Did Sussex Republicans go for Gay Marriage?

Besides being achieved at the expense of the District 24 legislators, U.S. Senate candidate Rich Pezzullo’s 44 percent showing in Sussex County was a shocker for another reason:  Alone among the four Republicans running for their party’s nomination for U.S. Senate, Pezzullo supported gay marriage.

That’s right.  Steve Lonegan protégé Rick Shaftan’s candidate for United States Senate supported gay marriage and opposed the death penalty in all circumstances – even for terrorists, serial killers, and criminals who murder innocent children.   He said so at the very start of his campaign and it was reported in the Star-Ledger on March 3, 2014:

On social issues, Pezzullo is not easily classified. He opposes abortion and says he is pro-gun rights. But he also favors permitting same-sex marriage and opposes the death penalty.

“My Second Amendment friends love me, but they have a problem with me because I don’t support the death penalty," he said. "My pro-life friends love me because I’m 100% pro-life, but they have problems with me because I support marriage equality. Everybody has a reason not to vote for me, and yet when they allow me to explain all the thought that went into my positions they see I don’t shoot from the hip.”

Of course, knowing this wouldn’t have presented a problem for Shaftan, a consultant for Hudson County Democrat State Senator (and Mayor and School Superintendent) Nick Sacco.  Sacco is on record as voting for gay marriage in the State Senate.  

One Sussex County elected official who supported Rich Pezzullo was Freeholder George Graham, as did some of those associated with Graham’s Sussex County League of Municipalities. Were they aware of Pezzullo’s position on gay marriage and the death penalty?

Pezzullo also enjoyed support from the Tea Party movement in Sussex County.  Team New Jersey and Tpath sent out endorsements for Pezzullo that claimed to have researched his positions on the issues.

Does this mean that Tea Partiers like Roseann Salanitri and Bader Qarmout now support gay marriage?

We can’t be sure, but here is what Team New Jersey/Tpath wrote in their endorsement:

May 31, 2014 ~TPATH~ This release is a collaboration between the founder of TeamNJ, Mr. Nicholas Purpura and TPATH.  First we would like to apologize to our readers and TeamNJ members for not getting this release out earlier.  We have spent much time evaluating and vetting each of the four candidates vying for the Republican Primary for United States Senate.

Richard J. Pezzullo is a good solid conservative.  He has fire in his belly.  He is as in tune with the pulse of the people and understands the fury in all of us.  He too has that fury.  He is unashamed of his conservative values and never fails to espouse them.  TeamNJ and TPATH are convinced the Mr. Pezzullo will be a force in the United States Senate and will align with great Senators like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz.

TEAM NEW JERSEY and TPATH - 

Strongly support Mr. Richard J. Pezzullo for the US Senate

TPATH Note:
Several of our readers have requested information on which candidate we were supporting.  At the time Murray Sabrin appeared to be the best candidate and we indicated that to a few people.  Since then however our research has been completed and we are now in complete agreement with TeamNJ that Richard Pezzullo is the best candidate.  But as we said, Murray Sabrin is a good man.

Note to the vetting committee at Team New Jersey and Tpath:  Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz do not support gay marriage.  Also, saying you don’t like Jeff Bell because he once worked for Richard Nixon is something you would not apply to Pat Buchanan or Robert Bork, so why say it?

 You have to wonder what level of research was done that these people didn’t figure out that Pezzullo was for gay marriage and against the death penalty.  The Star-Ledger story appeared on March 3, 2014, right after Pezzullo won his first convention.  It is one of the first things that come up when you Google his name. 

Sussex County Republicans probably had no idea what they were voting for on June 3^rd but instead relied on the recommendations of local people who call themselves “conservative” or members of the “Tea Party”.  On the other hand, the people who promoted Rich Pezzullo in Sussex County should have known his position on these issues and if they did, it shows an interesting evolution on the part of the Tea Party, here in Sussex County and across New Jersey.

Will the last person left at the Sussex GOP Please remember to turn off the lights.

Last Friday evening, the Sussex County Republican Committee ran its annual gala.  This is no longer the 300 person event that some of us remember.  The gala, a key fundraising event for the committee, now draws less than one hundred – far less.  And missing from the gala are some of the new factions that have come to life again since last year’s election battle between Surrogate Gary Chiusano and Glen Vetrano stand-in Alicia Ferrante.

In fact, Vetrano and much of what was once called the Littell faction didn’t participate in the gala or the party fundraising.  Same goes for the Skylands Victory PAC and its associates in the Vernon municipal government.  No shows to the gala. 

Is the county committee becoming irrelevant?  Don’t look for any answers from Tuesday’s primary election results. 

Republican turnout was an abysmal 14 percent in the county.  Low turnout usually means that the 500 or so connected GOP “insiders” and their friends and families will dominate the election, so you would expect a 70-30 or better win for an incumbent with all the money and all the support of the county GOP.   

That didn’t happen.  Instead we got a much closer 60-40 race between incumbent Freeholder Phil Crabb and challenger Wantage Committeeman Ron Bassani.  This despite the fact that Crabb spent significant money on his re-election campaign, including at least two direct mailers, radio ads, and other voter contact.  Bassani spent next to nothing and had no radio or direct mail.  Yet he managed 40 percent. 

Imagine what would have happened if he had a campaign?

Does this mean that 40 percent of the county’s Republican “super-voters” are unhappy with the people who are the faces of the Sussex GOP?  Maybe, but it could even be worse.

In a U.S. Senate race between four relative unknowns, one of these unknowns had the support of some of the county’s top elected officials:  Senator Steve Oroho, Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose, and Assemblyman Parker Space.   Despite this and the fact that they took out ads under their own names, the unknown with the support of the LD24 team managed less than 25 percent of the vote in Sussex County and lost Warren County too.  

At the Sussex GOP’s Election Night gathering Freeholder Crabb thanked former Freeholder Rich Zeoli for his help while all but ignoring Senator Oroho and Assemblywoman McHose. Both of whom were early financial and political supporters of Crabb’s re-election.  Does he consider them now to be irrelevant? 

One thing certain is that the big winner on election night in Sussex County was former Steve Lonegan protégé Rick Shaftan.  Shaftan managed to put together a Tea Party network that dominated Tuesday’s Senate primary in the county.  Despite having the county’s top Republicans out there for candidate Murray Sabrin, Shaftan’s candidate, Rich Pezzullo, took 44 percent of the vote in a four-way race.  This was a solid and impressive win.

Shaftan, who works for Hudson County Democrat State Senator/ Mayor/ School Superintendent Nick Sacco, was defeated just one year ago in a campaign for Republican State Committee.  With Tuesday’s win Shaftan is now the county’s “top dog” consultant.   We will all be waiting to see his next move.

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.