Is Gottheimer-loving Shortway all in for McCann?

Harry Shortway is the Mayor of Vernon Township, in Sussex County.  Shortway, a Republican, in 2016 stabbed fellow-Republican Scott Garrett in the back and endorsed Democrat Josh Gottheimer for Congress.  Gottheimer was running on a ticket headed by Hillary Clinton.

Ever since, Harry Shortway has allowed Democrat Congressman Gottheimer to use Vernon as a foothold in Republican Sussex County and a source of endless media publicity.  The New Jersey Herald ran another photo of Gottheimer in Vernon less than a week ago.

Harry Shortway's father -- also named Harry Shortway -- is the Mayor of Midland Park, in Bergen County.  Harry was a retired police officer when he was hired by Michael Saudino to be a Bergen County Undersheriff.

Later this month, the Shortway family is hosting an event for candidate John McCann, at the family business -- Shortway's Barn, in Hawthorne. 

Many see McCann as a Democrat straw man.  The Bergen Record has identified McCann as the "right hand man" to Democrat Sheriff Michael Saudino.  It was Saudino's feud with the Republican County Executive that undermined and ultimately lost Republicans control of Bergen County.  The coup de grace came when Saudino, a one-time Republican, joined Hillary Clinton and Josh Gottheimer on a ticket that crushed Republicans in Bergen County.  McCann remained Saudino's consigliore through all of this and ran for Congress (as a Republican) with Saudino's blessing and while still on the Democrat's payroll.

Sheriff Saudino has formally endorsed fellow Democrat Josh Gottheimer for re-election this year.  All this meddling in the Republican primary has the Democrats resembling the Russians.

Tea Party screws Scott Garrett

The Skylands Tea Party claims that it can't help embattled conservative Republican Congressman Scott Garrett, because "under the terms of our reorganization, Skylands Tea Party will no longer be endorsing candidates."

That is b.s. because the Skylands Tea Party is within its legal rights to put together an educational voters guide comparing conservative Republican Garrett with his liberal Democrat opponent, Josh Gottheimer.  Gottheimer, who worked for the Clinton White House and is an intimate of the Clinton organization, is ahead in some recent polls.     

The situation couldn't be more serious because Clinton apparatchik Gottheimer is trying to pass himself off as a "fiscally conservative" Democrat -- and it is working.  Last week, Gottheimer picked up the endorsement of Vernon Mayor Harry Shortway, a Republican who runs Sussex County's largest municipality. 

The Skylands Tea Party claims to be conservative -- and yet, while the most conservative Congressman to represent New Jersey in decades is fighting for his political life, what are they doing about it?  Are they organizing a door-to-door voter education drive to educate voters about the true nature of Gottheimer's candidacy?  No, instead they are holding a rally so they can spread a lie.

Yesterday the Skylands Tea Party sent out an email that asked people to come to a rally this Saturday to protest the recent tax restructuring program that cut five taxes (including the elimination of the estate tax and the tax on retirement income for most seniors) while increasing the tax on gasoline and diesel. In an apparent effort to boost turnout, the Skylands Tea Party email contains this lie:  

"But don't be fooled, the gas tax will be on all petroleum products - not just gasoline!" 

This piece of nonsense is the personal hobby-horse of Assemblyperson Gail Phoebus who has misinterpreted the legislation in Trenton and who has been corrected  again and again by Republican caucus members and staff.  Just how Phoebus' misreading of the legislation ended up on a Skylands Tea Party mailing is open to conjecture, what isn't is that it is FALSE.

Instead of using the principled reasoning of America's founders, the Skylands Tea Party is resorting to the BIG LIE approach of the 1930's.  They are trying to frighten people with the lie that the tax will be applied to "all petroleum products", including home heating oil.  And what makes matters worse is that they urge Tea Party members to bring their children to hear the lie so that they can become unwitting messengers of the lie.

To make people afraid using a lie for a political end is reprehensible.  To explicitly involve innocent children in the furtherance of a gross lie is a form of child abuse.  A child's integrity should come before the political expedience of a group like the Skylands Tea Party.

Assemblyperson Phoebus, who plans to speak on Saturday, should take the opportunity to set the record straight.  We expect the truth, not rumors, from our elected officials.

Tea Party aims at Oroho... hits Garrett

The Skylands Tea Party claims to be conservative -- and yet, while the most conservative Congressman to represent New Jersey in decades is fighting for his political life, they have been focused on attacking a conservative Republican legislator.  That's become the role of the Tea Party.  They don't care about defeating Democrats because in a General Election setting, they're a joke.

Remember this Tea Party candidate:

And she's right... she is them. 

Yep, Republicans should have taken the United States Senate in 2010.  Instead, it took Republicans three election cycles to capture the Senate.  In 2010, the GOP was poised to capture both Houses of Congress like they had in 1994, but nobody had factored in the Tea Party (which didn't exist in 1994).  The deftness with which the Tea Party regularly shit the bed allowed the Democrats to hang on in 2010 and 2012 -- losing only in 2014, but setting them up for a comeback this November.

And they are doing it in Northwest New Jersey, where solid-conservative Congressman Scott Garrett is in a dogfight with Clintonista Josh Gottheimer.  The election is a month away and what is the Tea Party doing?  They are trying to screw a conservative legislator who believes debt needs to be addressed and  who successfully negotiated the largest tax cut legislation in New Jersey history.  They say it isn't the way they wanted it to be and so it's "let's kill our fellow conservative!"

When Tea Party Assemblyperson Gail Phoebus addresses a Tea Party rally in two weeks time, it will not be to help Scott Garrett or even to beat liberal Democrat Gottheimer, it will be to screw the Republican legislator she shares an office with -- the guy who endorsed her and helped her win an election less than a year ago. 

Yeah, these people do have darn short memories.  The operating principle of the Tea Party is to talk bad about liberals and Democrats but keep the screwings within the family. 

Tea partier Phoebus, a sort-of unofficial editor over at the NJ Herald, has been lobbying local mayors to screw her fellow Republicans.  Taking her advice, Franklin Mayor Nick Giordano threatened to recall and then run against Senator Oroho -- although he quickly denied doing so.  Not so with Vernon Mayor Harry Shortway, who formally endorsed liberal Democrat and former Clinton apparatchik Josh Gottheimer for Congress against conservative incumbent Garrett.  This is what happens when you save the screwings for fellow conservatives and Republicans. 

Now are you happy, Gail?

Why does the Tea Party focus all its hatred on fellow Republicans?  Because that is all they are capable of.  The Tea Party has never been known to do a Democrat any harm in New Jersey.  What they can do is shit up a primary and, if lucky enough to win, nominate a candidate so bad that even in Northwest New Jersey a Democrat can beat him.  What kind of candidate? 

This is a recent post from a Tea Party candidate who challenged Congressman Garrett in a primary and claimed that one vote he disagreed with made Garrett "a liberal":

Because of limped dicked conservatives we got the present problem and nobody is willing to vote for liars and thieves in different suits. So our representatives don't get to expand and we remain screwed...... Money whores fucking the working guy.

Yes, that is how they talk. 

The great problem with the Tea Party is that they lack humanity, humility, and common decency.  Like fascists, they treat those they disagree with like pests to be exterminated, not like people with a different point of view. 

Memo to Bill Spadea and others... your armbands are showing.