It started with a disagreement over some turkeys and Cornish hens. Now Rose Sorrentino, 86, is in the toughest fight of her political life.
Sorrentino (pictured) has run get-out-the-vote operations as a Democratic Ward 11 co-chair for 28 years. A gatekeeper in the vote-rich Bella Vista elderly housing complex, where access is everything during political campaigns, she’s built a network of support over three decades of electioneering and volunteer work. She was thinking of resigning from her Democratic Party duties this year.
Then she found out who was challenging her co-chair seat in a March 4 primary— Alderman Robert Lee.
“I’m so angry, I’m going to do everything in my power to beat him,” swore Sorrentino.
Why? A botched meal.
Sitting at her living room table one recent afternoon, Sorrentino told how a Thanksgiving dinner incident turned her from a staunch Lee supporter to one who can’t wait to beat him at the polls.
“You can only crap on me once,” she explained.
Sorrentino, who’ll be 87 in March, lives in a 16th-story apartment at the elderly complex on the city’s eastern skyline. She answered the door in a sweatshirt that read, “Let the good times roll.” Applications for absentee ballots poked out of a folding compartment in her walker as she rolled across the carpet to find a seat. Beyond the buzz of a TV, a window looked out to a sweeping view of Sleeping Giant and Fair Haven Heights.
Her long life of political activity stems from an early loss.
Sorrentino and her husband, Ernest, used to run a restaurant, bustling with pizza on one side and a grille on the other, on Whalley Avenue. Earnest died young of cancer, leaving her a widow at 42 with four daughters 9 through 17.
“After he passed away, I had to find something interesting to do.” She didn’t give up. The week after her husband died, she dove back into work.
“I’m a fighter,” she said in a voice that left no doubt.
Sorrentino served long hours as a waitress (“nice places, no dumps”) to support her kids. She never remarried. Instead, after her kids left home, she found a new devotion, to politics and volunteering. Arthur Barbieri — aka “The Mustache,” the late legendary Democratic Party boss — tutored her in the art of elections.
“He was a good boss,” Sorrentino recalled.
Sorrentino got an early start at Bella Vista, which houses mostly elderly folks. A knee injury landed her in the complex 34 years ago, giving her a jump-start on a long tenure of social organizing at the complex. She rose to be her building president and a devoted Bingo host. As Democratic Ward 11 co-chair, she said she’s ruled the roost — hiring poll workers on Election Day and making sure people get absentee ballots — with fairness.
Sorrentino proved a key ally to Robert Lee when the young politician made his first go at a seat on the Board of Aldermen in 2003.
“I worked very hard to get him in there,” Sorrentino said. “Now I’m sorry I did it. He pulled a dirty stunt.”
Turkey Tiff
The time was Thanksgiving 2007. Alderman Lee had arranged, as he had in prior years, to donate holiday dinners to the needy in Bella Vista. Lee sat down with Sorrentino to talk about the food. She gave him a list of 25 people who could really use the gift.
“I told him to get a nice dinner downstairs,” she recalled, referring to a Bella Vista food shop. She suggested a pre-cooked meal, with a nice hunk of turkey, some potatoes and a little pie.
When the day of giving came, Lee changed the donations. Instead of pre-cooked meals, he passed out 150 to 200 bags of Turkey-day food, including starch and pie. Some bags came with ham, some came with turkey, and some came with little Cornish hens.
Sorrentino found out about the change-up when a few people called her in dismay: Some didn’t get a dinner. Some couldn’t eat the meat, because they were disabled and couldn’t cook.
“I was really teed off,” said Sorrentino, who considered herself responsible for getting those 25 people their meals. She regretted that her alderman didn’t heed her advice: “He has a concrete wall for a head.”
The ire brought Sorrentino back from the brink of retiring from her Democratic duties.
“I was going to quit, but when I see who’s going to run – I changed my mind quick,” she said. Lee asked her to share the co-chair ticket, but she refused.
“Will I support Robert Lee again? Never!” fumed Sorrentino, vowing to oppose him in aldermanic bouts as well. “You can only crap on me once. And that’s what he did.”
In an interview, Lee (pictured on Election Day) countered that he was only trying to help.
“First of all, it’s not her Thanksgiving dinner to do,” he said. Second, “if someone’s going to give you something, you shouldn’t be so inappreciative of it.”
Lee said he opted for “something different this year” because the mayor had planned a sit-down Thanksgiving dinner right around the same time.
Did he botch the delivery?
“I didn’t hear any complaints,” Lee said. And anyway, “you can’t please everybody.”
Path To Nomination
Without his former ally, Lee’s now zeroing in on the co-chair seat as a way to secure his future on the aldermanic board.
Lee, who’s 50, has been an outspoken mayoral opponent, even getting into a yelling fight with the man on Election Day. In his first two terms in office, he has proved a fiery and sometimes unpredictable legislator, often breaking out into populist speeches on the aldermanic floor, aiming his words at TV cameras before being put into check by fellow aldermen for getting the facts wrong or not sticking to the issue at hand.
Lee beat back a primary battle from a mayor-supported candidate in a heated Nov 2007 race. (Sorrentino had fallen ill at that time and didn’t play an active role in the race.)
Lee won a third two-year term on the board, but he’s concerned about the future. Having an ally in a co-chair seat is key to getting the party nomination: The ward’s two co-chairs get to hand-pick a room of 40 people who decide which aldermanic candidate gets a party endorsement. That endorsement often holds a lot of weight. Lee said he looked around for allies willing to do the job, but found only one volunteer. So he’s running for the position with his friend Patricia L. DePalma.
Being ward co-chair would “help to lessen the drama of when I run for alderman, and I get challenged by the mayor, which I usually get,” Lee said.
Sorrentino called grabbing for a second seat on the Democratic Party a power-hungry move. Lee countered he was just trying to defend himself from a mayor-backed affront against his re-nomination: “It doesn’t make sense having the mayor harassing you because you don’t bow down to his tactics.”
Lee’s slate faces off against Sorrentino and her neighbor, Adelaide DelFranco, on a March 4 primary.
Read about other co-chair races:
A New Election Battle In East Rock
Westville Has A Race