Ciattarelli: Giving the Whitman campaign model one more try?

By Rubashov

Jack Ciattarelli’s handlers have started a new organization. It’s called the Mainstream Majority. That’s “mainstream” as in the Mainstream Media that conservatives, populists, and the Bernie Sanders Left so often complain about.

As a noun, “mainstream” means “the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional; the dominant trend in opinion, fashion, or the arts.” As an adjective, “mainstream” means “belonging to or characteristic of the mainstream.”

Wikipedia reports: “The mainstream is the prevalent current thought that is widespread. It includes all popular culture and media culture, typically disseminated by mass media. This word is sometimes used in a pejorative sense by subcultures who view ostensibly mainstream culture as not only exclusive but artistically and aesthetically inferior.”

So, it appears “mainstream” is just another way of saying, “the status quo” or “the establishment” or “middle of the road” or even, “moderate”.

And yet, in common with all Republican political campaigns (and even some Democratic ones) this new group employs the “c” word. The email makes this pitch to us: Yes, we are establishment moderates, but we are also “common-sense conservatives” (as opposed to the other kind?) who focus on “kitchen-table issues”.

Even Bill Clinton used the “c” word. So did Christie Whitman. Who doesn’t?

The email is long on braggadocio, claiming responsibility for every Republican victory in November 2021 – even the defeat of “New Jersey’s powerful Senate President.” Was it Jack Ciattarelli’s “compelling message and strong campaign” that elected Ed Durr? It wasn’t the backlash against incumbent Phil Murphy's extremist policies combined with a textbook low-budget, grassroots guerrilla campaign that did it? Sure about that?

Ciattarelli’s handlers have refused to share the same stage with Steve Kush, the political operative who actually managed Ed Durr’s campaign. Going back to election night, we don’t remember anyone in the NJGOP establishment even expecting Ed Durr to win. If they had, wouldn’t they have thrown some money to the Durr campaign? But nobody bankrolled Durr. Now everyone wants to take credit for the upset.

The email claims that the new group intends to be “pro-taxpayer, pro-law enforcement, pro-parent, and pro-small business, one that makes sure smaller government better serves the people who pay for it.” That’s very aspirational, but we would like to see details, a legislative agenda. We will keep an open mind and wait to see how the “Mainstream Majority” unfolds.

Still, we wonder how Jack’s handlers are going to sell “Mainstream” anything, given the political and cultural baggage the term has…

mainstream sellout

Despite resistance from some NJ Republicans, 2nd Amendment advocates score victories

By Sussex County Watchdog

What began in Virginia as an important demonstration of popular support for the Second Amendment has spread all across America with towns and counties formally passing resolutions declaring public support for the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights.  These resolutions have served as a rallying point for political action – bringing people together, educating voters, recruiting new activists – which has manifested itself in grassroots political action and lobbying.
 
What started out as a movement to pass pro-Second Amendment resolutions in Virginia became a grassroots effort that shaped a surprise win that successfully blocked passage of an “assault weapons” ban in the Democrat-controlled Virginia Legislature.  The resolution movement quickly turned into a wide-reaching and comprehensive grassroots movement that frightened 4 Democrat legislators into joining a solid block of Republicans to kill the “assault weapons” ban. 
 
Here in New Jersey, grassroots activists Bill Hayden and Mark Cheeseman have led a similar pro-Second Amendment resolution effort that has led to the passage of resolutions in towns and counties across the state.  This effort has aided the work of longtime Second Amendment advocates – like the 2nd Amendment Society’s Alex Roubian – who successfully stopped two anti-Second Amendment bills on Monday. 

(click on image for video)

The Second Amendment Society has taken legal action against 28 towns in New Jersey and won every battle.  They have sued the state 3 times and won every time – winning back legal fees of more than $200,000.
 
Imagine the grassroots movement that could be built if even just a portion of New Jersey’s Republican establishment would lend a hand?  There have been some notable heroes – the District 24 legislators, particularly Parker Space, as well as freeholders from half a dozen counties, particularly Sussex County’s Dawn Fantasia – but too many pretend not to notice as the Bill of Rights is assaulted. 
 
Worse still are those who actively talk down the work of Second Amendment advocates and the grassroots resolution movement.  This includes the campaign of Mayor Michael Ghassali of Montvale, a Republican candidate for Congress in CD05. 
 
Ghassali has resisted passing a pro-Second Amendment resolution in his town, which is controlled by the GOP.  But he had no hesitation in adopting a leftist “anti-hate” resolution authored by a Democrat “social justice” activist and elected official.  
 
And Ghassali’s campaign has gone even further, by publicly crapping on the pro-Second Amendment grassroots movement itself.  His campaign issued this statement in a two-part social media post yesterday:
 
“The 2nd Amendment on its face is the right to bear arms as such, why would a municipality need to pass a 2A resolution?”
 
“Exactly, it’s one of the dumbest things I’ve heard…”
 
While we don’t expect establishment GOPer’s to possess the imagination to energize the Republican base, they should at least have the intelligence to copy what conservatives in Virginia and many other states are successfully doing.  The grassroots resolution movement is producing victories, which is more than can be said of these establishment types.
 
Ghassali is a victim of one of those GOP confabs where a few insider consultants are presented as “experts” (while their actual win-loss record are, shall we say, glossed over if mentioned at all).  For some establishment GOPers, the idea of a grassroots movement mobilizing the Republican base and bringing in thousands of new pro-Second Amendment voters is a nightmare that disrupts all their calculations.  They don’t want that.  That doesn’t serve their interests.
 
But Mayor Michael Ghassali – who after all was mentored and urged to run by Steve Lonegan – should have better instincts than those he hired to run his campaign.  We expect better from anyone who is a Lonegan person and Michael is a Lonegan guy.  So what’s the deal?  Is Ghassali afraid to take a stand and help grassroots conservatives?
 
Steve Lonegan had no problem standing up for what was right.  Say what you will, the guy had balls.  Does that make Michael Ghassali a Steve Lonegan without the balls?
 
Michael Ghassali needs to get real and soon.  And stop taking the advice of GOP establishment wimps.    

Wirths and Space block Chinese Communists from gaining foothold in Princeton

America won!  Thanks to Assemblymen Hal Wirths and Parker Space, the Chinese Communists will not be buying a college in Princeton.

Alerted by businessman-philanthropist Mike Hennessy, the Assemblymen got to work generating grassroots opposition to the all but done sale of Westminster Choir College to a Chinese company controlled by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and the Communist Party of China (CPC).  Westminster is a division of the Westminster College of the Arts, and is part of Rider University.

Last June, Rider University had signed a purchase and sale agreement with a newly created entity called Kaiwen Education, which is controlled by the Chinese navy and its Communist Party masters.  Assemblymen Wirths and Space were concerned that the sale could give the Chinese government a foothold on the Princeton campus, with all its sensitive research and technology facilities.

Rider had provoked the ire of Hennessy and others, when it banned Chick-Fil-A from opening on campus, despite a majority vote by students asking for a Chick-Fil-A restaurant on campus.  It seems Rider’s administration thought that Chick-Fil-A’s ownership was too Christian and therefore “controversial”.  Apparently Kaiwen, the PLA Navy, and the CPC were just the right amount of communist.

Along with other Rider benefactors, Hennessy organized a grassroots effort to stop the sale, while there were protests by students and faculty, as well as legal challenges. Federal authorities were contacted and had become interested in the matter.  Under this pressure and the pressure from legislators like Wirths and Space, the state attorney general's office delayed the pending sale in March, asking Rider for more information about the deal.

Westminster Choir College is the world’s foremost college of religious music.  A residential college located on a 23-acre campus in the heart of Princeton, it is a four-year music college and graduate school that “prepares men and women for careers as performers and as music leaders in schools, universities, churches and professional and community organizations.”

Rider University announced on Monday that the two sides had mutually agreed to not extend the agreement.  This essentially cancelled the sale, although the money-hungry Rider administration still publicly held out hope for an “alternative relationship” with the Chinese Communists.

Assemblymen Wirths and Space, who introduced a resolution (ACR-222) in opposition to the sale, called the announcement a big win.

"It took many vocal opponents, but our efforts paid off.  Rider University made the right decision to stop the sale," Wirths said. "From the very beginning, the company's interest in the music college for the purpose of academia seemed suspicious."

Kaiwen Education has no experience in higher education.  It was a made-up subsidiary of a government-owned Chinese defense contractor.

"Today's announcement is a big win against the authoritarian Chinese government who we feared might be using the guise of academia to access Princeton's world-class scientists, researchers and institutions for nefarious purposes," Space said.

State Senator Steve Oroho introduced the Senate version of the resolution, SCR-160.  Surprisingly, no Democrats and few Republicans saw it as a battle worth fighting, let alone one that they could win.

“Standing up to one of the world’s most repressive regimes – on the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square – wasn’t considered important enough to most of the Legislature,” one grassroots campaigner said.  “While millions of people in Hong Kong are protesting this oppressive regime, the Democrats who run the Legislature were more than happy to turn a campus in Princeton over to them.”   

Another noted:  “Guess it lacked a connection to LGBTQ… that’s all that matters these days.”   

This could have been a real moment of unity in Trenton for Republicans and all but the most craven Democrats.  Instead, the Democrats tried to block legislative action in opposition to the sale, while most Republicans didn’t have the good sense to take a stand.  Thankfully, guys like Hal Wirths and Parker Space did, but where the hell is everybody else’s political radar these days???

No wonder so many members of the Republican base share sentiments like these…

Suburban Democrats ran and won on property taxes.

Has Fred Snowflake ever run a political campaign in his life?  We suspect not.

If he had, he’d spend less time in the shithouse dreaming and more time paying attention to how campaigns are run and what’s said.  But Snowflake – who writes for a website owned by a slimebag vendor who sells shit to governments that spend taxpayers’ money – does most of his work behind the latrine door these days.  His latest spin is that taxes don’t matter… especially property taxes.

Did Snowflake deliberately forget about the Trump tax cut and SALT?  Was it not discussed enough for him?  Did property taxes not emerge as a central issue in the congressional campaigns in New Jersey? 

As “proof” for his silly argument he offers us the Democrats elected to Congress from Northwest New Jersey – Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill.  According to Snowflake…

“taxes are high in New Jersey. But taxes are not the only issue.  More and more it seems that suburbanites are voting in favor of issues unrelated to taxes. They are voting in favor of abortion rights for women, a more welcoming policy toward immigrants, stronger gun control laws and an environmental policy based on science. That seemed to drive this year’s election in New Jersey…”

Seemed?  Only if you were in the shithouse. 

We looked… but cannot find a Democrat cable or broadcast advertisement that unpacks that particular issues grid.  Apparently, it wasn’t in their armory. 

What we actually got was this:  Democrats cleverly portraying themselves as Republicans on all the most important issues.  Hey, check it out for yourselves.  Go to Josh Gottheimer or Mikie Sherrill’s YouTube pages and watch the ads.

Immigration?  Are you kidding?  What you will find it this…

“Lower Taxes. Jersey Values.”

“Cut Property Taxes”

“Think your property taxes are too high?”

“Navy Pilot – Prosecutor – Mom”

“I’ll fight to restore your property tax deduction.”

Josh Gottheimer’s campaign doesn’t post any ads that could reasonably be called liberal.  Mikie Sherrill’s posts two conservative ads for every liberal ad.  And nobody says shit about immigration.

See what Snowflake is doing here?   

Snowflake’s vendor owner – a Hillary Clinton insider – is trying to convince New Jersey Republicans to screw themselves again, even as they pull that old Bill Clinton maneuver of co-opting and running on Republicans issues.  Anyone remember welfare-reform?  Or how about “the era of big government is over”? 

It’s an old trick.  And a good one.  Almost as good as the one Mikie Sherrill pulled on the constituents she’s about to represent.  Who is she?  Really?

In common with most of Democrat moes who ran this year, they all started out dancing in the street with pussy hats on, attending protests, and pretending they were back in the 1960’s (which none of them were in the first place).  The heady days of the Women’s March was that kind of Disneyland.  Then, after winning their primaries, they all suddenly became centrists and “bi-partisan”.  Not a mention of transgender anything.  Republican Bob Hugin spent more promoting abortion and gay marriage than all the Democrats put together.  Mikie Sherrill became “Navy Pilot – Prosecutor – Mom” in other words “War – Cops – and Motherhood”.  That ain’t a liberal message.

In the aftermath of Sherrill’s victory last week, most commentators missed the real reason why she won:  She got to pick her opponent for the General Election (and it was anyone other than the incumbent, Rodney Frelinghuysen).  Yep, her pussy hatted minions pushed the incumbent Republican out of the race (a fact Jay Webber should have played on).  You know, that well-respected, well-heeled, bi-partisan Vietnam War vet… yeah, him.

For that, she needed her grassroots.  All those crazies who pissed and moaned and carried on, and who, like a switch, suddenly dropped out of sight to return as blandly suburban or mildly eccentric door-to-door volunteers spitting out the party line.  Admirable discipline. 

We can only speculate as to what would have happened had the Navy pilot come up against someone who had actually tasted war.  Someone with a real record of bi-partisan accomplishment.  Who had attended to constituent service.  Or, if the incumbent had departed in a more timely fashion, a new candidate – without the encumbrance of a messy primary – who would have had the time and resources to use all those individual crazies as the means to define just who Mikie Sherrill really is.  We can only speculate.

Still, the road is long.  The opportunity will present itself again.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  - Winston Churchill

How the Democrats turnout their people to vote.

2013 should have been a blow-out for the Democrats.  Republican Governor Chris Christie romped to victory by an impressive twenty-point margin.  And yet, the Democrats were able to hold on to their legislative majorities and Republicans failed to pick up a single seat in either the Senate or Assembly. 

The following year -- this time in Pennsylvania -- Republicans pulled off a similar feat, capturing 12 legislative seats from the Democrats while the Democrat candidate for Governor was coasting to a ten-point win.  How did they do it?

For some insight into how the Democrats held the Legislature in 2013 and to what Republicans should be doing this year with the possibility of a 2013 in reverse, we need only look to Legislative District 38 and how the Democrats held this seat in the wake of the 2013 Christie landslide.  In a February 2014 article written for Campaigns & Elections magazine, an associate with the political consulting firm, The Campaign Group, explained how they prevented SRM and ARV from capitalizing on the Christie landslide.

The Campaign Group is a Philadelphia-based media firm that has run advertising campaigns for Commerce Bank of New Jersey, Cooper University Hospital, Comcast, Rob Andrews for Congress, and John Adler for Congress.  The article sets the scene:

"In 2011, incumbent state Sen. Bob Gordon eked out the narrowest victory of any state senator, and 2013 promised to be even more competitive, particularly after Christie singled out Gordon for criticism. Voters in each New Jersey legislative district elect one state senator and two assembly members district wide, and both Democrats running for state Assembly in this district were relatively untested: Paramus Borough Council President Joe Lagana and first-term incumbent Assemblyman Tim Eustace, the first openly-gay person elected to an open seat in New Jersey. So it was clear that all three races would be hotly-contested."

The article goes on to helpfully explain that the Democrats  "were rightly concerned the lackluster campaign of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Barbara Buono could lead to decreased Democratic turnout that would sink their candidates."  So they resolved to do something about it by going back to their base:

"They convened focus groups in LD38 of Democrats who were not certain to vote in November’s election. If we could find out what would motivate them to turn out, despite the lack of a competitive gubernatorial campaign, we’d have a real shot at altering the turnout dynamic."

They launched an effort "independent of what the candidates were doing."  The field campaign connected with more than 11,000 voters and generated 803 vote-by-mail applications.  The article continues:

"Field Strategies identified a list of 2,300 households with voters believed to contain only rock-ribbed Democrats. These voters didn’t need to see our ads criticizing the Republican candidates, because there was no way there would vote for a Republican. But many of these voters were not particularly likely to vote in the November elections, so we wanted to build on the existing GOTV messages and use our TV buy to motivate them to get off their behinds and vote."

The trend in New Jersey over the last two decades has been to target fewer and fewer "likely" voters.  You've all heard those references to 4 of 4 voters and 3 of 4, and so on.  What these  Democrats did was to reach out to their "unlikely" voters and persuade them to "change their habits" and come out to vote.  It is what the Republican legislative campaign did in 2014 to produce a pick-up of 12 seats that year in the face of a gubernatorial defeat.

All this happened in 2013 and 2014.  Pennsylvania Republicans used it again in 2016 to pad that "blue" state's Republican legislative majorities -- giving them a 34 to 16 Republican majority in the State Senate, and a 121 to 82 Republican majority in the State House of Representatives.  In contrast, New Jersey Republicans ignored their conservative base in 2015 -- and lost legislative seats.

This year marks yet another in which the lessons of 2013 have not been applied.  Movement conservatives were not called upon until very late in the campaign and at this point, with less than two weeks to election day, have still not been fully mobilized.  In contrast, in 2013 the Democrats had all their base's issues groups activated and with marching orders to begin their voter turnout operation nine weeks prior to election day. 

In Pennsylvania, conservative grassroots activists are part of the party's bloodstream and issues groups form a sharp-pointed "irregular" militia working in general concert with the GOP "regulars."  This has been resisted in New Jersey and, sadly, the prospects for 2017 appear headed for a repeat of 2013 and 2015 -- except with the added sadness that the gubernatorial campaign may be blamed and no lessons learned.

But fight on while the fight is still going.  There is time enough still.