By Rubashov
At the “A Seat At The Table” conference – held on Thursday, April 28th – former 2016 Trump campaign operative and later White House advisor Dr. Sebastian Gorka made the point that last November’s legislative and down-ballot victories by Republicans in New Jersey were won not by the party organization, but by a wave of grassroots activism angry with the policies of Democrat Governor Phil Murphy. Republicans’ most spectacular victory – trucker Ed Durr’s upset win over Senate President Steve Sweeney – seems to bear out Gorka’s assertion.
Run by a grassroots activist instead of an insider consultant, Durr’s campaign was ignored by Trenton and the NJGOP establishment. Durr achieved his victory with practically no money – while his Democrat opponent had a war chest of over $2 million. Durr’s victory upended all the Trenton establishment’s most basic assumptions about how campaigns are won – although the blogs representing the Trenton establishment (InsiderNJ, NJGlobe, and Save Jersey) have since reverted to the conventional obsessions with money and organizational support.
In the months since he won, no real attempt has been made to figure out how Durr did it and – more importantly – on how to replicate a victory on a shoestring budget. That’s obviously not in the interests of insider campaign consultants who make a commission on every mail piece, every cable ad, every paid campaign communication. That’s not their business model. And even though it would be in the party’s best interests – it’s not in their best interest. So they’ve used their influence at the NJGOP to shut down any attempts to replicate the Durr victory.
Durr’s campaign manager has largely been shut out of GOP gatherings and prevented from conveying his proven strategy to a new generation of campaign managers. Durr’s victory has been embarrassingly pushed under the rug as its very existence does so much to undermine the often pronounced certainties of New Jersey’s political class – especially the campaign consultants and the Trenton blogs that rely on their advertising revenue.
Dr. Gorka compared the grassroots wave of 2021 with the wave in 2016 that had upset expectations and placed someone who had never held public office in the White House. He reminded those present of just how out-of-touch the Washington, DC, GOP Establishment was in the run-up to 2016 – its political operatives, donors, and consultants. Remember all those polls and pundits who insisted that GOP voters wanted amnesty for illegals? Only the Trump campaign was uncompromised by interest groups and their hirings to allow themselves to genuinely understand what voters wanted. He swept the primaries.
The “A Seat At The Table” conference was put together by three very accomplished women, all grassroots activists with large followings. The audience was full of recently elected school board members – all elected on a shoestring, the Ed Durr model. In contrast to the recent NJGOP “leadership summit” in Atlantic City, the “A Seat At The Table” conference was bubbling with policy ideas, and was impressive for the sheer number of thinkers, writers, and authors present. That’s not to say they were light on practical politics. The state’s top talk show host MCed the event. The head of the nation’s top conservative PAC – the guy who puts on CPAC each year – was the keynote speaker. An alternative lineup of pollsters and political consultants was present – as well as a few dozen folks that we know of who think nothing of writing maxed-out checks.
Most impressively, the conference was filled with thoughtful average citizens who are energized and want to help. That was a big difference from the summit, most of whose attendees were in the business of politics: paid party operatives, political consultants, lobbyists, vendors, patronage job holders, appointees, county and municipal professionals, elected officials, and the like. Where the summit was more about networking and fattening the bottom line, the conference focused on getting excited about policy and then going out and doing something about it.
Some view the “A Seat At The Table” conference as a threat to the hegemony of the present state GOP establishment. We don’t feel that way at all. To us, they appear to be about policy, about winning policy battles, and about finding candidates who understand the policy concerns of the grassroots and who will fight for them.
This does pose a challenge to some in the state party who do not share those policy concerns – or who actively oppose them. But it poses the greatest challenge to the professional political consultants who most candidates turn to develop the messages they run on. The fashion today can be summed up as policy minimalist. There is an epidemic out there of candidates who refuse to answer questions, fill out questionnaires, or allow themselves to be pinned down on any issue. But they’ve been advised to take this opaque, bait and switch approach by the consultants they pay to run their campaigns.
Political scientists noticed this trend over the last couple decades. The late Sheldon Wolin, Professor of Politics at Princeton University, wrote about the personal narrative of the candidates becoming more important than the policies they stand for. Benjamin DeMott called it “junk politics” – while others have labeled it “stupid politics” or “post-literate politics” or “political theater”.
Well, it is now standard operating procedure for insider Republican campaign consultants in New Jersey. They demand it of their candidates – a strict discipline of no issues pages, no questionnaires, and only the most generalized positions on policy. This fashion of “policy-free” campaigning is running head-on into the new grassroots activism evidenced at the conference. Average voters realize it for the hollow rip-off that it is: In return for your vote, my candidate offers nothing beyond his pretty smile and some highlights on his resume. In other words, the voter gets nothing.
Of course, the dumbed-down media long ago swapped policy discussions for competing political personalities – as if it were an episode of “American Ninja Warrior” instead of a campaign for public office. And the worst of the lot are Trenton-centric so-called “insider” blogs that focus on “process” stories and gossip. And so you get full coverage on a congressional candidate standing on one foot for a minute or so but nothing on why these candidates are failing to tell people where they stand on important issues in the news… like Roe v. Wade. “Junk politics” – “stupid politics” – “post-literate politics” – “political theater” or stupid celebrity wannabees, take your pick.
But recent developments have made things even worse and threaten to turn state GOP politics into a cesspit of vitriol. In the aftermath of a series of election cycles that saw the state GOP lose all its Republican congressmen save one – along with such formerly powerhouse Republican counties as Bergen, Somerset, and Burlington – some in the party have questioned the habit of giving all the campaign work to a few insider political consultants. They wanted to expand the party’s management stable to include people like the guy who ran Ed Durr’s winning campaign on a shoestring. This pissed off the insiders to no end – and it’s been reflected in the tone of their campaigns.
Hey, it’s bad enough it’s a policy-free zone but now the arguments are over infantile nonsense – like a congressional candidate complaining because his opponent’s campaign manager (so he claims) treated him like he was “a ghost” and compared it to “an episode of Mean Girls.” No shit, a candidate actually said that. A former Marine, no less. And it took up a big piece of a debate – hosted by two Trenton insider bloggers. They actually focused on shit like this. Not on policy differences, mind you, but on shit like this.
These congressional campaigns are becoming petty schoolyard hatefests because some consultants are afraid they’re going to have to share the vittles. And it pisses them off. They want it all – all of it. No sharing!
And where once they advertised their win-loss records, now they make up narratives about how losing last year’s gubernatorial race was the best thing that happened to Republicans in 30 years. Really??? And they brag about the awards given them by other insider establishment political consultants. Hey, every marginal “profession” has similar awards – trash haulers, used car salesmen, insurance agents – but maybe not so many as political consultants, who have so many awards no one need go home without one. Dave Chappelle did a fine spoof on this that captures nicely the attitudes and inner thoughts of any gathering of political consultants.
