Who is this John McCann being pushed on us?

Another "star" is born.  Courtesy of a SaveJersey "poll" and indicating little more than that somebody's hand has been working overtime.  Sigh.

We doubt that 425 people could pick John McCann out of a line-up.  But that hasn't stopped a few insiders from pushing him for Congress in CD05 as the latest, tired NJGOP... wait for it... "game changer"! 

Oh, how we love that phrase.  Such a long list of losers have been touted as "game changers" -- so many lifeless, idealess, dead-end sales floor mannequins.

The Republican party bosses in Bergen County, fresh from their most recent loss (in a long string of losses), have abjectly surrendered to the point that they now believe that the only way forward is to formally turn their county organization over to the Democrats, and to rest comfortably under the wing of the Democrat Party.  So they accept the Democrats' terms and lawyer John McCann, who works for and is paid by the County's elected Democrat Sheriff, will be their candidate for Congress. 

With John McCann, Republicans will appear to have found a candidate to oppose incumbent Democrat Josh Gottheimer.  In reality, McCann's candidacy will be a hollow one, lacking financial resources or contrast with the Democrat.  It will serve the Democrats' will and cement Democrat Gottheimer into a district that no Democrat should hold.

John McCann is one of the NJGOP's "hollow men" -- having surfaced to run for the Assembly in 1995, he was crushed, fell to earth, and burrowed into the moist manure of crony politics.  Here he existed as a kind of chrysalis, without thought, ideology, or principles.  The money doesn't allow such things.  There are lots of "hollow men" about.  The NJGOP could not fill a room without them.

We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats' feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar
    
    Shape without form, shade without colour,
    Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

    ...Behaving as the wind behaves

At the very beginning of conservative Scott Garrett's career in Congress, at the very beginning, John McCann attempted to go from pupa to butterfly.  But it was to oppose both Scott Garrett and Gerry Cardinale in the primary because, so John McCann said, they were "too conservative."

McCann, a self-described follower of the ideology of Democrat-turned Republican-turned Democrat Arlen Specter, assured anyone who cared to listen that the only way Republicans could hold on to CD05 was to nominate a "moderate".  McCann spelled that out as someone who was liberal on abortion, the social issues, and the Second Amendment.  Oh well, he was wrong, and in any case, his campaign collapsed because he couldn't raise the money or support to sustain it.  That was in 2002.  Does anyone really believe that the GOP has gone Left since then?

But McCann is, so they assure us, a GAME CHANGER.  And if you look at it from the other end, he is.  It's the end game.  John McCann's candidacy promises to end the game and to deliver New Jersey's 5th Congressional District into Democrat hands for what might as well be an eternity in politics.  And the Democrat Sheriff will keep writing his Democrat checks, and the Bergen bosses will accrue some considerations, and one more piece will be removed from the already almost blank board.  One less contention to squabble over. 

This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.