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Dear Ms. Bertone:
I learned about the existence of the Ulster County Women's Republican Club by flipping through the UC Republican Committee's brochure at the 2006 Annual fundraising dinner at Nevele Grande.
I'm not sure if you know about us, the Rochester Republican Club.
I am one of its lifetime members.
For the Rochester Republican women, the UC Women's Republican Club platform — active political participation, cooperation among Women's Republican Clubs, loyalty and support for the Republican Party — sounds a little hollow.
Our Rochester Republican Club is continuously attacked by both Democrats and our own Republican Committee led by Marijane Knudsen, one of your fellow State Committeewomen...
In the same 2006 Annual dinner brochure you are saying that "we have to bring new people into the Republican Party." I am the living proof that the "official" Rochester Republican leadership not only doesn't accept new people but viciously fights against Republicans! You cannot be a normal Republican in Rochester and have a normal life.
I know of women who volunteered for a number of years on certain commissions who are now rejected from the same position because they are Republicans...
I know of women fearing they will lose their jobs because they are Republicans...
I know of women fearing to come to the Republican Club meetings...
There is a witch hunt in the Town of Rochester and I'm probably the witch-in-chief. As Republicans we are continuously attacked, slandered and humiliated. We are called a hostile mob. We are called a hate group. All this just because we are Republicans. This should not happen in America, this should not happen in NY State, this should not happen in Ulster County...
Probably by now you are familiar with my case: an application for a volunteer position on the Historic Preservation Commission became an issue of "pornography and politics" due to acts of gross governmental misconduct. Interestingly, I found more understanding from some Democrats, liberals and feminists than from our own Rochester Republican Committee — where Marijane Knudsen is the Chairperson.
If you have access to Internet, please read my Letter to Marijane on the RochesterRepublicans.com website; there you can also find my letters to Governor Spitzer and Town Supervisor Pam Duke.
This issue is not going to be "put to rest" — as Mr. Max Finestone, Chairman of the Rochester Democratic Committee recently wished in print — and nothing "is going to explode in the faces" of those who defend me, as so nicely suggested Marijane Knudsen, who thinks I am guilty of whatever her friends are accusing me.
Truth is on my side and gives me strength. It's the truth about not respecting human beings for who they are, but hating them because of national origin or political affiliation; it's about not respecting laws and citizens' rights; it's about right and wrong. And right and wrong don't have a political color. What is wrong is simply wrong.
I don't want women to be on my side only because I'm a woman... I want women to be fair and intelligent enough to see that something very wrong happened to an innocent fellow Republican woman in the Town of Rochester.
I am the daughter of a political prisoner in Communist Romania and I spent 30 years under a totalitarian regime... I was granted political asylum by the United States... Rest assured, they picked the wrong person to silence...
I believe this is the time for the Ulster County Women's Republican Club to show the Republican women in Rochester that they are not alone.
Sincerely,
Manuela Mihailescu
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