Pro-Murphy candidate runs as Republican in Sussex/Warren/Morris
/By Sussex Watchdog
Dan Cruz was invited to discuss his views with conservatives in the state – leaders from the Second Amendment Society, the Pro-Life movement, Steve Lonegan, and groups concerned about illegal immigration. Cruz ignored them and instead asked a blog run by Democrats to publish a public relations profile of him. The owner of the blog was outed by no less than Wikileaks for his connections to Hillary Clinton’s fundraising operation in New Jersey.
So, it appears that the Democrats – after having been resoundingly crushed by Sussex County Republicans year after year – have simply given up on finding a candidate to run under their own party label against Sussex County’s top local Republican on the ballot this year. That’s right, the April 5th filing deadline came and went, but no Democrat filed against Sussex County’s Republican Senator, Steve Oroho (LD24) this year.
Instead, the Democrats are lavishing their attention on Dan Cruz – formerly a loyal Democrat primary voter – and are using their social media presence to push him on blogs like the one that did the public relations piece. In that piece, Cruz played loyal wingman to Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, defending his record on COVID just one day after Sussex County residents gathered for a prayer-vigil to remember the victims of Murphy’s Executive Order 103 – which hit Sussex County particularly hard and killed over 8,000 loved ones statewide.
Governor Murphy isn’t stupid. He knows that this election is about him – not Donald Trump. The last time he was on a ballot in Sussex County, in 2017, Phil Murphy received 36 percent of the vote, buoyed by an anti-Trump backlash. Bob Menendez got just 33 percent of the vote in Sussex County in 2018 – in midst of the Trump era. Murphy is also aware of just how low it can go if you can’t make it about Trump. In 2013, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono scraped together a mere 25 percent of the vote.
In 2019, at the last legislative election, Republican Assemblymen Parker Space and Hal Wirths got 69 percent of the vote. Republican Sheriff Mike Strada received 94 percent – and the Republican Freeholder candidates had the same 94 percent.
Governor Murphy knows Steve Oroho’s record as a candidate and knows that it’s formidable. As an outsider, Oroho defeated an incumbent Freeholder Director and an incumbent Legislator supported by the entire Trenton machine to get where he is. Against Democrats he has won with excess of 70 percent of the vote. At his last primary, in 2017, Oroho won re-election by 49 percentage points – 74 percent to 25 percent.
Before Steve Oroho became Sussex County’s Senator, county Democrats could console themselves with victories on the municipal and county levels. They could elect a Freeholder or a Mayor. But not under Steve Oroho. They haven’t held a single county seat while he’s been Senator – and the only mayors they can win hide their party registration and run as fiscal conservatives in non-partisan elections.
Murphy is concerned about Oroho’s ability to power turnout in Sussex County – hence, no Democrat opponent – but at the same time Murphy needs friendly “Republicans” to speak up for him and help cut the margin. This is where Cruz comes in.
George Will or Pee-wee Herman?
Results??? Cruz is running against the only Republican legislator to make the NJ media’s list of most effective legislators. Senator Oroho's tax cuts were praised by conservative groups like Americans for Tax Reform and conservative publications like Forbes, which called his tax cuts “one of the 5 best state and local tax policy changes in 2016 nationwide.” Of course, Cruz is still learning his lines in his new role as "conservative Republican". We can’t expect him to know all this.
Cruz’ connections to the Paterson Democrat machine and its allies is reinforced by yesterday’s public relations piece. He is trying to present himself in ways that he imagines a conservative Republican would, but it comes off as a cross between George Will and Pee-wee Herman. In preparation for his post-primary role as Murphy apologist, Cruz is adopting the kind of cringeworthy, defensive phrases that corporate Democrats find so acceptable in “Republicans” – like they did “The Lincoln Project”.
For example, the Democrats’ public relations piece about Cruz, notes that he wants “to ‘break the stigma’ associated with the Republican party before they lost their grasp. He acknowledged that some of that came from President Donald Trump’s term in the White House… ‘We cannot just serve one side, we have to serve everyone and bring everyone together to make decisions on a collaborative effort. Many people disliked the party because of President Trump’s message and what he stood for, but that doesn’t mean all of us are like that.’”
And this: “As far as Cruz is concerned, Republicans can do better by reaching out to areas that they traditionally have not campaigned in. Republicans’ failure to try to appreciably make the big tent bigger is detrimental to their long term success. Regarding the gubernatorial election, he said, ‘My impression is this. Murphy has the leg. Right now, he is ahead in the most populous cities—Paterson, Newark, Trenton—he is ahead there. You don’t have a Republican who can go into these cities and say ‘Vote for me.’ They aren’t going into the inner cities, speaking to the people.’”
“When asked what he thought of Governor Phil Murphy’s performance handling the pandemic, Cruz was candid. ‘Regarding Governor Murphy there are some things that he could’ve done better, and there are obviously some things he has done that you can say he did OK. I think with the COVID plan, he did what he thought was the best possible solution in his eyes and administration,’ a seemingly rare instance in the current climate where an opposition party acknowledges the perceived sincerity of another.”
Cruz completely avoided mentioned Executive Order 103 or the 8,000 people who died or the fact that the worst hit nursing homes were in the county and district he says he wants to represent. And the vigil to remember those who died had just been held in the town in which he lives! Now, that is shilling.
Cruz went on to compare Murphy to Republican governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida. Cruz said Murphy had done better… “Balancing governmental direction with laissez faire has been a perilous tightrope act for Governor Murphy since the start of the pandemic. ‘When you read the news and listen to people,’ Cruz said, ‘I believe that New Jerseyans have been extremely responsible during this time.’”
But Dan Cruz’ utility for Murphy doesn’t end with protecting his flank with Republicans. Cruz’ background as a teacher and education activist provides a perspective to launch attacks on attempts by more fiscally responsible Democrats to rein in some of Murphy’s more bewildering excesses. And so, Cruz has bitterly attacked Senate President Steve Sweeney and the Path to Progress, which is the work of a bi-partisan coalition of Democrat and Republican legislators.
Cruz opposes the reduction in education administrators that the consolidation advocated in the Path to Progress would produce. Fewer individual units delivering education equals a smaller education bureaucracy and fewer administrators. By coincidence, it just so happens that Cruz’ wife is an education administrator making six-figures and all the benefits. She works for the New York City school system at a high school with problems not unlike those in New Jersey that the Path to Progress is looking to address: Only 2 percent of students have taken an Advanced Placement Test, just 37 percent are proficient at mathematics, only 32 percent are proficient at reading, and the graduation rate is 29 percent.
Is Steve Sweeney and the Path to Progress right? Will consolidating bureaucracy help? While admitting that it would save taxpayers’ money, Cruz doesn’t think so. He’s concerned that local school superintendents and the boards they control would lose too much power – and if that were to happen, what might become of taxpayer-funded positions like he enjoys, and all those perks and benefits that mere legislators can only dream of?
Maybe he’d have to fall back on his business – a sideline to top off two taxpayer-funded incomes (with perks and benefits) – called Opulent Creations Events, L.L.C. The upside is that Cruz would have more time to attend to it and not have the problems he had with the NJ Department of Revenue which, according to them, suspended Cruz’ business (he is listed as COO) from January 16, 2016 to May 15, 2017. A silver lining?
“Nobody goes faster than the legs they have.”
Alberto Caeiro (Fernando Pessoa)
