Gloucester County Democrats Fear Competition At The Polls

I get it, challenging the signatures on nominating petitions is a part of political campaigns in New Jersey (and elsewhere). It’s a part of campaigns I dislike. No campaign I managed has ever challenged nominating petitions – that’s how much I despise the practice. I believe working to remove a candidate who meets the requirements to run for an office from the ballot is a gutless move that proves the person challenging signatures on a nominating petition has very little faith in their chosen candidate to win on ideas.

From my observations, over the years, it appears that more often than not challenges to nominating petitions are intra-party affairs (or is it inter, I always get the two confused) with challenges filed against competitors in a primary election like last year when a supporter of a certain someone who may or may not have led folks to believe he had access to $2 million for a congressional run got Brian Fitzherbert tossed from the primary election ballot.

But that’s not the case in Gloucester County where the County Democrats decided to attempt to deprive voters of a choice for freeholder in November. On April 3, 2019 John Alice, Counsel to the Gloucester County Democratic Committee, challenged the nominating petition of Republicans Diane M. King and Andrea K. Sammons. The challenge left King and Sammons with only 94 valid signatures removing the two from June’s primary election ballot.

So why get the Republican candidates removed from the ballot? Are the Gloucester County Democrats freeholder candidates so weak they don’t want any competition in November? I don’t even know who they’re running and don’t care because there is no way I’m voting for them.

It is possible for Republicans to win in Gloucester County? It’s happened before, remember Larry Wallace and Vince Nestore? And it can happen again. Especially against weak Democratic party candidates. Looking at some historical data one can see it can happen. In the 2014 U.S. Senate race Jeff Bell lost the county to Cory Booker, but Bell was a weak candidate with little money and still managed to earn 45% of the county-wide vote against the well-funded Booker. That same year in the CD1 Garry Cobb managed 44.78% of the vote against Congressman Donald Norcross, and Cobb, like him or not, was a horrible candidate. In 2016, President Donald Trump squeaked by Hillary Clinton county-wide 47.82% - 47.34%. Last year Bob Hugin beat U.S. Senator Bob Menendez 49.72% - 46.37% while the Republican candidates for sheriff and surrogate both received slightly more than 42% of the county-wide vote.

Trump and Hugin both won county-wide in Gloucester County and the other numbers show Republicans have a base of 42% in the county. With a little money and a solid message Republicans can win in Gloucester County. The addition of the new energy brought to the party by Chairwoman Jacci Vigilante helps too.

Diane King has run before and is popular among Republicans in Gloucester County. The addition of the Gloucester County Young Republicans Chair Andrea “Andy” Sammons as King’s running mate brings extra excitement to the ticket. So, yeah, the reason the Gloucester County Democrats decided to have the Republicans bounced from the primary election ballot is that they are afraid of competition.

All is not lost. King and Sammons can still appear on the November ballot. It’s going to require a write-in campaign in June. It’ll be a good test for Vigilante and the candidates and success can build momentum going into November.

The growing popularity of King, the excitement of a young Republican in Sammons on the ticket and the work of Vigilante in building the party in Gloucester County can only lead to good things. I have no doubt King and Sammons will appear on the ballot in November and will do my part to ensure it happens.

Gloucester County Republicans – pay attention as information will be coming soon on how to PROPERLY write-in your vote.

Here We Go Again: Drivers Licenses For Illegal Aliens

This is what happens when you live in a Sanctuary State! People feel emboldened and believe it’s okay to call on government to reward bad behavior.

Apparently, 100+ Latino leaders saw fit to issue a press release yesterday and a letter urging legislative leadership to pass driver’s license legislation immediately. Issuing driver licenses immediately, at least to those who signed the letter, means expanding “access to driver’s licenses to all New Jerseyans, regardless of immigration status.”

In other words the folks who signed the letter want illegal aliens to get driver driver’s licenses in New Jersey.

We’ve talked about this before on The Bob & Steve Show and written about it here on the blog.

We’ve pointed to several instances of criminals inventing new crimes in some states that allow illegal aliens to get driver’s licenses. For example, there was the group of folks making $30,000 a month helping folks fraudulently obtain New Mexico driver’s licenses.

An interpreter in Vermont, along with a partner, was charging people $1,000 to fraudulently obtain a license. In Maryland, “the state issued hundreds of fraudulent driver’s licenses designed for immigrants in the country without legal documentation, a recent audit found.

And, in in Illinois six guys were arrested for trying to fraudulently obtain driver’s licenses. The list goes on.

Obviously, the well-meaning folks demanding New Jersey allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses don’t care that there are criminals who will take advantage of the situation. They don’t care that it’s an invitation for more crime to occur in New Jersey.

In their letter, the folks demanding driver’s licenses for illegal aliens write:

About 168,000 kids have at least one undocumented parent; these kids deserve the same
opportunities as any child in the Garden State, but when their parents can’t access a driver’s license, they are left at a disadvantage.

How does a parent without a driver’s license place a kid at a disadvantage? I have an illegal alien neighbor and trust me the kids in that house are not at a disadvantage. There are four cars at that house, the mother, two daughters and the illegal alien “husband” (when he’s there and not hiding from our landlord) all have cars. Those kids nearly always have a ride readily available. And, their mother only pays $118 per month out-of-pocket for rent with the balance coming from “assistance.” I know this to be true because my LEGAL immigrant landlord for some reason thinks that because I lived in New Mexico that I speak Spanish and had me attempt to act as an interpreter when my neighbor signed her lease. I count only paying $118 per month out-of-pocket for rent as an advantage.

Allowing illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses is a dumb idea that has led to additional crime in other states that allow it. Children of parents without driver’s licenses are not placed at a disadvantage.

Bottom line, all this yelling about granting illegal immigrants the right to obtain a New Jersey driver’s license is just more phony left-wing outrage.

Does A Crappy Apology Count As An Actual Apology?

Hetty Rosenstein via Twitter

By now, most of you know that the New Jersey Globe broke the story that last week, Hetty Rosenstein, the head of New Jersey’s largest state government workers union (CWA) wished a “horrible, horrible death” on U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos over proposed cuts to Special Olympics funding.

As if wishing a “horrible, horrible death” on someone wasn’t enough, Rosenstein decided to follow that up with perhaps the worst apology in the history of apologies. Again, according to the New Jersey Globe Rosenstein’s apology went like this:

“I should not have said it.  I am a leader and I should have mustered something to help to inspire others to continue to fight for justice and to fight the power and privilege and immorality of the politics of DeVos,” said Rosenstein. “Instead I carelessly gave in to my own pain.  I won’t again and I will choose my words more carefully in the future.    Every day, each and every minute of my life, I will continue to fight for justice, equality and peace and I will do better in my constructive resistance to evil and injustice in the future.”

I don’t know about you but the line “and to fight the power and privilege and immorality of the politics of DeVos” doesn’t sound very apologetic to me. It sounds much more like an attack.

Imagine a Republican wishing a “horrible, horrible death” on someone. The left would be screaming! In fact, the left would be screaming about less. Unfortunately, I don’t have to imagine it. Several years ago, while working in another state, I referred to a young female Democratic operative as a “radical bitch” on social media. The left immediately called me out for it and demanded my resignation. I was ordered to apologize, suspended from my position as county party executive director for six weeks without pay and forced to take a social media awareness course before I could return to work.

The Democrats called me a misogynist (and worse), they flooded our county party office with phone calls, the attacks from around the country on social media were relentless (thanks to a Huffington Post article) and it was on the front page of the local newspaper as well as network news. When I returned to work the press reported that I was back at the job making it impossible for me to perform my duties which forced me to resign.

All that because I called someone a bad name. Yet, here in New Jersey, the leader of the state’s largest government workers union wishes someone dies a “horrible, horrible death” and there is zero outrage. The same person offers up a crappy apology that she uses to launch another attack with, and not a peep.

And we all know why the Democrats aren’t calling Rosenstein out over her statement, or her crappy apology. VOTES. There are 32,000 workers in the CWA, or put another way, 32,000 Democrat votes. Don’t expect any Democrats to be outraged over Rosenstein’s remarks. It doesn’t matter that to wish someone die a “horrible, horrible death” one would have to be a terrible person.

If Rosenstein truly wanted to “help to inspire others” as she said in her pseudo-apology perhaps she could do like DeVos did in 2018 and donate 25% of her salary to Special Olympics.

We all know she won’t, but one can hope.