Why is McCann paying for Jack Zisa to LIE to Republicans?

By Rubashov

Shame on John McCann.  He paid for a BCRO email last evening that linked President Donald Trump’s name to his without the permission of either the President or the Trump campaign.
 
If John McCann wants the President’s endorsement, he should ask for it, obtain it, and then publish the document.  Just putting the President’s name next to yours and calling it the “Trump-McCann Team” is dishonest, to say the least.  Don’t do that until you can produce a document showing the President’s support.
 
In March, BCRO Chairman Jack Zisa endorsed John McCann and handed him the county organization’s “line” without a vote of the elected members of the BCRO.  This was a shockingly corrupt and authoritarian act by Zisa.  It should have been addressed by the Chairman of the NJGOP, Doug Steinhardt.
 
Unfortunately, Steinhardt is an all-but-declared candidate for Governor, and Zisa is hosting an event for him in July.  Nevertheless, this latest act by Zisa – if left unaddressed – has broad implications for the presidential campaign.  Will other candidates, even more controversial than McCann, be permitted to link their names with that of the President, on the advice of some local GOP leader? 
 
What happens if a local GOP leader links the President’s name with a candidate and he turns out to be a KKK member?  Or on the sex offenders list?  Doesn’t the President’s campaign get to vet the candidate first?  Doesn’t a local candidate need permission before throwing Trump’s name around?
 
It all spells trouble to us.  Trouble for the President.  Trouble for the Party.  It’s up to the State NJGOP to do something about it.   
 
In yesterday’s BCRO email, paid for by John McCann, BCRO Chairman Jack Zisa makes statements indicating that he thinks his membership is either very stupid or has extremely short memories. 
 
Zisa writes that he has “worked tirelessly to unite our party, meeting early on with our candidates for U.S. Senate, CD5 and CD9, identifying common goals, imploring them to run their campaigns vigorously but professionally, and setting vital ground rules for all, the most important of which was there would be zero tolerance for any candidate who broke Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment ‘Thou shall not speak ill of thy fellow Republican.’”
 
Leaving aside the fact that Ronald Reagan didn’t follow his own “commandment”, pre-dating Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment were God’s Commandments and featuring rather prominently was the one about “bearing false witness”, about truthfulness, about not lying.  About not doing what Jack Zisa did in his statement above.
 
The Zisa family is a bi-partisan one.  Politics is the family business.  Political power is the source of much of the family’s income.  There is a long and sordid history of not only breaking Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, but of actually helping Democrats to win. 
 
Zisa writes that he “would not hesitate to publicly call out any one of them (candidates) for a violation” of the commandment – the Reagan one, not the God one.  Well, we really don’t like having to tell old Jack this, but he’s a rascal, with less moral authority to call out a candidate on a “violation” than a pimp has to lecture on chastity.
 
The elected members of the Republican State Committee – on the other hand – do have a duty to uphold some standards in their county party.  As representatives of the entire party and defenders of the Republican “brand” they should intervene when a local party leader is being dishonest – whether that dishonesty is canceling a vote of the elected members or coming up with some horseshit like the above. 
 
All any organization has is its reputation.  Reputation is a confluence of individual morality, transparent adherence to a set of rules, and successful outcomes.  The BCRO kind of sucks at all three.  You must do better. 
 
The elected State Committee members should work with Chairman Steinhardt to make it better.  Maybe put the BCRO into receivership.  You can’t have your Republican organization in your largest county suck forever.  Not if you hope to win statewide again.
 
Receivership is the way forward.

Just to refresh your memory, in 2018 John McCann lost by the biggest margin in the history of New Jersey's 5th congressional district.  So why are Jack Zisa and his crew looking to repeat that performance and ensure that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats keep the Congress? 

Maybe that's the point?

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.”
(Karl Marx, author and philosopher)

Did BCRO violate FEC rules?

By Rubashov

The Bergen County Republican Organization (BCRO) has sent out a number of potentially problematic election communications recently.  Several mass emails blasted out on behalf of the BCRO by members of its leadership failed to note who paid for them, in apparent violation of Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules.
 
The BCRO also sent out an expensive mass direct mail piece that appeared to suggest that the candidates on the BCRO “line” were part of a ticket sanctioned by President Donald Trump.  An operative with the President’s campaign denied this, stating that being on a local party ticket that is endorsing the President does not mean that the President is endorsing the other candidates on that ticket.  The endorsement goes up, not down, the ticket.
 
FEC rules on communications like this are very restrictive.  From the FEC website:
 
“A state or local party committee may prepare and distribute a slate card, sample ballot, palm card or other printed list naming candidates for any public office. The payments are not considered contributions or expenditures on behalf of any federal candidate listed, as long as the following conditions are met:
 
The list names at least three candidates running for election to any public office in the state in which the committee is organized.
 
The list is not distributed through broadcast stations, newspapers, magazines and similar types of public political advertising (for example billboards). Direct mail, however, is an acceptable method of distributing a slate card or sample ballot.
 
The content is limited to the identification of each candidate (pictures may be used), the office or position currently held, the office sought and party affiliation. Additional descriptions, designs, images and photographs must not provide supplemental biographical information, descriptions of candidates’ positions on the issues or statements of party philosophy. Certain voting information, however, may be given, such as time, place and instructions on voting a straight party ticket.”
 
Curiously, some of the BCRO email blasts contain appeals to Ronald Reagan’s so-called “11th Commandment” (“Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”) and accusations that the candidates opposing the BCRO-endorsed John McCann for Congress were running “negative” campaigns.  Hypocritically, the authors of these emails failed to mention the BCRO’s own negative campaign on behalf of John McCann in 2018.
 
That was the year that Steve Lonegan, the father of the conservative movement in New Jersey, was on the receiving end of a campaign unprecedented in its level of sustained hatefulness.    That campaign caused many conservative donors to simply give up on New Jersey Republicans, to this day sending their money to candidates elsewhere.  This drain of conservative money to campaigns outside New Jersey affects the ability of state Republicans to secure and hold elected offices.  Bergen County has particularly suffered.
 
The political consultant brought in to run the campaign against Lonegan was a brilliant tactician named Kelley Rogers.  He came up with a series of fiercely negative campaign advertisements.  It is worth noting that John McCann’s consultant was not around to direct his 2020 primary campaign.  Last year, Kelley Rogers pleaded guilty in federal court.  Politico covered the story (09/18/19):
 
In one of the first Justice Department cases of its kind, Maryland political consultant Kelley Rogers pled guilty to wire fraud on Tuesday for operating multiple fraudulent political action committees that raised money from donors for conservative causes but kept much of the funds for Rogers and his associates.

Rogers’ arrest and indictment took place shortly after Politico and ProPublica investigated one of Rogers’ PACs, Conservative Majority Fund, which since 2012 has raised close to $10 million — mostly from small-dollar donors, many of them elderly -- while giving out just $48,400 to politicians.
 
The BCRO appears to have a love affair with John McCann, despite his history of campaign losses – including the biggest defeat in the history of CD05.  For his part, McCann exudes a quirky charm and a combativeness that often gets him into trouble…
 

THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS, ONLY STUPID POLITICIANS- Congressional candidate John McCann to a woman asking a question- that's a stupid question.

Nevertheless, the BCRO leadership’s faith in John McCann appears unshakeable.  Despite his historic loss in 2018, BCRO boss Jack Zisa awarded McCann the party “line” without a vote of his membership.  That is, of course, an entirely different discussion for another day.
 

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.”
(Karl Marx, author and philosopher)

Letters from our In Box…

A few of the dozens of correspondence we get each week…

Message: Please contact me about working together.

Message: I noticed your article about xxxx xxxxxx. I beg someone in your organization to call me about a recent article he wrote...

Message: My wife and I are registered Dems in NJ. However we want to switch our party to REPUBLICAN. Can you help us with that? Thanking you in advance for your assistance.  Semper Fi
 

Message: Below is a letter I would like to submit (in an ideal world) anonymously. I tried submitting it in the contact box on your site but used an old email address of mine that I no longer can access, unfortunately it was hacked. I live in Bergen County and am tired of the status quo but if I speak openly about it I will be persona non-grata in the GOP there and the usual attack dogs will come after me the same way they do to everyone who disagrees with them… Thank you.

The Bergen County Republican Organization (BCRO) is in dire need of a course correction. Newly elected BCRO Chairman Jack Zisa is himself a dose of much needed change from the past backstabbing and infighting that resulted in an underfunded and understrength county party. Yet the BCRO Executive Director Giancarlo Ghione is a holdover from the failed Chairmanship of Paul DiGaetano, specializes in creating bad blood within the party, has failed to deliver on any of his promises, and should be let go.

First and foremost is the fact that Ghione was involved in the divisive intra-party county war that ousted former Chairman Bob Yudin. That Yudin was replaced would not be an issue except for fact that the wild promises of the DiGaetano boosters made went unfulfilled. Despite assertions that they would turn the party around after the coup led in part by Ghione, the BCRO has continued to come up short on the county level and in the state legislature races.

Second, and related, is the fact that Ghione appears to fight internal battles within the party, in its organizations and primaries, with a vigor he does not bring to bear in general elections. Can anyone say Ghione, or the small cabal of mostly Young Republicans he leads, fought for Republicans in the last general elections as hard as he fought against fellow Republicans in the past primary? Has he and his clique ever applied the same energy they used on booting Yudin, electing DiGaetano Chairman, or preventing Steve Lonegan from getting the congressional nomination, on getting a Republican elected mayor, assemblyman, freeholder, or other elected office?

Third, Ghione may one day put the BCRO in the same legal danger as he has the NJ State Young Republican Federation which is under investigation by the National Young Republican Federation board and is endanger of being de-chartered. Approximately 2 years ago Ghione, and co-conspirators xxxxxxxxxxx  and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, decided to play fast and loose with the rules in order to take over the State Young Republicans. Despite doing so, he and his cronies have failed to hold a single State Young Republican Committee meeting in further violation of their legal obligations.

There are many more accounts of Ghione's penchant for negative, divisive, and possibly illegal actions. He has led his small group of political soldiers to be loyal to him over any party organ and the party itself. His type of self-aggrandizement shouldn't be tolerated by the BCRO and if unaddressed will ultimately harm it. For all those reasons, Ghione should be let go from his job as BCRO Executive Director.

NOTE:  This letter was submitted by an individual who requested that we publish it anonymously.  We have his contact information, but have complied with his request.  While Mr. Ghione is a public figure, as executive director of the BCRO and his other titles, two other individuals mentioned in this letter might not be.  We have erred on the side of caution and have blacked out their names.  This website takes no position on the opinions expressed regarding BCRO Executive Director Ghione, and we of course offer him the use of this website to publish his own response or correction to this letter, or indeed his thoughts on any matter he wishes to address.