Brendan J. Lyons in the Times Union plays back audio recordings of a meeting last month where top Rensselaer County Republicans pressured Troy mayoral candidate Tom Reale to drop out and endorse a Democratic challenger. The audio recording is full of expletives, and County Executive Steve McLaughlin calls himself the "boss of the party." McLaughlin implores Reale to end his campaign and support a Democrat. "If you don’t do it ... trust me when I tell you, there’s going to be consequences all the way around.... I want you endorsing (Democratic mayoral candidate Rodney Wiltshire) ... and I want it done tonight," McLaughlin says. At another point in the meeting, Richard Crist, the county operations director and McLaughlin's campaign manager, threatened that Reale could lose his State Senate job with Rep. Daphne Jordan, or that the county GOP operation would not gather petitions next year for Jordan. Reale dropped out of the election a few days after the meeting, but a few days ago restarted his campaign against incumbent Democrat Patrick Madden, and Rodney Wiltshire, who lost the Democratic but is running on the Independence and Green party lines. Former Congressperson John Sweeney, county services director James Gordon, and Jason Kippen, the county's human resources director, were also heard in the audio recording of the meeting. Read more about this story in the Times Union.