidates for Town Board. Leaders of the Monroe Democrats, SaveMonroe and Kiryas Joel Alliance have disavowed any responsibility for the fliers and recorded phone messages.

Kiryas Joel Administrator Gedalye Szegedin couldn't be reached so far today to discuss the sly campaign, which surpasses in ingenuity an earlier effort to sink a Monroe village board candidate with a similar "kiss-of-death" strategy.