HACKENSACK – Businessman Anthony Rottino blamed incumbent Chairman Bob Yudin and state Sen. Gerry Cardinale (R-39) for steering the chairman’s contest into the lower depths.
“It’s a political game,” the challenger said of a flier circulating of an affadavit showing Rottino to be a resident of Paterson.
In between working the hands of committee members who headed toward the voting machines in the bowels of campaign headquarters here, Rottino said, “I’ve never lived in Paterson. That’s ridiculous.”
Accompanied by freeholders Maura DiNicola and Rob Hermansen, the challenger said Yudin and Cardinale are using fear tactics in a vicious attempt to hold onto power.
“The first mailer that Bob Yudin sent out was an attack piece on Anthony Rottino,” said the candidate. “Mine has been a grassroots campaign, none of the negative stuff. I put out a five-point plan, and this is how he is campaigning. That flier is propaganda from when I ran in 2009.”
Rottino also said Cardinale called him earlier this month and tried to run him out of the race.
Cardinale told PolitickerNJ.com that lawyers from out of the county want to sink their teeth into Rottino and use him to get a business toehold here.
“Bob Yudin has built this party organization from nothing,” the senator said in defense of the sitting chair.
Bergen Freeholder John Driscoll acknowledged the rancor in the room.
“It’s been a bad one,” he said of the chairman’s race, a three-way contest that includes attorney John McCann.
If no one gets to 50% plus one tonight, the county committee will return next Thursday for a head-to-head.
“Sometimes an organization has to let out a little blood in order to heal,” Driscoll said.
But he and others are hosting a unity breakfast next Saturday, just to let everyone know when the bloodletting must cease.
