The Precious Few
Before running for Congress I was like so many people who had strong opinions on the way our country was being run, but I was contented doing my part as a conservative columnist and as a philanthropist. One evening in March, I was asked to do more for my community, when friends and acquaintances approached me to run for the Republican nomination for Congress. The opportunity would not have presented itself had I not been the writer of the Justified Right column in the TriCity News. My readers earned me that opportunity.
It’s important to mention that no elected Republican official or anyone else of note wanted the role. In fact, my former opponent, who won the primary, was registered at that time, and was still registered as a Senate Candidate and not a Congressional candidate with the Federal Election Commission on Election Day. When I was recruited to run it was apparent that the Republican Party had no one to represent the party in the race for Congress and so I took up the mantle.
Since that evening I have had a crash course on the inner-workings of the Republican Party, the various Tea Party groups, as well as grass roots organizations all across the 6th Congressional District, which now covers all of coastal Monmouth (from Asbury Park) through Middlesex County, ending in South Plainfield. But what made an impression upon me most was how too few people are involved in our two party system and how that reality means that voters have less and less of a significant voice in how their country is run.
For example out of the 95,071 registered Republicans in Monmouth County only 5,829 or about 6% voted for U.S. House of Representatives in Congressional District 6. So not only did no one want the job, but too few felt compelled to vote for either candidate.
I have to admit that I was once part of the overwhelming majority that did not vote in primaries, but if this country is going to salvage both its liberty and its free markets then more of us who are apathetic must become more involved in deciding who our candidates are going to be.
The Republican Party gets a bad rap in the press for being an old white guy’s club, but the party as a whole was one of the most inviting and supportive organizations that I have ever been a part of.
Leaders like Monmouth Freeholder Lillian Burry, State Senator Jennifer Beck, Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini, Oceanport Councilman Joe Irace, Monmouth Board of Elections Commissioner Christine Hanlon, South Plainfield Councilman Derryck White, Middletown Mayor Tony Fiore and many many others were both gracious and generous with their time and advice. To many of them I was unknown before I announced my intentions to run for Congress and each of them worked hard to ensure that I did not take up this fight alone.
What surprised me the most were a few of the Tea Party organizations. The Middlesex Tea Party and the East Jersey Tea Party groups stand out as well organized grass roots organizations, committed to educating the public on how our liberties are being slowly stripped from us. What I found is that too many of the other Tea Party organizations have evolved into exactly what normal people see is wrong with the Occupy Wall Street crowd; namely that they have become a group of malcontent self-righteous rabble-rousers. It is these few organizations focused on the sound of their own voices that give the rest of the Tea Party a bad name.
Despite low voter turnout and dismal voter participation there is a silver lining. My campaign staff, and campaign staffs all across the country are comprised of college-aged kids who toil without much reward or fanfare. Yet they make our country work.
Both my professional staff and volunteers worked 16-hour days for two months straight. I paid them mostly in hamburgers. They weren’t fighting and working for me, they were struggling for you and the future of our country. They are committed whole-heartedly to seeing good candidates elected to higher office and oftentimes the best candidate loses and the bad guys win, but they pick themselves up to fight another day.
Our representative democracy is held together by too few people willing to serve within our communities. If our nation is to pass liberty on to future generations then we’re going to need many more hands on deck. I hope that you too will join the precious few who are working earnestly to hand the American Dream on to the next generation. Your country needs you and history will not wait.
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Now, the truth
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Cullari Considering Congressional Bid
Cullari Issues A Debate Challenge to Little
Cullari will not challenge Pallone- CD-6 Primary: It will all come down to turnout
Little Announces For Congress, Claims GOP Support
Cullari not deterred by GOP Split in Congressional District 6, New Jersey
Monmouth Freeholder Lillian Burry Endorses Ernesto Cullari For Congress
They used you…but you don’t realize it. Only 36 out of nearly 2200 delegates to the 2008 republican convention were minorities. 36. They used you.
“…a group of malcontent self-righteous rabble-rousers”? You mean your campaign staff?
“The Republican Party gets a bad rap in the press for being an old white guy’s club”. You just can’t seem to remove yourself from using that pesky race card, can you?
wow….you ran a dirty campaign and lost…get over it dude. An apology would have been better.
@ George & APluette
I encourage you both to come forward and run for public office, especially an office such as Congress; instead of standing on the side lines criticizing how one ran there campaign.
@Charles M — when you put yourself out there to run for office, you also open yourself up to criticism. The Cullari campaign was terribly run. A good lesson, I suppose, for future candidates: ‘Whatever you do, don’t do what this guy did!’
History lesson for Ambrosia.
New immigrants to the US typically join the Democrats because they come from places that teach them that the Government is their Nanny. That is why Irish Italian and Jewish immigrants who immigrated here where reliably Democratic for a long time. However the longer they live here the more they assimilate and they start to realize that the American way, the Republican way is better. As a result Irish, Jewish and Italians are not automatically Democrat any more. In 50 years the descendants of todays Asian and Hispanic immigrants will come to the same conclusion and then you will see the color so important to you. See it has nothing to do with racism and it is actually you race baiting hypocrite Democrats who use minorities.
Really TR? So you’re basically saying that those white Irish guys and those white Jewish guys were yesteryears minorities? With that ridiculous theory, all those slaves that were brought here would now all be republican…LOL…ok..you can go with that if you’d like. Its just so very arrogant, typical and condescending of you to spew that the only American way is the Republican way…just too stupid for words on that one. What I stated was a fact. Not ideological theory.
Rick,
Actually each waive of ethnicities who came to America were treated as minorities, complete with ghettos and a distrust by those who came before them.
Also, Blacks were most certainly Republican from the 1870’s until the latter part of the post WWII era.
Yes..I understand that Tommy…but we’re talking Irish in the 1840-1860 range and Italians in the 1880-1900 range. No one stays minority for long…Blacks were republican mostly in the south after reconstruction…until FDR. Now, you would be hard pressed to find a republican black man in the deep south, which would blow “TR”‘s theory to hell that given 50 years, they turn to the dark side and believe in republican conservatism. As to my statement, and the old white guy label for you republicans, it really was evident at the 2008 convention that minorities are practically non-existent in your party. Why is that?
Thanks Tommy. That is absolutly correct.
Blacks only started becoming Democrats when they migrated to the cities and Democrats starting buying their votes with government handouts. I can not fathom why they don’t understand that this is bad for them in the long run.
Yes you did state a fact and I provided an explanation for its cause. If you understood history you would understand how the ebb and flow of immigrants has effected politics in this country.
For the majority of this countries history it was understood that small government was good and people succeeded or failed based on their own hard work and did not expect government handouts. Unfortunatly my cousin Franklin changed all that :-).
Yes that is the American way and by the grace of God may the majority in this country wake up and believe that once again.
Irish and Italians where still immigrating to here (along with eastern europeons) and filling cities up until WWI. I know this from personal family history and yes they were still treated like minorities.
Further the Democrats controlled the cities with patronage. ie government handouts before government handouts were legal. They started doing that by the 1850’s. Admittedly it takes a long time to wean people off the government gravy train but one day all those Indians and Chinese and Hispanics will see the light.
Ernesto,
I Facebooked you with a myriad of questions–and all I wanted was truthful, accurate responses. I got bullcrap!! But quite honestly, I don’t think you were the one behind the key boards…Kelly????????
@Charles M.
“I encourage you both to come forward and run for public office, especially an office such as Congress; instead of standing on the side lines criticizing how one ran there campaign.”
How do you know what we do or don’t do? Regardless, his campaign was run terribly….anyone can see that. Everyone DID see that. The proof was in the pudding.
Now, don’t you think it’s time to get on board with the candidate who will go up against Pallone? If you are all about getting the liberals out, that’s what you would be doing…but again, the proof is in the pudding.
On the bright side, when Pallone wins by 25 pts it will put an end to the delusion that is Anna Little, failed Mayor of Highlands, failed 2010 candidate, soon to be failed 2012 candidate—-three strikes yer out.
When Jim Sage speaks———no one listens.
But when Jim Sage writes, “Bob Who” reads.
I can run through a list of reasons why this candidate lost; from the juvenile behavior of the campaign staff to the Romper Room like antics they displayed to the RINO endorsements of Beck, Rible, Handline & Angelini for Cullari.
Bottom line for me was that Anna Little was the better candidate, with or without the line, as she proved again, and the bigger problem for Cullari was that as voters, we read, saw and heard more about and from his CAMPAIGN STAFF then we did about the candidate.
The race became a “get Anna Little” campaign from disgruntled immature former supporters and staffers who really thought THEY were responsible for her Primary win in 2010 and by God they were going to show her by doing it again with Cullari.
BullCrap you say? Of COURSE it was Kelly, that’s all she knows how to spew. Again,when you hire skanky lowlife trash, that’s what kind of campaign you get. Im so glad so many people see her and that campaign for what it was.
His “staff” should be the ones apologizing to him for running his campaign into the ground…LOL
Im not a Little fan but I would never vote for him just based on the fact that he used poor judgement in hiring people. Obviously he did no background checks He hired people who cant even manage their personal lives. Smart people can recognize when they are wrong and apologize. You will never get one from any of these losers.
time to get over it and go after pallone!