Leading By Example

With a dust up over some duel office holders not stepping down as they said they would, it's good to see Assemblyman Gary Chiusano keeping his promise to resign his post as a Sussex County Freeholder if elected to the Assembly.

It's always good to see a politician follow through on their pledges.

2007 Review: We've Already Lost A Seat

The news that New Jersey is likely to lose a House seat after the 2010 Census has already sent some in the political class talking about what will happen and who will go. From a political standpoint it's rather interesting because, as noted by Wally Edge, it represents the first time since 1972 two incumbent Congressmen could be facing off in either a primary or a general election.

However, as noted by the title, we as a state only really have 12 Congressmen anyway. All one has to do is look at the votes where the entire delegation, Republican and Democratic, voted as a block in 2007 to notice the 12 to Representative Scott Garrett nature of the representation we here in the Fifth are stuck with. These are posts about 21 votes where Garrett was the lone Representative from NJ to vote the way he did:

1. The Energy Bill - Increasing MPG and investment in alternative forms of energy.
2. $250,000 for Greenwood Lake - This was the vote Garrett flipped at the behest of The Club for Growth, upholding the President's veto, after voting for the bill twice.
3. Pledge to President Bush - This isn't really a vote, but Garrett was the only Republican from New Jersey to sign our vote over to the President on vetoed bills. I also wrote about it here.
4. Train Safety - Garrett was one of 38 to vote against making freight train crossings safer.
5. Jews & Muslims: Garrett was the only Rep from NJ to vote against funding a Jewish Museum and "stay off" the vote commending Ramadan. The latter was initially said to be a mater of principle, which was shown to be a lie when he voted for the Christmas resolution.
6. Dog Fighting - This actually happened in December '06, but Garrett was one of 39 Representatives who felt the punishment given to the likes of Michael Vick was strong enough. The bill also outlawed cockfighting blades, used to make those fights more gruesome.
7. Improving Head Start - Garrett was one of 35 to vote against this.
8. Popcorn Lung Prevention Act - Odd sounding, but the chemical flavor in microwave popcorn has been linked to an irreversible fatal lung disease.
9. Rural Housing - These were two votes to assist families living in rural areas to move off Section 8 housing, and expand opportunities of home ownership. Garrett was one of 49 to oppose this.
10. First time homeowners in the Fifth - This bill reformed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and allowed conforming loans to be made in our District by raising the ceiling on loan limits.
11. Small Business Owners - These were two votes where Garrett stood alone against those living the American Dream: Ten years of tax cuts for owners and better loan programs from the SBA.
12. Scholarships and Grants - These bills increased the funding for math and science scholarships and grants for scientists. The combined margin of passage was 786-44.
13. Hurricane Katrina Victims - Funds to help people rebuild their homes.
14. Water Quality Investment Act - A bill to prevent flooding like that which slammed New Milford earlier this year.
15. College Student Loan Relief - A bill lowering the interest rate paid on college student loans by eliminating the corporate profit guarantee for those servicing the loans.
16. Community Policing - Garrett was one of 39 to vote against restoring funding he had voted to strip over the previous years.
17. Improved Citizen Access to Information - This was a mega post about accountability and mentioned were Garrett's votes against Presidential accountability and improving the Freedom of Information Act.

This is not an exhaustive list, as many amendments Garrett votes for are not supported by more than a handful of Representatives in the House. That was kind of covered in this piece. Heading into next year, it should be interesting to see what other 12 to Garrett votes we're presented with.

Barring some irresistible news to write about, this is likely the last post on Blog the Fifth for 2007. I want to thank all the readers, folks who link here, and those who e-mail me privately for providing the motivation to keep this thing going.

Those in government must be held accountable for their actions in order for us to have a healthy Republic. I'm glad to do my very small part, and look forward to continuing (perhaps in a larger role) in 2008.

I hope you all have a Happy New Year, be safe, and may those resolutions last at least a month ;-)

Clean Elections Off To A Good Start

I've made no secret that I'm a fan of removing special interest influence from elections. When someone like our own Representative Scott Garrett will vote against a bill benefiting Greenwood Lake that he previously voted for twice, apparently because a special interest group with only 40,000 members comes out against it, something is seriously wrong with the process. Nothing like watching our Representative bend our District over a barrel to ensure he gets some campaign donations and expenditures on his behalf.

At the state level, the Clean Elections program seeks to eliminate the Garrett-esque about face by removing corporate and large individual donations from the process. In the first poll released about the program, it seems it's already had a positive impact on voters. Rutgers' Eagleton Institute of Politics and Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind teamed up to review the program.

Here's what they found:

• Twice as many likely voters in the Clean Elections districts had heard quite a lot or some about the Clean Elections legislation compared to the state as a whole
(44% to 22%).
• The same was true regarding awareness of the legislative races in their districts, with 70% of likely voters in the Clean Elections districts saying they had heard quite a lot or some about the races, compared to 37% of likely voters statewide.
• Voters in the Clean Elections districts also reported having received more information than voters in the rest of the state. Eighty-two percent of likely voters in the Clean Elections Districts reported receiving campaign ads in the mail, compared to 49% statewide. Seventy-four percent of likely voters in the Clean
Elections districts said they had gotten information about the legislative races from an article or articles in the newspaper, compared to 56% statewide.

These are tangible results. Something not in the report that is also tangible was voter turnout. It's widely believed turnout earlier this month was the lowest ever for a legislative election, with estimates at 30%. That's a 4% drop in turnout from 2003, the last time the entire legislature was up for re-election, and effectively means 15.01% of the population gets to call the shots.

In the 37th District, where the Republicans did not qualify for the program, the unofficial results show a 5.9% drop in the percentage of registered voters voting for State Senator over 2003's number.

HOWEVER, in the 14th District the drop was .6% (even though 2,775 more people voted), and in the 24th turnout increased 6.1% (nearly 11,000 more voters). While still not great, State Senate voting for the 14th and 24th were 40% and 35% respectively. My hope is that when the turnout numbers are finalized by the state they will publish it by legislative district, in addition to county, since they already estimate voters before the election.

In spite of these gains, what is going to take time is restoring the public faith in our state government. Clean Elections voters polled didn't have significantly more faith in government to do the right thing compared to those outside the clean elections District:

Compared to statewide voters, voters in the Clean Elections districts were just as likely to say they:
• trust the legislature only some or none of the time to do what is right;
• are concerned that campaign money influences legislators after the election;
• are not confident that public financing of campaigns will reduce the influence of large donors in the political process.

Faith in elected officials is earned, not given, and it is incumbent upon our elected leaders to do better. It's a strong statement when only 17% of voters statewide trust the legislature to do the right thing most of the time. Often, as done in the Bergen Freeholder debate by the BCDO candidates, officials protest that they are not crooks and should not be thought of as such. However, if 83% of the public thinks that way; something either within the process or through the actions of those protesting has triggered that opinion.

If the Clean Elections Program, over time, can help restore the public faith in our elected officials it's a good thing. Ultimately, it will be the responsibility of the officials to seal the public confidence deal.

Election Reflection

Most of the elections in our District played out exactly as they were expected to. Voter turnout was in the 30s; Steve Oroho, Kevin O'Toole, and most incumbents cruised to victory; the Republicans won the Legislative races; and the Democrats won Bergen County.

The only eyebrow raiser, if you will, was Sen. Gerry Cardinale's margin of victory going from 12,000 in 2003 to 5,000 yesterday. While the guys over at CWA-NJ count the victory as award worthy, in this "obscure" blogger's opinion, in a Republican year that sort of drop should raise an eyebrow.

I stand by my belief the direction Cardinale took was the wrong path during the campaign. This race was never close. Cardinale has served long enough to make enough friends, and do enough good things for constituents on a personal level that most people I know were planning on voting for him regardless of party. However, taking the route he took, many walked away.

Compare Cardinale's campaign's actions with those taken by Steve Oroho, which I highlighted earlier. At the end of his second debate with Ed Selby, Oroho said the following:

"You've heard some very clear differences between my opponent and myself. It doesn't mean Ed's a bad guy. It doesn't mean I'm a bad guy. It just means we're different," Oroho said. "We should all be happy we live in a country where it's OK to be different."

My hope is going forward more politicians embrace this kind of civility and decency. I realize it may not be flashy, but we're at a point in our State where we don't need flashy. Our state is in serious trouble on a number of fronts, and as shown by voting down the stem cell and sales tax initiatives, the people of our state know it.

It's important to note that we're not in these crises as Democrat, Republican or Unaffiliated: we're in this as Jerseyians. While differences of opinion exist as to how to fix the problem, it's unlikely we'll get anywhere if our politicians do not rise to the challenge in a decent and honorable way.

Congratulations to All the Winners

It was one of the uglier campaign seasons in recent memory, and some hard fought battles were won. My hope is, going forward, those of you with the calling of public service will also hear the call of the electorate asking for substance. I'll write more tomorrow.

Shooting Yourself in The Foot 101

In what can only be described as a campaign tactic taken by skimming Karl Rove's Cliff Notes, the campaign of State Senator Gerry Cardinale went the bizarre direction of attacking rival Joe Ariyan as a terrorist sympathizer. As covered by Blue Jersey, Red Jersey, and PoliticsNJ the move has widely been panned as ridiculous.

How Cardinale, his college freshman campaign manager Matt Mowers, or anybody else involved could think this is a good route to go is truly a mystery. If Cardinale does survive this, his reputation will forever be tarnished. He didn't need to do this, but for whatever reason decided to.

This aspect of politics is something I just can't support. Former Republican Congressional candidate George Ajjan is advocating people write in Bob Schroeder. I don't know about that, but I'm no fan of any Papa Joe crony. Tomorrow may be the second time I vote for myself, and anybody who wants to can feel free to join me.

We Can't Do Better Than This?

This from njpols.com:

Most political observers are estimating turnout in next week's legislative elections to fall somewhere between 25-30 percent, at best.

There is something seriously wrong when the election that has the most impact directly on people's lives is the one that people skip.

I actually have skipped an off-year, but that was kind of my bottoming out point with political involvement. However, very few people I talked to over the weekend are planning on voting on Tuesday: They don't know the candidates; they don't have the time; they're not registered.

I realize that the folks who read this blog are likely to vote, but we as the involved have to do more to involve those who are not. Government works best when people are involved in the process. When voters are the ones holding the officials accountable at the polls, they respond to the voters instead of the special interests. When voters are the ones holding officials accountable the policy more closely reflects the will of the people.

My hope is, in talking to folks, a few of them may turn out. However, this little blog and me handing out some fliers tomorrow isn't going to have the kind of impact we collectively need. We as the active community need to do a better job of engaging the non-active. Not for partisan gain, not for political power, but simply for the strength of the process.

Bergen Freeholders Debate

I found this video while bouncing around on campaign sites (h/t best4bergen.org). It doesn't have an embed option, but it's hosted on Google Video so you don't have to go to a political site if you don't want to. For those wanting to watch those running for Freeholder it's the full debate, and I'm glad I got to see it.

Dumbest Excuse of The Campaign

A week after Papa Joe Ferriero admitted he plays a hand in awarding no-bid contracts, BCDO Freeholder Chairman Tomas Padilla has been attributed the lamest excuse against open government I've ever read:

Padilla said that posting the agenda online presents "logistical issues," in that items posted before the meeting could be pulled or tabled during the meeting and may not be accurate within hours of posting.

The bulk of freeholder discussion happens at work sessions a few hours before the general meeting, Padilla said.

If the NFL can update on-line statistics every 30 seconds for every game, at the same time, surely the Bergen County Freeholders can update their agenda to reflect minor changes. "Hours" and "may not be accurate" don't belong anywhere near each other in this day and information age. It's as easy as: "Save As", selecting HTML format, and uploading the revised file. They don't even PDF the things.

In addition to having agendas devoid of content, there are no minutes on the Freeholder website of what they did. We have no way of checking their arguments for or against anything. The Freeholders posted the video of one working meeting, once, and they uploaded the meeting in Quicktime so you have to download the file instead of stream it. They certainly aren't going out of their way to let voters see what's going on. If Al Gore can coordinate a 24 hour on-line concert around the world, surely the Freeholders could set up a webcam and stream the meetings.

Another problem is the Freeholders only post their commemorative resolutions. What about the resolutions awarding no-bid contracts? What about the resolutions cutting or raising taxes? They claim in their literature they've cut taxes, but there is no proof, no recorded vote, nothing. All we as voters get to see are public notices, scattered throughout the Record. Why aren't the public notices published on the website?

There is absolutely no excuse for why any of this isn't done by the Freeholders, except to deliberately shield themselves from public scrutiny.

Help A Voter Out!

Recently, candidates in both the 24th and 39th Legislative Districts had debates. In this modern age, I had hoped to find a video or audio of the debates on-line. However, it does not appear to be in the works, and it would be a great service to voters if it was.

The debate in the 24th was moderated by Fred Snowflack of the Daily Record, and was covered in the Daily Record and New Jersey Herald. Yet no audio seems to be available. As required by the Clean Elections campaign, there will be a second one on Oct. 25 at the Sussex Bank Theater at Sussex County Community College. Maybe somebody could plug an MP3 recorder in the sound board and throw it up on the site. Even a transcript would be nice to have.

Unfortunately, here in my 39th District it seems we have all missed the chance. The candidates debated the other night, with the Record and the League of Women Voters as the sponsors. From the Record's account, it seemed like a feisty affair but only those in attendance really will know. The Record didn't mention another date, so the boat may have sailed without us.

The more information voters have to go over the better informed and comfortable with their choices they'll be. Help a voter out.

Candidate Sites

I'm in the process of putting up the candidate sites for next year's race, as well as this year's races. If I'm missing a link, please send it to me.

Update on the Campaigns

For the Democratic nomination to take on Representative Scott Garrett:

• Camille Abate opened her office in Glen Rock on Sunday. She has pictures up on the blog and sounds like she had a good crowd.
• Dennis Shulman has his website up, and to the individual who asked if anyone knew his stances on the issues, his positions are there.

The State House races:

• 24th Legislative District -Republican State Senate Candidate, Freeholder Steve Oroho is the first to reach the threshold of $10 donations to qualify for maximum financing as part of the Clean Elections program. According to the New Jersey Herald, here's how the rest of the field shakes out: Assemblywoman Allison Littel McHose, $6,000; Freeholder Gary Chiusano, $6,790; Ed Selby, $5,130; Toni Zimmer, $4,940; and Pat Walsh, $4,730.
• 38th Legislative District - The BCDO has picked Assemblyman Bob Gordon to run for Joseph Coniglio's State Senate seat, and Freeholder Connie Wagner to go for Gordon's vacated position on the ballot. It never ceases to amaze me that in New Jersey it doesn't seem to matter who wins the primary. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had to run for Senate, and lose, against a dead man; yet here in New Jersey we can replace people six weeks before the election.

Campaign links coming soon: I'll be putting up links to all the campaigns that I know of in the near future. I'm a little behind in this, but it will be done shortly.

BCDO to Fight For Pay-to-Play

As reported by Charles Stile of The Record, Papa Joe's Bergen County Democratic Organization is going to go to court to fight on behalf of pay-to-play. Their logic, polling shows it doesn't rank highly on people's priorities and the ban has hurt donations from contractors. Toward the end of the article, BCDO lawyer Dennis Oury says the following:

"What makes people think that because I made a contribution, I'm not a good lawyer?" he asked. "Why can't I contribute to a campaign and be a good lawyer and do a good job for the community? Why is it mutually exclusive?

"I think the borough has an obligation to get the best that they can get."

The borough does have that obligation, and handing out contracts on a no-bid basis to donors doesn't ensure that. Whether it's a no-bid contract in Iraq or a no-bid contract for County Jail health care services; without a bidding process there is no guarantee the government is getting "the best they can get."

Suing to support corruption in an election year? Are they kidding?

Broke Phi Broke

Jersey's broke, broke broke phi broke...we ain't got it.

The news that New Jersey is going to have to borrow $2 billion to give $2 billion of tax rebates begs the question: can we afford the rebates? Most reasonable people would say no; however I realize many politicians don't seem to concern themselves with the details.

Whether it be the Republican Congress in Washington granting the first tax cuts during war in our nation's history, ramping up debt at rocket speed (the Chinese thank them daily); or the Democrats in Trenton talking about leasing or selling the Turnpike while borrowing $2 billion to send "rebate" checks to voters right before election day, fiscal irresponsibility seems to be a truly bi-partisan issue.

Websites of Interest

Update: best4bergen.org is back up.

Well, a number of new websites have come to my attention related to our District.

First, Camille Abate has a new website for her 2008 bid to be the Democratic Party nominee to take on Representative Scott Garrett. It's complete with blog and upcoming events sections. With several fundraisers planned for this fall, Abate seem to be working to widen her lead in cash on hand over 2006 challenger Paul Aronsohn.

Aronsohn hasn't updated his website in about a month, despite still generating interest in a rematch.

The Bergen County Republican Organization has a new site (h/t Red Jersey), less than a month after new Chairman Rob Ortiz pledged to make better use of technology. It is a really good site, although having a little more info on the candidates would be beneficial to voters.

In related news, it seems the website that had be running for the Bergen County Republican slate of candidates (best4bergen.org) has been taken off-line.

And, when seeing if Steve Oroho had finally gotten his website up and running for his bid for to represent the 24th District in the State Senate, you get the most basic of welcome messages. This is a bit behind his opponent Ed Selby.

Ariyan On the State Senate

Well, new Record columnist Charles Stile wrote an interesting column about Senator Gerry Cardinale's re-election bid. However, the thing I found most interesting was Joe Ariyan's view of what a State Senator is to do.

"There will always be avenues, legal and ethically, for your state senator, to... bring home the bacon," he says. "That's what representatives do. ... That's their job."

Well, that's a pretty free standing statement on his governance philosophy, now isn't it.

BCRO elects Ortiz

PoliticsNJ has a good article about the new head of the Bergen County Republican Organization, Rob Ortiz. This was a good move, not only for the Republicans but for Bergen County as a whole. The decline of the BCRO has led to one party rule, which is never a good thing.

While there are only a few short months before the election, the idea of having new leadership to take on Papa Joe's pay-to-play happy Freeholders is a good thing I commented on months ago. If nothing else, the ability of Republicans to mount a credible campaign may lead Democrats to better governance. For our system of government to be effective, there has to be alternatives. Hopefully, Ortiz can restore the BCRO to being a contender for the sake of all taxpayers in Bergen.

Clean Elections, Federal Style

After reading the NJ Herald's account of how the clean elections program is going in the 24th Legislative District (Steve Oroho, Alison Littell McHose and Gary Chiusano vs. Edwin Selby, Pat Walsh and Toni Zimmer), one has to wonder if anything like it could ever work on the Federal level. Here's how the program works, from the NJ Herald:

To qualify for public financing under the state program, candidates must receive at least 400 contributions of $10 each, or $4,000, in order to get $46,000 in public dollars for a total campaign fund of $50,000. By receiving the maximum 800 $10 contributions, or $8,000, the matching public funds will bring each candidate to $100,000. Contributions must be from registered voters in the legislative district, and candidates must submit weekly reports to the state.

Candidates also are entitled to up to $10,000 in "seed money," which is comprised of donations of $500 or less from individual registered voters in the state, not any organizations.

While proponents of pay-to-play probably cringe at that last part, for the rest of us tired of corruption and the undue influence of special interest dollars in politics it's a breath of fresh air.

It would not be impossible to implement this at the Federal level, and I've outlined the cost, barriers and impact such a program may have on Washington below.

The Numbers

With the Census Bureau estimating New Jersey has 8,724,560 people, each of our 40 legislative districts represents roughly 218,114 people. Assuming each candidate achieves the maximum number of donations, that means each legislative district is paying $552,000, or $2.50 per person.

With each Congressional District representing roughly 703,500 people, if the percentage of required donors relative to population served remained the same (0.366%), each candidate would need to collect roughly 2,600 qualifying donations.

When you compare that to the 837 individual donations (0.119%) received by Representative Scott Garrett and the 811 received (0.115%) by Paul Aronsohn last year, you can see just how few individuals are actually participating in the process. Eliminate out of district donations, and it's even fewer.

The total pot of money using the same sort of formula would need to be $1.78 million, or $890,000 per candidate. That's more than either Garrett or Aronsohn raised from individuals, but less than Garrett had when adding special interest dollars. Realistically, this could and probably would be reduced as that amount exceeds what most campaigns raised and spent on the general election.

In the event it wasn't reduced, the total program cost for clean elections in the House: $775 million, assuming no Independents qualify for the maximum and each main party candidate qualifies for and spends the maximum (unused funds are returned to the Treasury).

In order to do this in the Senate, some minor tweaks would have to be made. The number of qualifying donations could be adjusted to meet each state's individual population so that each candidate would receive the same amount per person represented. For example, last year's campaign for Senate in New Jersey would have given each candidate $11 million, while in Pennsylvania they would have received $15.7 million each.

Due to the fact 1/3 of the Senate is up for reelection every two years, you could tack on another $258 million for those and bring the grand total for the program to slightly over $1 billion dollars per election cycle.

The Barriers

First off, getting politicians and their campaign staff to want to, at a minimum in most cases, triple or quadruple the number of donations from individuals they need to receive is unlikely. For example, Senator Bob Menendez brought in 8,701 individual donations (0.099%) last year; if the funding formula remained the same it would have to go to 32,000. However, with over 1.1 million registered Democrats within the state, a main party campaign should be able to pull it off.

Second, you'll have every special interest group saying their free speech is being limited if they don't get to donate to campaigns during the general election. There are 4,138 PACs who would want to be able to donate, as with NJ's program, they would still be able to donate during the primary and could send out an e-mail to their members living within a political district to send a check to their choice of candidate in the general. Those who want campaign cash to be the greatest influence in politics are unlikely to be happy with this idea. This would likely lead to one heck of a Supreme Court fight.

Third, you'll have the politics as usual power brokers serving within the House and Senate that would fight this plan. They'd come up with any number of reasons, but eliminating their ability to affect a general with that last second $5,000 donation from either their campaign or Leadership PAC, and therefore having a chip once a winning Representative comes to Washington, is a huge strike against this for them. Once again, they could donate toward the primary and see where things fall.

The Impact

While one might scoff at the $1 billion price tag, think about the reduction in the corruption tax each of us pays. The $90 billion of corporate welfare Garrett voted against removing a little while ago is just one example of where special interest crafted legislation costs taxpayers. Eliminate all of that and how much could we save? How much lower could our taxes go?

Also, clean elections would involve more people in the process. If a candidate had to come up with 2,600 donations from individuals living within the District, they would have to spend less time trying to woo the special interests and out of state mega donors, and more time with the actual people they represent. Imagine what might happen if candidates actually had to meet with the people they serve in order to get the money they need to get elected.

Sure, the special interests would still be players in the primary, but how difficult would it be to justify to the masses not participating in the program for the general because a candidate is a slave to the PACs? In many cases, the amount of money that would be provided is more than many candidates raise from individual and PAC contributions combined in an election cycle. The program eliminates the undo pressure so many feel to kowtow to the special interests as opposed to legislating according to their constituents' interests and beliefs.

I realize this may be a 1,200 word idealistic pipe dream, that would need a lot of work, but as a government intended to be of the people, by the people and for the people: if we wanted this there should be no reason we can't have it.

Faith in our elected officials continues to spiral downward, and corruption and campaign donation motivated partisanship are the primary reasons. While someone like Barak Obama will forgo PAC money, many politicians can't seem to get their hands out of the cookie jar. Having clean elections would force the candidates to change and has the potential of restoring faith in government in a way the super majority of our current officials can't seem to figure out how to do on their own.

I'm Back

So, now I'm home again. Here's what I missed:

Representative Scott Garrett took the opportunity to follow the news that the GDP grew at the slowest pace in five years to send out a Garrett Gazette saying how great things are with the economy thanks to the tax cuts. Not mentioned in the Gazette were the facts of the unfair competitive advantage the cuts provide foreign companies, or the fact that there is growing concern within economist circles that phantom GDP may be artificially inflating the strength of the economy. Also, Garrett neglected to mention his vote against 10 years of tax cuts for small business owners.

On a positive, it seems the hotly debated Homeland Security funding bill will have an amendment to allocate funds based on risk, a primary recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, and Garrett sponsored the amendment to get it in there.

Both Kevin O'Toole and Steve Oroho won their primaries. O'Toole's victory was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as Guy Talarico's time as Chairman of the Bergen County Republican Organization. Oroho notched his second victory against Garrett's preferred candidate, and has built a strong coalition of moderates and classic conservatives that is reshaping the power balance in Sussex. Assuming O'Toole and Oroho both win, they have very big shoes to fill in the State Senate for their respective parties and constituents.

And on a final note, Garrett's press secretary Will Holley has been hired to handle media for Mitt Romney in South Carolina. One of the biggest gripes since I first started following Garrett was that you could almost never find quotes or statements or anything regarding his thinking when voting on our behalf. Basically, before Holley came on board Garrett's website was about as useless to constituents as ice cubes are to Eskimos. I'm not sure when Holley will be leaving Garrett's office, but Holley's work was light years beyond what we had before (even when he was spinning) and he will be missed.

Talarico vs. Commonsense

A few weeks ago, when I talked about the BCRO getting Rudy Giuliani to come speak, I said if the Republicans were smart they could pick up some Freeholder seats in Bergen County this year. Never in my wildest imagination would I think that Guy Talarico would start another inter-party fight. However, as first reported by PoliticsNJ, Talarico unilaterally kicked two sitting state officeholders (David Russo and Kevin O'Toole) off the Bergen County Republican Organization's line for the June Primary. Here's his reasoning:

If Bergen County surrenders this Senate seat to Essex County, the largest county in the state would be reduced to ONE Senator. In addition, this situation may potentially jeopardize Bergen’s only remaining Senator, Gerry Cardinale. Democratic Chair Joe Ferriero has promised to spend millions of dollars to defeat State Senator Cardinale. Such a defeat will mean the Democrats possess total control of senatorial courtesy in Bergen County. This will mean no Republican appointments in Bergen County and greater future difficulties for Bergen County Republicans to reclaim municipal, county and state offices in the future.

So basically, he's given up on my State Senator, Gerry Cardinale, and has decided to divide the party on his own. The result has been guys from the Red Faction splitting with Talarico, and two of the three Freeholder candidates splitting with Talarico.

The BCRO has been in a tailspin since former BCRO Chairman Berek Don pled guilty to laundering money to former Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli's campaign. That betrayal probably explains why Talarico detractors feel he's conspiring with Papa Joe. The descent hit warp speed with the retirement of Marge Roukema. What Sussex sees as its gain is definitely Bergen's loss.

On that note, it was also pointed out to me that it's a little ironic that Talarico's waving the off-white flag about Cardinale and he kicked David Russo off the the county line. Both were challengers to Representative Scott Garrett back in 2002. Without a strong BCRO, there's less of a chance a moderate Republican in the Marge Roukema mold would be able to build a base to take on Talarico's fellow Mountain Man.

Conspiracy theories aside, the fact remains that because of Talarico's ineptitude as a leader, the BCRO gets slaughtered every Election Day. The immediate result is that Bergen County property taxpayers are getting soaked for more than they need to be because of the BCDO's institutionalization of pay-to-play at all levels of government.

It's a vicious cycle, and in all likelihood won't be remedied until Talarico and/or Garrett are gone. By Talarico's own logic, it's harder to build the party without the Congressman being from Bergen. How many no-bid contracts to donors and patronage jobs will be handed out by the BCDO in the meantime is anybody's guess. The Record pointed out after Election Day the need to rebuild the Republican Party for all of us, not just Republicans, yet Talarico keeps ripping it apart.