NJGOP: Will Bob Hugin cause a civil war for Jack Ciattarelli?

By Rubashov

First, a hearty welcome to our new readers in the Washington Metro area.

Later today, former U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hugin will become the new Leader of New Jersey’s Republican Party. Ideologically, Hugin is very different from the last two men at the helm of the NJGOP. Outgoing Chairman Mike Lavery is a behind-the-scenes guy who shares a similar issue grid with the Chairman he replaced, Doug Steinhardt, an unashamed conservative on issues like the Right-to-Life, the Second Amendment, illegal immigration, taxes, and traditional values.

Of course, Hugin spent $36 million on a campaign to convince voters that he wasn’t a conservative. Nevertheless, he had more than enough connections with President Trump for the Democrats to define him. His campaign provided insiders with six-figure jobs, made some consultants rich, but was otherwise a disaster. While suppressing the GOP base, Hugin drove up swing Democrat turnout in several congressional districts that Hugin won – and the Republican Congressman or congressional candidate lost.

Last December, Hugin ran for Chairman of the NJGOP and came up short. Since then, the former Big Pharma executive has busied himself with changing the face of the GOP. Since his 2018 campaign, Hugin appears to have more deeply embraced identity politics.

For example, an independent expenditure committee controlled by Hugin called Women for a Stronger New Jersey spent around $30,000 on direct mail, text-messaging, robo-calls, and social media in an attempt to defeat a conservative State Committeewoman in Mercer County and replace her with what would have been the first transgender State Committeewoman to represent the GOP. The effort ultimately failed, but one can only ask why such resources – scarce in the best of times – would be wasted on such a silly primary, for such a silly cause. Surely, with so few legislators and counties in the GOP column, $30,000 would be better used to defeat Democrats.

Women for a Stronger New Jersey is run by Bob Hugin’s 2018 U.S. Senate campaign manager, who also benefits as a vendor to the committee. Hugin’s spouse is a member of the three-member board that runs the committee, according to its webpage. And as if anyone needed clarification as to the ideology of the candidates the committee is looking to promote, the Women for a Stronger New Jersey website is very clear on this:

“We're working to grow the number of women serving in elected office at the state and local level by building a diverse network of moderate Republican and Independent women throughout the state and expanding the pool of women considering public office.”

That’s right, conservative Republican women need not apply. But independents – as in non-Republicans – are okay. That’s kind of a sucky formula, isn’t it?

Earlier this year, when the state’s senior Pro-Life Senator decided to run for re-election, Women for a Stronger New Jersey was there wasting resources and urging a primary. And there was a primary – not for the Senate, but for the Assembly – with another enormous waste of resources. In total, Republicans have pissed away about $2 million on avoidable primaries – and that’s not counting the gubernatorial race. Insider vendors and consultants trouser the proceeds and benefit, but the party doesn’t. Because money doesn’t come easy.

Women for a Stronger New Jersey is not the only committee Bob Hugin has set-up that seems drawn to killing its Republican brethren. Jersey Real is a federal independent expenditure SuperPAC that has spent hundreds of thousands in Republican congressional primaries in seats that we later failed to pick-up. The Treasurer of Jersey Real happens to be that same candidate who was hoping to become the first transgendered Republican State Committeewoman. Small world.

Jersey Real is already active fomenting primaries in two congressional districts for next year: CD05 and CD03. Jersey Real’s choice in CD05 worked on Hugin’s 2018 campaign. It doesn’t appear to matter to anyone that the Democrat incumbent is sitting on $9 million. Nobody has asked, let alone answered, the question about how Republicans spending a million or more dollars bashing each other is going to help that arithmetic. Hey, the consultants and vendors will trouser a lot of cash – but the poor GOP donors shouldn’t expect a return on their investment.

One high-ranking party boss in South Jersey said that Bob Hugin told him the NJGOP wants “new” looking candidates… youth, women, “minorities”, anything but old white guys. What’s going on in your head doesn’t matter… issues, policies, ideas, solutions, ethics, integrity, honesty… these things don’t matter. It is all about how you look and how they can market you. Sad, especially because they almost always lose anyway.

After the scandal of Watergate, steps were taken to make our election process more democratic. In the time since, the Courts have destroyed those reforms, ruling that money is speech. Today, the average voter feels shouted down by a few very rich oligarchs who count for a very few votes but whose money allows them to scream very loudly and shout down millions of voters.

This disparity led a Princeton University study (Gilens & Page, 2014) to conclude: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Voters believe in the ideal of democracy but increasingly understand they do not have it.

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

In an opinion column, published in yesterday’s New Jersey Globe, Fairleigh Dickinson’s Peter Woolley wrote: “Jack (Ciattarelli) barely mustered half of the Republican primary vote though running against two candidates who were, to put it most charitably, marginal.”  It’s actually worse than that, because most Republican voters weren’t excited enough or mad enough to vote at all. 
 
Bob, you have been chosen to lead the NJGOP by the 2021 gubernatorial nominee.  His name is Jack Ciattarelli.  He is job one.  Along with every legislator and legislative candidate and all the county offices and local elected offices.  The party has candidates who face do or die THIS November. 
 
Don’t get ahead of yourself worrying about how to put your stamp on the 2022 congressional primaries so that the GOP establishment nominates a bunch of lefties nobody cares about.  If you are going to do that, you might as well take Alan Steinberg’s advice and just embrace critical race theory and then – for all your money – prepare to be the state’s third party.
 
Finally, you need to accept that this is a grungier, more blue-collar party now.  A candidate can get by perfectly well just by repeating the word “Trump”.  Of course, that is not a policy or a solution.  But neither is the first transgendered (fill in the blank).  More than branding, the GOP needs thinking.  Come up with solutions to the problems voters face and then tell the story of how you are going to do it, so that they believe at least you’ll try.          

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

Eric Hoffer

Pastor Brad Winship: Illegal Immigration

The great crisis being ignored by the media is flood of illegal immigrants at our Southern Border.  Supporters of open borders say mercy demands that we welcome all illegal immigrants as refugees.  Opponents say lawless border crossing is not compassion but abuse and human trafficking.  In this week’s program I wrestle with this whole issue of mercy vs. law.  Les Miserables is a timeless example of this conflict.

Scripture References:  James 2:12-13; Luke 6:36; Matthew 5:7; Matthew 23:23; Luke 10:37; Matthew 9:12 -13; Matthew 18; Isaiah 26:10; Jude 4; Genesis 50:20; Romans 3:8

YouTube #73 Illegal Immigration – Mercy and Law

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Why did Peg Schaffer lie to defend Phil Murphy?

Is it just us or does Somerset County Democrat Chairlady Peg Schaffer remind one of an overly operatic tryout for a role as one of the Valkyries?

Does that make Governor Phil Murphy war-father???

But why does she need to lie?

There is this anti-truth line that woke members of this new Democrat Party take nowadays.  Let someone, anyone, make a point about illegal immigration – and these anti-truth Democrats simply drop the “illegal” and falsely claim that it is an attack on all immigrants. 

And it goes beyond illegal immigration to crime in general.  These new Democrats take the case of a Shawn Custis and turn comments on his illegality into a “racially based” attack.  You say you don’t know Mr. Custis?  Well you can catch some of his work here...

Peg Schaffer’s fellow Democrats have a new demographic to practice their identity politics on... convicted criminals.  That's right.  The Democrat Party in New Jersey wants to give convicted criminals – including those behind bars – the power to vote.

That’s right, they want to give electoral power to murderers, rapists, robbers, and such.  And we all know what happens when a politician smells a vote.  They're going to give something away to get it.  Laws are going to get progressively weaker and weaker.  Especially when the Star-Ledger reports that there are 100,000 criminal votes to be had in New Jersey.  That many votes could easily swing a statewide election and a large prison population would certainly shift the balance in a legislative seat or two.

Imagine Shawn Custis as a prison ward leader, lobbying the Democrat-majority Legislature, organizing a petition drive (doubtless with the help of Action Together and the Women's March) to get Governor Goldman-Sachs 2.0 and Tammy Jane Fonda to sign into law a community release program that gets him out of doors again... Coming to an average door in an average community like yours. Yep, it’s going to be a Mad Max kind of world.

What makes these new Democrats so different from good old-fashioned Democrats is that these new ideologues can’t get past the “identity” stuff.  Their judgments are never about the criminality – whether we are talking illegal immigration or Shawn Custis… the illegal part gets taken away.

About the only thing these new Democrats do believe is criminal is having the wrong political opinions.  Express the “wrong” point-of-view and they will bully, and threat-face, and generally behave like an outraged Valkyrie.  And just as “identity” makes all the difference in the world as to whether a crime is a crime, or not, “identity” also governs whether a thought is a crime, or not.  There are some people who can never be right, just as there are some who can never be wrong.

This is the lens through which we can view Peg Schaffer’s attack yesterday on a Republican Freeholder who used the word “illegal” to describe undocumented immigrants who are resident in the United States in violation of federal law.  Yes, that pretty much can be described as illegal.  But in Peg Schaffer’s warped world, she finds fault with the describer, not the act.

It makes no difference that anybody who can read knows that Democrat Governor Phil Murphy is spending millions in taxpayers’ money on special programs targeted to illegal immigrants, Murphy brags about it!  And it makes no difference that flooding the job market in New Jersey with thousands of new off-the-books, “gray economy” workers will undermine any increase in the minimum wage and further distress the labor market for the working poor.

And it makes no difference that illegal immigrant labor provides for rich professionals just as surely as it destroys the prospects of labor trade unions.  No difference that the gray economy creates a near-slave class trapped by low cost wages, working for a “liberal” suburban bourgeoisie that wants the sweat of its fellow man at the cheapest possible rate. No difference that the cost to property taxpayers to provide a safety net for this gray economy has given New Jersey the highest property taxes and the highest rates of foreclosure in America.  No difference that poverty and child hunger are the legacies of these  woke policies that are designed to allow greedy suburban liberals the chance to feel-good about themselves… simply by voting Democrat.  It’s a great scam to pretend to care for people who you want around only because you can pay them less than you would your working class neighbor – and keep your money in your pockets.

If new Democrats like Peg Schaffer really cared, they would demand open borders both ways.  They would demand an end to international immigration laws that block Americans from moving elsewhere – instead of supporting a one-way open border policy designed to send a never-ending flow of cheap, near-slave labor to undercut the working class, the trade union movement, leaving minimum wage increases meaningless.  But Peg Schaffer doesn’t really care, does she?  These new Democrats are anti-truth.  It is all a scam, a means to muzzle an opponent with a different point of view.  A hectoring Valkyrie.