On a recent chilly night on East 83rd Street, in the heart of the old Silk Stocking, a small group of young Republicans gathered for a pep talk from State Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn).
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Golden said, his hands clasped tightly in front of him, “I am impressed by the numbers I see in this room.”
The hundred or so in attendance smiled and applauded.
“You would expect them in Nassau and Suffolk,” Golden said. “But you wouldn’t expect them on the East Side of Manhattan.”
Less than a decade ago, this was strong Republican territory. The local state senator was a Republican, as were the local members of the Assembly and City Council. But in a process which began with Carolyn Maloney’s toppling of incumbent Rep. Bill Green in 1992, Manhattan’s Republicans have fallen on harder and harder times.
And despite the turnout of eager Republicans sizable enough to surprise Golden, the trend seems unlikely to change any time soon.
Republican enrollment has remained stagnant for over a decade at about 113,000, which pales in comparison to the over 600,000 enrolled Democrats in the borough. In the six weeks leading up to the most recent voter registration deadline, 7,380 new Democrats joined the rolls in the borough, compared to just 1,049 new Republicans.
This was just the latest bit of bad news for a county party which has not had a single locally elected Republican since 2002 and had its former chair, James Ortenzio, plead guilty to tax evasion late last year.
That makes the task of rebuilding a tough one.  
“We’re under no delusions that it is a difficult task,” said Jason Weingartner, the newly installed executive director of the Manhattan GOP. Weingartner succeeds Marcus Cederqvist, who left to become the new executive director of the city Board of Elections.
A handful of Manhattan candidates for the November election will be unveiled in the coming months, Weingartner said. There will be a host of new Republican faces vying for open Council seats in 2009.
Republicans say the key to their success in Manhattan is name recognition, something John Chromczak, a medical technician at New York University and a novice to the political stage, said he will have to work on when he attempts to unseat incumbent State Sen. Martin Connor (D-Brooklyn/Manhattan) later this year.
“Even if the majority of people who live in the district are Democrats, they’re worried about public transportation, they’re worried about congestion pricing,” said the soft-spoken Chromczak. “I’m looking forward to the uphill battle.”
Chromczak, who has yet to file his intent to run with the state Board of Elections, said he was inspired to challenge Connor by the lack of political action following the fire at the Deutsch Bank building late last year.
Current Manhattan GOP chair, Jennifer Saul Yaffa, said she also relishes the idea of an uphill battle. But the crucial task of fundraising is made all the more difficult by the lack of Republican elected officials to put a public face on the party, she said.
“People usually like to give money to officials,” Yaffa said. “It’s tough.”
The party’s new county club fundraising initiative, which requires members to pay $1,000 annually for a year’s worth of events, has netted the party $30,000 so far, she said. Last year’s annual Lincoln Day dinner brought in $300,000.
Another issue that befuddles some in the borough is the existence of two separate young Republican organizations—both called the New York Young Republican Club. The groups have made attempts to overcome the split which dates back to the Lindsay administration, but to little avail.
“We are recognized by the state and local GOP. They’re not,” Lynn Krogh, president of the New York Young Republican Club, said of the other similarly named club. “We’ve been working to bring them together. There’s still some wounds.”
Krogh said she also finds solace in the day-to-day struggle of being a Republican in Manhattan.
“It’s like pushing a 3,000 pound car up a hill,” she said. “It’s not an easy thing to do.”
Andrew Eristoff, a former Council member from the East Side who massively outspent but was soundly beaten by State Sen. Liz Krueger in 2002, said Manhattan Republicans prospects have suffered from the drop in crime he feels they helped make happen.
“Ironically, we arguably are victims of our own success,” Eristoff said. “Now that we’re through that crisis, a lot of voters have reverted to type.”
Eristoff said he was not optimistic about Republican chances in the near-term.
“I don’t see any openings,” he said. “I wish I did. I think we all benefit from competition.”
A desire for competition, in addition to dissatisfaction with Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D), may be what swings the pendulum back in the Republicans’ favor, said William O’Reilly, a consultant who has long worked with Manhattan Republicans.
“We realize these are tough times,” he said. “We will be ready when the voters are ready to listen to us.”
But after so many elections with Republicans unable to break past 35 percent in the polls, some local activists are starting to wonder if that time will ever come.
“We show up with these guys with these great résumés,” said Robert Morgan, president of the century-old Metropolitan Republican Club. “But they’re Republicans, so there must be something wrong with them.”
By adopting an “if at first you don’t succeed” type strategy, Morgan said Republicans can win elections in Manhattan if they are willing to lose a few times first.
Joel Zinberg, an Upper West Side surgeon who in 2005 lost a Council race to Jessica Lappin, and Gregory Camp, a lawyer who last year lost a special Assembly election to Micah Kellner, are both expected to run again, according to Weingartner.  
Lolita Jackson, former president of the Metropolitan Club and now the Manhattan director of the city’s Community Affairs Unit, is also viewed as a rising star with crossover appeal. A relatively young African-American woman with strong Republican credentials, Jackson has been courted to run by several, but has so far refused.
“The day she says yes is the day I hit the streets for her,” Weingartner said.
For now, though, Manhattan Democrats remain confident. Krueger, who began her career in elected life by nearly toppling local Republican legend Roy Goodman, represents the Manhattan district which many see as the most favorable for Republicans. But she has not faced a serious challenger since 2002, and so far has no opponent for this fall.
She consistently encounters Republicans in her district who say they feel disenfranchised by their own party.
“They say, ‘Damn it, I just voted for you,’” Krueger said, laughing. “And it’s like, ‘Well, you had an alternative.’”