Spadea lost, just like he always does

Over the past year, Bill Spadea has used the corporate resources of Townsquare Media and Oaktree Capital Management in an effort to make Spadea a major player in New Jersey politics.  Those corporate resources are worth tens of millions of dollars and the airtime alone expended by Spadea and his agents would have cost the average political campaign millions to buy.  All it took was a complacent board of directors and a greedy local management for Spadea to accomplish this enormous appropriation of resources and capital.

Spadea accomplished what some would have considered impossible.  He took hold of a wallflower Lt. Governor and tore her away from the Governor who had mentored and promoted her.  Spadea smirked as the Lt. Governor performed stunts for him, like opposing Governor Christie on Ballot Question 2 (a subject she had been in silent approval of until Spadea taught her to sit up and beg, bark, and bite).  The Lt. Governor's Super PAC spent money to defeat Ballot Question 2 as she campaigned across the state on a platform that included advocating for a NO vote on both Question 2 and Donald Trump.

Poor Kim Guadagno.  She lost on both.  This is what happens when you follow the fluttering eyelashes of Billy "the hand" Spadea.  Yep.  A political prognosticator he aint.  Spadea can't help it, because his big ego gets in the way of him seeing clearly.  He wishes it to be, so he believes it will be, even when it won't be.

Spadea has had this problem his whole life.  He thought he was part of an historic wave when he tried to split the RNC and start a far-right third party in the mid-1990's.  That failed.  Then he ran for Congress and lost.  He started his "Red Shirt" movement, the "Building a New Majority" project, promoted a statewide GOP candidate who would transform the Republican Party to remake it in his vision.  Failed, failed, and failed again.  He even set his sights lower, ran for Assembly, and found himself blocked.  Another failure.  Bitterness followed.

Then he was rescued by FOX. Given a late-night "news of a kind" show.  Then the popular host of NJ101.5 had an accident, and Spadea found himself with a lever of power that he quickly learned and used to pursue his personal ambitions.

But Spadea went too far.  Having lost the gas tax vote he decided on the "Big Lie" approach and made up the myth that Ballot Question 2 was a vote on the gas tax.  People like Kim Guadagno believed him, but groups like AFP and ATR saw Spadea's bullshit for what it was.  On Tuesday, Spadea lost once again.