Suburban Democrats ran and won on property taxes.

Has Fred Snowflake ever run a political campaign in his life?  We suspect not.

If he had, he’d spend less time in the shithouse dreaming and more time paying attention to how campaigns are run and what’s said.  But Snowflake – who writes for a website owned by a slimebag vendor who sells shit to governments that spend taxpayers’ money – does most of his work behind the latrine door these days.  His latest spin is that taxes don’t matter… especially property taxes.

Did Snowflake deliberately forget about the Trump tax cut and SALT?  Was it not discussed enough for him?  Did property taxes not emerge as a central issue in the congressional campaigns in New Jersey? 

As “proof” for his silly argument he offers us the Democrats elected to Congress from Northwest New Jersey – Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill.  According to Snowflake…

“taxes are high in New Jersey. But taxes are not the only issue.  More and more it seems that suburbanites are voting in favor of issues unrelated to taxes. They are voting in favor of abortion rights for women, a more welcoming policy toward immigrants, stronger gun control laws and an environmental policy based on science. That seemed to drive this year’s election in New Jersey…”

Seemed?  Only if you were in the shithouse. 

We looked… but cannot find a Democrat cable or broadcast advertisement that unpacks that particular issues grid.  Apparently, it wasn’t in their armory. 

What we actually got was this:  Democrats cleverly portraying themselves as Republicans on all the most important issues.  Hey, check it out for yourselves.  Go to Josh Gottheimer or Mikie Sherrill’s YouTube pages and watch the ads.

Immigration?  Are you kidding?  What you will find it this…

“Lower Taxes. Jersey Values.”

“Cut Property Taxes”

“Think your property taxes are too high?”

“Navy Pilot – Prosecutor – Mom”

“I’ll fight to restore your property tax deduction.”

Josh Gottheimer’s campaign doesn’t post any ads that could reasonably be called liberal.  Mikie Sherrill’s posts two conservative ads for every liberal ad.  And nobody says shit about immigration.

See what Snowflake is doing here?   

Snowflake’s vendor owner – a Hillary Clinton insider – is trying to convince New Jersey Republicans to screw themselves again, even as they pull that old Bill Clinton maneuver of co-opting and running on Republicans issues. Anyone remember welfare-reform? Or how about “the era of big government is over”?

It’s an old trick.  And a good one.  Almost as good as the one Mikie Sherrill pulled on the constituents she’s about to represent.  Who is she? Really? 

In common with most of Democrat moes who ran this year, they all started out dancing in the street with pussy hats on, attending protests, and pretending they were back in the 1960’s (which none of them were in the first place).  The heady days of the Women’s March was that kind of Disneyland.  Then, after winning their primaries, they all suddenly became centrists and “bi-partisan”. Not a mention of transgender anything. Republican Bob Hugin spent more promoting abortion and gay marriage than all the Democrats put together.  Mikie Sherrill became “Navy Pilot – Prosecutor – Mom” in other words “War – Cops – and Motherhood”.  That ain’t a liberal message.

In the aftermath of Sherrill’s victory last week, most commentators missed the real reason why she won:  She got to pick her opponent for the General Election(and it was anyone other than the incumbent, Rodney Frelinghuysen).  Yep, her pussy hatted minions pushed the incumbent Republican out of the race (a fact Jay Webber should have played on).  You know, that well-respected, well-heeled, bi-partisan Vietnam War vet… yeah, him. 

For that, she needed her grassroots.  All those crazies who pissed and moaned and carried on, and who, like a switch, suddenly dropped out of sight to return as blandly suburban or mildly eccentric door-to-door volunteers spitting out the party line.  Admirable discipline.  

We can only speculate as to what would have happened had the Navy pilot come up against someone who had actually tasted war.  Someone with a real record of bi-partisan accomplishment.  Who had attended to constituent service.  Or, if the incumbent had departed in a more timely fashion, a new candidate – without the encumbrance of a messy primary – who would have had the time and resources to use all those individual crazies as the means to define just who Mikie Sherrill really is.  We can only speculate.

Still, the road is long.  The opportunity will present itself again.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  - Winston Churchill

Tea Party aims at Oroho... hits Garrett

The Skylands Tea Party claims to be conservative -- and yet, while the most conservative Congressman to represent New Jersey in decades is fighting for his political life, they have been focused on attacking a conservative Republican legislator.  That's become the role of the Tea Party.  They don't care about defeating Democrats because in a General Election setting, they're a joke.

Remember this Tea Party candidate:

And she's right... she is them. 

Yep, Republicans should have taken the United States Senate in 2010.  Instead, it took Republicans three election cycles to capture the Senate.  In 2010, the GOP was poised to capture both Houses of Congress like they had in 1994, but nobody had factored in the Tea Party (which didn't exist in 1994).  The deftness with which the Tea Party regularly shit the bed allowed the Democrats to hang on in 2010 and 2012 -- losing only in 2014, but setting them up for a comeback this November.

And they are doing it in Northwest New Jersey, where solid-conservative Congressman Scott Garrett is in a dogfight with Clintonista Josh Gottheimer.  The election is a month away and what is the Tea Party doing?  They are trying to screw a conservative legislator who believes debt needs to be addressed and  who successfully negotiated the largest tax cut legislation in New Jersey history.  They say it isn't the way they wanted it to be and so it's "let's kill our fellow conservative!"

When Tea Party Assemblyperson Gail Phoebus addresses a Tea Party rally in two weeks time, it will not be to help Scott Garrett or even to beat liberal Democrat Gottheimer, it will be to screw the Republican legislator she shares an office with -- the guy who endorsed her and helped her win an election less than a year ago. 

Yeah, these people do have darn short memories.  The operating principle of the Tea Party is to talk bad about liberals and Democrats but keep the screwings within the family. 

Tea partier Phoebus, a sort-of unofficial editor over at the NJ Herald, has been lobbying local mayors to screw her fellow Republicans.  Taking her advice, Franklin Mayor Nick Giordano threatened to recall and then run against Senator Oroho -- although he quickly denied doing so.  Not so with Vernon Mayor Harry Shortway, who formally endorsed liberal Democrat and former Clinton apparatchik Josh Gottheimer for Congress against conservative incumbent Garrett.  This is what happens when you save the screwings for fellow conservatives and Republicans. 

Now are you happy, Gail?

Why does the Tea Party focus all its hatred on fellow Republicans?  Because that is all they are capable of.  The Tea Party has never been known to do a Democrat any harm in New Jersey.  What they can do is shit up a primary and, if lucky enough to win, nominate a candidate so bad that even in Northwest New Jersey a Democrat can beat him.  What kind of candidate? 

This is a recent post from a Tea Party candidate who challenged Congressman Garrett in a primary and claimed that one vote he disagreed with made Garrett "a liberal":

Because of limped dicked conservatives we got the present problem and nobody is willing to vote for liars and thieves in different suits. So our representatives don't get to expand and we remain screwed...... Money whores fucking the working guy.

Yes, that is how they talk. 

The great problem with the Tea Party is that they lack humanity, humility, and common decency.  Like fascists, they treat those they disagree with like pests to be exterminated, not like people with a different point of view. 

Memo to Bill Spadea and others... your armbands are showing.

Is Rick Shaftan running Steve Lonegan's campaign again?

Steve Lonegan, last year's candidate for United States Senate and one-time Bergen County Mayor, is now a candidate for the U.S. Congress down in South Jersey.  Last year's campaign was noted for its frequent off-color mistakes by Lonegan -- everything from a tweet that Lonegan had to defend as "not meant to be racist", to an election eve meltdown by Sussex County's top political consultant, Rick Shaftan, who was running Lonegan's campaign.  Shaftan bashed Senator Cory Booker for acting "like a gay guy would".  Full coverage can be found here:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/top-aide-believes-steve-lonegan-is-surging-because-of-cory-booker-s-strange-behavior

There's something about Steve Lonegan's anger and arrogance that reminds us of George Wallace, the late Democratic Governor of Alabama.  Shaftan has always sought to reinforce that image, going as far as donning a Strom Thurmond tee-shirt for their moment of film celebrity in the documentary, Anytown U.S.A.

All this came to mind after Lonegan tweeted his newest campaign attack ad -- against the latest in a long list of opponents, Tom MacArthur of Toms River.  Lonegan attacked MacArthur, a former small town mayor like himself, for "promoting diversity" because a small number of affordable housing units are to be built in his small town.  Now Lonegan knows, as all 500-plus small town mayors in New Jersey know, that they have to comply with state law and allow affordable housing to be built.  And the reason this works for many small towns is that much of that housing is snapped up by seniors on fixed incomes who face having to move out of state, away from children and grandchildren, if they fail to find cheaper accommodation. 

This all brings to mind the 2008 municipal election in Sparta Township, the most overtly racist in Sussex County memory, that pitted incumbent Scott Seelagy against Carey Ann Shaftan, then the wife of Rick Shaftan.  Shaftan's campaign literature equated affordable housing with people of color migrating from Newark into Sussex County.  Shaftan warned against a wave of incoming "mental patients, ex-cons, drug addicts, and others" who would "increase crime and destroy property values."  Shaftan's literature used the same housing motif found in the attack ad Lonegan tweeted.

Shaftan ran on a platform that "no one has a right to live anywhere they want, people have a right to live where they can afford. That is what America is all about."   Shaftan lost that election, but not before a whole lot of people were offended.  Now, six years later, it's déjà vu all over again. 

If Steve Lonegan is serious about winning a General Election, he needs to curb his baser instincts and wise up. 

The Missing D-1: Is Morris ignoring Election Law?

Back on May 16th, candidate Robert F. Morris filed a Form A-1 with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC). By filing a Form A-1, candidate Morris asserted that “the total amount expended or to be expended on behalf of my candidacy by me or by any other candidate, person or committee shall be zero, or shall not, in the aggregate, exceed $4,500 for this election.”

Morris is running for Sussex County Surrogate as an independent. A Sparta resident who formerly served on the Lafayette School Board before being defeated for re-election in 2002, Morris is challenging incumbent Republican Gary Chiusano.

More than two weeks ago, the New Jersey Herald’s Rob Jennings reported the following: “Morris said Friday he has spent $6,000 on his campaign. About $2,200 went to the New Jersey State Fair, where Morris secured a prominent tent near the Sussex County Republicans.”

The Form A-1 that Morris filed with NJELEC also reads: “I am aware that I, as a candidate, am required to designate a campaign treasurer and campaign depository and that I am required to file with the Commission a ‘Certificate of Organization and Designation of Campaign Treasurer and Depository’, Form D-1, no later than 10 days after receipt of any contribution on behalf of my candidacy or 10 days after making any expenditure on behalf of my candidacy, whichever comes first.”

Candidate Robert Morris signed the Form A-1 he filed in mid-May and dated it April 20, 2013. Above his signature are these words: “I certify that the statements in this document are true. I am aware that if any of the statements are willfully false, I may be subject to punishment.”