February 9, 2010Keith WrightChair New York County Democratic Committee461 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10016Dear Keith:I am in receipt of your response today to my February 8

letter. I appreciate your promptresponse. Generally speaking, however, your letter fails to address the core issues I raisedin my initial letter.You write, in asking whether I have addressed similar concerns to other counties:“Further, I wonder if many --or even any-- counties have afforded you any opportunity atall to address them prior to their endorsement.”I certainly intend to push for open, transparent, honest debate in any forum possible. But,respectfully, that isn’t the point. If your argument for engaging in an undemocratic, non-transparent, backroom-deal process is, effectively, that “others have done so”, thatdoesn’t strike me as a particularly good civics lesson, nor a strong point with voters. If your own standard for openness, transparency and democracy is to mimic and continuethe habits of your predecessor and other party bosses who seek to shut down debate, then,regretfully, you are simply tarnishing our party and democracy.There is some progress in your response, however. You acknowledge, at least indirectly,that my opponent has been given an unfair advantage (that is my term) by receiving previous access to the Executive Committee—access I have not been granted. Your excuse for such access is that “she is an elected official and New York’s DemocraticSenator”. Truthfully, I had to read that twice to make sure that it said what it said.That argument, again, exhibits a tone-deafness to the anger about the political