Did Oroho lie on open primary? Turns on supporters vetted to run with him.

On March 18th of last year, Senator Steve Oroho and Chief of Staff Jeff Spatola had a meeting with Assemblyman Parker Space and GOP State Committeewoman Jill Space at a local Sussex County watering hole. What came from that meeting was a deal, whereby Parker Space would announce that he would not run for re-election to the Assembly and, in return, Senator Oroho would endorse Jill Space for County Commissioner, and in the process push Franklin Borough Councilman Concetto Formica off Oroho’s ticket.
 
An aside to this deal was that Councilman Formica had to shave off his very full beard (Formica is a union carpenter) in order to gain admittance onto Oroho’s ticket (which, in any case, Oroho wasn’t even a part of) as well as to desist in his battle against the Senator’s somewhat Woke son-in-law, the Superintendent of the Franklin School District. Formica complied and so left the race both clean shaven and with the feeling that his good nature had been thoroughly abused (which he was).
 
A number of people began to position themselves to succeed Parker Space in the Assembly. Most aggressive of these was Chester Township Councilman Mike Inganamort, who was pursuing a two-track strategy of running for Mayor of Chester Township while actively seeking the Assembly nomination.
 
Later, Assemblyman Hal Wirths would join Space in deciding not to run for re-election, which left two open seats on what would be a ticket actually headed by Senator Oroho in 2023. In the wake of Hal Wirths’ departure, many more names were added to the list of those seeking one of the now two open Assembly slots available on Steve Oroho’s ticket. Each candidate personally reached out to the Senator and each was given encouragement by the Senator.
 
In the case of Steve Lonegan, the encouragement ran to “double dates” – with Steve and Rita Oroho joining Steve and Lorraine Lonegan for drinks and various culinary adventures. And while Chris Carney and Dawn Fantasia (both Sussex County Commissioners) were coy about expressing an interest, ELEC 825’s Kate Gibbs was not, campaigning furiously on their behalf and against Lonegan.
   
In December the Senator’s office held a series of vetting meetings with all the aspiring Assembly candidates – Josh Aikens, Enrico Fioranelli, Jason Sarnoski, Rob Kovic, Chris Carney, Dawn Fantasia, Steve Lonegan, and Mike Inganamort – at locations in Sussex and Morris Counties.
 
It was expected that Senator Oroho would select two Assembly running mates to join him on his ticket. There was significant lobbying. Dawn Fantasia told people at the county building that she had one spot locked up. Two senior leaders from Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 825 visited the Senator in Trenton to make their case. On January 12th, Oroho reached out to his senior office staff, SRM, and his longtime political consultants to schedule a conference call at 10am the following morning to “Discuss Announcement for My Campaign”.
 
On Friday, January 13th, Senator Oroho sent the following draft email to his office/ team and instructed that it form the basis for an email to the eight prospective candidates for Assembly:
 
I wanted you to know that today I announced my campaign for re-election.
 
I want to thank each of you for meeting with the screening committee. I have talked with the members of the committee and it’s clear to me that each of you would serve well in the State Assembly.  I consider you all friends.  Each of you would bring a strong set of conservative principles to the state legislature.
 
As you were going through the screening process and over the past few weeks I thought a lot about my own journey.
 
I’ve always believed that candidates should present their credentials, platform and message to voters.  You have all heard from me that I will never tell someone not to run, and I have been one of a few holdouts for having a “County Line”.
 
When I ran for Franklin Borough Council, I was a political unknown.   But I took my message to votes and I won.
 
When I ran for Freeholder, I was not the party choice, but I had the opportunity to make my case to Sussex County voters.  They agreed, and I was elected to serve as a County Freeholder
 
When I ran for State Senate, I was certainly not the choice of the Trenton Republican Establishment (not by a long shot!), but I took my case to the voters of Sussex, Morris and Hunterdon (at the time) and enough of the voters entrusted me with their vote to get me elected.
 
As you all know my first primary for Senate was a close election, after which I had to demonstrate to all the voters in the whole district that I would work hard to represent them well. Since then they’ve supported me with with good margins of victory.
 
I believe it is because I’ve worked hard to share my conservative agenda and worked hard to represent the values we all share.
 
I believe you all should have your chance to make your case to the voters.  So you can share your conservative vision with them.  And so that all of you can have a level playing field.
 
Representing the people of the 24th district is a serious undertaking.  We work for the people.   They come first.  And they deserve a voice in the process.  This process will ensure we continue to have the strongest Conservative Republican Team in the state!
 
Good luck in whatever you choose to do. Through this process I am confident that after the primary in June I will have an excellent pair of running mates to defeat our Democrat opponents and go on to serve our constituents and the rest of New Jersey well in Trenton.
 
In a follow-up email discussing the draft (which had by then morphed from the first to the third person), Senator Oroho added this sentence to the final statement: “And it is for that reason, in deference and with respect to all your candidacies, he will not be creating a slate with any of you.”
 
The final draft was approved by the Senator and the statement was sent by email to the eight Assembly candidates at noon that day. At 1pm, a press release was sent out accompanying the statement emailed to the Assembly candidates.
 
On the afternoon of January 13th, Senator Steve Oroho was a candidate for re-election, and he had announced an open primary in which he was stating no preference. Two weeks later, Senator Oroho became the third member of District 24’s shared legislative office to exit. A day later, Parker Space announced he would run for Oroho’s Senate seat. At the Morris County GOP convention on Saturday, LD24 Senate Chief of Staff Jeff Spatola worked the room alongside GOP political consultant Chris Russell.
 
Earlier today, Steve Oroho tore up his assurances to five of the seven remaining Assembly candidates who he claimed were his “friends” and who went through his vetting process and were assured by him that he would not pick sides in the Assembly race. Of course, this is not the first such reversal.
 
A similar incident occurred in 2013, in the aftermath of legislative elections in which Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean Jr. pushed hard to defeat Senate President Steve Sweeney and other members of the Democrat caucus. Senator Oroho signed a public statement in which he, along with others, pledged their support to Senator Kean for re-election as GOP Senate Leader. But then Sweeney intervened and asked Oroho to vote against Kean and for a different candidate. Oroho did an about face.

Kean was not focused on the next political iteration of himself but on protecting what he has right now – the job he has held for the last six years.

He was calling nearly every Republican senator in his caucus and asking for his or her support for another term as leader.

He got 11 out of 16 names on a letter that was issued Wednesday. 
 

“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell

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