This is the text of Phil Orenstein’s acceptance speech at the installation of new Club officers at the January 9, 2014 Queens Village Republican Club meeting.
Thank you for the great honor of being installed as President of the Queens Village Republican Club. But I accept this role also as a great responsibility to continue to build our historical and iconic Club and the Republican Party in this part of Queens.
As former Congressman LTC Allen West, who was our keynote speaker at a past Lincoln Dinner, said: “As the oldest GOP club in America, it is your duty to carry the torch for the Republican Party and its core principles for the whole nation.” This is a tall order and I will do my utmost to fulfill this mission entrusted to us.
Abraham Lincoln was the original force behind the creation of a teeming network of Republican Clubs to build the Party organization and help in his presidential campaign with parades, brass bands, barbeques and rallies. The Republican Party stood for opposition to slavery, for economic freedom, individual liberty, free market capitalism, opportunity, the dignity of work, self-improvement and hope, and it still does today.
“ Four more years” hundreds of cheering supporters of Westchester County Executive Republican Robert Astorino chanted at his White Plains campaign headquarters as the polls closed election night this past November. By 10:30, less than two hours later, Astorino’s challenger, New Rochelle Mayor Democrat Noam Bramson, conceded defeat, and Astorino’s still growing crowd of enthusiastic supporters realized that the 46 year old incumbent’s reelection to his second four year term had been secured (by what the final count the following day proved to be a 56%to 44% landslide). But within days after the election, a significant number of both Democrat and Republican Party insiders and a host of NYS political journalists began to speculate that the next campaign for Astorino might occur not in 4 more years- in a race for a third term for county executive- but rather take place next year- in a race against one term incumbent Democrat Andrew Cuomo- for Governor of New York State.