Our first radio show of 2021 had a surprise call-in from gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli in the first hour and our scheduled guest in the second hour was gubernatorial candidate Doug Steinhardt. If you missed yesterday’s radio show, you can listen here:
As always, you can listen to any of our past shows on the Radio Shows page.
Paul Spinelli
Under Mayor Anthony Fanucci’s leadership Vineland has been improving. City voters know it, that’s why Fanucci cruised to re-election and his council slate received opposition from only one candidate.
Fanucci has had a great working relationship with city council. No doubt the council ship has been steered by Council President Paul Spinelli. No one can argue that Spinelli hasn’t done a fantastic job as Council President.
Regular listeners of the Bob & Steve Show heard the bombshell dropped by Bob on last Saturday’s show that Paul Spinelli will not be Council President come the new year.
The obvious question is why.
You don’t hire a new coach for a winning team. Vineland has been winning. So that can’t be it.
There was an argument that tradition calls for the top vote getter to be installed as Council President.
That argument is untrue! Some of us are old enough to remember when Cumberland County Freeholder/Commissioner Doug Albrecht was on Vineland City Council. He was top vote getter and was NOT Council President. Nope! No tradition!
Sources close to the situation tell us there was a meeting between a few stakeholders.
What we were able to get out of our sources is that a Democratic party leader, Todd Edwards, from Bridgeton was at the meeting.
Sources confirmed to us that Edwards was there to lobby for Dr. Elizabeth Arthur becoming Council President. We were informed some stakeholders at the meeting pushed back and they were told it could become problematic if Dr. Arthur is not made Council President. It’s also when the top vote getter lie was floated.
Of course, this leads us to wonder exactly why there could be issues if Dr. Arthur is not installed as Council President. Under current leadership Vineland has been running better than it has in years. Besides, who holds the position of Council President is something the typical city resident pays little, if any, attention to. It’s an inside baseball kind of thing.
We’re also wondering why a resident of Bridgeton had any role in selecting who might become Vineland Council President. Why was Edwards even part of this discussion? Did Dr. Arthur invite him? If not, then who invited him and why? Why not invite a Republican leader to the meeting to balance things out? Why not invite another out-of-towner to make a decision about Vineland’s government?
Why not invite one person each from the unincorporated communities of Vineland, Alabama, Vineland, Colorado and Vineland, Florida? It makes as much sense as having someone living in Bridgeton play a role in who serves as Council President in Vineland.
Vineland has been running better under current leadership than it has in years. Suddenly, someone wants to change course. It makes no sense.
What makes even less sense is that someone who doesn’t live in Vineland is playing a role in the decision to change course in Vineland.
We’re going to keep our eyes on this situation. No doubt there is more to come.
The 2021 GOP primary for Governor is heating up. The main combatants, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and former NJGOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt, have released a bunch of endorsements, exchanged barbs, released videos and statements. All things we can expect to continue.
Activists, new and old, have been taking sides.
I’ll be taking a side soon. Bob will too. Regardless of which candidate either of us chooses to support the Bob & Steve Show will post campaign press releases to the blog as we receive them – it’s only fair to fans of the show. There are certain rules to the posting of releases: (1) we will post a campaign’s release only if we can get it done in a timely manner, (2) we will not post “endorsement” press releases, unless said endorsements come from big names (i.e. if the President endorses someone that would be newsworthy) and (3) we definitely will not post “vanity” releases.
So, back to next year’s primary election.
Some of our fellow Republicans are going to feel the need to go straight to calling those they oppose “RINOs.”
I admit it, I have used the word. It was stupid! And, it is equally dumb when others utter the word RINO.
Republicans, conservative Republicans, love to hold our first Republican President Abraham Lincoln up as an example for many things.
Unfortunately, the same conservative Republicans who love using Lincoln as an example of many good things would call him a RINO today because in 1864 he ran for re-election on the National Union ticket and had as his running mate Democrat Andrew Johnson.
How dare he!
If a Republican President dumped his sitting Vice President in favor of a Democrat running mate as Lincoln did to Hannibal Hamlin you people would call that Republican a RINO – and you know you would.
For that matter, you people would have called Ronald Reagan a RINO after his speech to the California Republican Assembly in 1967.
Surely, those who love to throw the word RINO around would have had an issue with Reagan saying that our party cannot offer “a narrow sectarian party in which all must swear allegiance to prescribed commandments.”
Reagan went on to say:
The Republican Party, both in this state and nationally, is a broad party. There is room in our tent for many views; indeed, the divergence of views is one of our strengths. Let no one, however, interpret this to mean compromise of basic philosophy or that we will be all things to all people for political expediency.
Oh, the horror!
Could you imagine if one of our candidates for governor said today, “There is room in our tent for many views…”?
I can hear the cries of RINO now.
There are still people who get mad at anyone who refers to the Republican party as a big tent. I wonder how they would have felt about Reagan referring to the Republican party as a tent four times during that speech in 1967.
Reagan was a smart guy who knew we had to support the winner of the primary. He said so in that 1967 speech:
And here is the challenge to you. It is the duty and responsibility of the volunteer Republican organizations, not to further divide, but to lead the way to unity. It is not your duty, responsibility of privilege to tear down, or attempt to destroy, others in the tent. As duly chartered Republican organizations, we can all advance our particular sectarianism or brand of candidates for the party to pass on openly and freely in a primary election.
But, as volunteer organizations, we must always remain in a position that will let us effectively support the candidates chosen by the entire party in a primary. To do less is a disservice to the party and, more importantly, to the cause in which we all believe.
It was the next line in the speech when Reagan mentioned the 11th Commandment, a commandment Reagan completely forgot about in the 1976 primary against President Gerald Ford. Reagan first went after Ford for not meeting with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn even though the President “has met recently with the Strawberry Queen of West Virginia and the Maid of Cotton.” His attacks on Ford became harsher as the campaign progressed.
My point? I never hear anyone complain Reagan violated the 11th Commandment and always hear folks scream RINO when they disagree with a fellow Republican.
Rather than scream RINO, try making a reasonable, intelligent argument as to why one should support the candidate of your choice.
And, when it’s over, remember it is indeed our duty to support the candidate chosen by the entire party in the primary.
“Politics without the BS”
Bob Greco is a former chairman of the Cumberland County GOP and Steve Kush is a Republican political consultant. Together we'll deliver political news and opinion in our own unique way via a weekly radio show on Crusin' 92.1 FM every Saturday morning at 7:00 A.M. and here on this website.
