Sheep for brains

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Christine O’Donnell coming to Hazlet to raise campaign cash for Anna Little

 This is not what I had in mind when I called on John Bennett and Sam Thompson, the GOP chairmen of Monmouth and Middlesex counties, to fix Anna Little’s overdraft.:

Patriot Ticket
$250

Co-Host Sponsorship
$2,500

Other Sponsorships Available – Please Call for Details

~ RSVP TODAY – Space is Limited ~

Call 732-658-5461

Please Mail Event Contribution Checks To:
Friends of Anna Little
P.O. Box 382, Highlands, NJ 07732

Please Include: Employer and Occupation in the memo line
(Information Required by Federal/State Law – if self employed list ‘self’ and industry ie: Attorney)

~Thank You to Our Host Committee ~

Municipal Chair of Old Bridge, Anita Greenburg, Assemblyman Rob Clifton, President of Affiliated Republican Club Wayne Pomanowski & Mayor Fred Rast of Atlantic Highlands

In case you blocked it out, O’Donnell was the 2010 Tea Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Delaware who scored an upset primary victory over former Governor Mike Castle  before going on to lose badly to Christopher Coons, costing the GOP the opportunity to take what had been Joe Biden’s Senate seat.  Castle was considered a sure victor in the general election had he been the nominee.

O’Donnell was a deeply flawed candidate.

The NJ media has compared Little to O’Donnell too often.  Once would have been too often.  Now the comparisons will inevitably start again.  The only thing that could prevent The Star Ledger’s Tom Moran or Politickernj from making such a comparison is if Little fails to get enough traction against Frank Pallone to warrant any ink.

The comparisons could start, mercifully, with failure to file notices from the FEC.

Governor Chris Christie campaigned for Castle in 2010.

He also appeared at least two fund raisers for Little in 2010.  Those weren’t catering hall fund raisers.  They were held at elegant waterfront private homes.  This news makes one wonder about Bennett’s and Thompson’s clout with the Governor.  This one makes one wonder if Christie will be stumping for Little in October.

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Timing is everything

Monmouth County Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon is making statewide waves and generating statewide headlines in his quest to prove that red light cameras are not safety devices, but revenue generating ripoffs.

O’Scanlon makes a compelling case, backed up with engineering, that yellow lights should be timed for actual speeds that motorists are driving, rather than by the posted speed limits.  He convinced MMM that’s he’s right on the issue, and that might be the subject of a future post.  Read one of these articles if you want to bone up on that issue now.  What prompted my call to O’Scanlon was politics, not policy.

There are no red light cameras in O’Scanlon’s legislative district, the 13th in Northern Monmouth County.

As the Assembly Republican Budget Officer, O’Scanlon has one of the highest, if not the highest, statewide profile of his fellow Republicans in the Assembly.

The last time O’Scanlon made statewide headlines on a issue not related to the budget he was speaking out in favor of medical marijuana and against towns that were using zoning laws to keep happy medicine dispensaries and farms outside of their boundaries.  MMM’s unscientific poll indicated that his position on 420 could cause a 180 among his supporters in the 13th.

I wondered if O’Scanlon might have political ambitions that, in addition to his commitment to doing the right thing, are motivating his activities outside of his district.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Unity or Strange Bedfellows in the Monmouth GOP?

Anna Little, with good reason, has been taking credit for John Bennett’s election as Monmouth GOP Chairman.  If not for Little endorsing her benefactor and encouraging the County Committee members who are also Tea Party activists to vote for Bennett, Christine Hanlon would be Chairwoman.

Little’s reward, whatever it is, will come sometime after she loses to Frank Pallone in November.

The biggest change that Bennett has made since taking over the helm of the Monmouth GOP six weeks ago is to start to make good on his campaign promise to raise the money necessary for county campaigns.   He has informed the Monmouth GOP ticket of Freeholders John Curley and Serena DiMaso, as well as County Clerk Claire French, not to worry about rasing money for the fall campaign.  He has instructed office holders not on the ballot this fall, including the legislative delegation and the sheriff, all of whom have campaigns next year, to suspend their fund raising activities effective August 1 so as not to compete with his efforts for the current campaign.

But how will he raise the money?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Anna Little Reports Negative Cash On Hand

Anna Little’s congressional campaign account is overdrawn $11,321.08, according to the FEC Form 3 Record of Receipts and Disbursements, that her campaign submitted to the Federal Election Commission yesterday.

$22,188.28 seems to have disappeared overnight, between May 16 and May 17, from Little’s meager coffers.  In  the pre-primary report of activity for the April 1 through May 16 period, “Friends of Anna Little” had $13,806.95 cash on hand on May 16.  The next day, her campaign’s beginning balance was negative $8,381, according to the report submitted yesterday.

Monmouth County GOP Chairman John Bennett, Middlesex County GOP Chairman Sam Thomspon and the Bayshore Tea Party Group need to step in and right the Little campaign before it does damage to the rest of the party.  Thompson thought his judgment was better than that of the Monmouth GOP screening committee when he awarded his county’s party line to Little when her home county leaders thought better.  Bennett, while not yet chairman, supported Little in the primary against Ernesto Cullari.  Bennett and Thompson headlined a fundraiser for Little.

When MMM questioned Thompson about Little’s FEC reports in May he said, “I have a hard enough time keeping my own campaign reports straight.”  That flippant attitude is no longer acceptable.

Bennett relied on Little’s support to win the chairmanship by three votes.  Little has been taking credit for Bennett’s victory at her weekly campaign meetings at the Keyport IHOP. 

The Bayshore Tea Party Group’s leadership, despite having well earned reservations about Little, chose to support her over Cullari as an act of defiance towards the Monmouth GOP.

Thompson, Bennett and BTPG gave us this mess.  They need to clean it up.  Fast.

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Thanks for a great month

June was by far the most active month in MMM’s history.  There have been 32,000 visits and 57,000 page views so far month.  71% of those visitors were repeats.  Google analytics says that all of that traffic came from 8700 computers.  Unbelievably to me, the average visit is for 11 minutes, which is longer than it takes to read an entire issue of the Asbury Park Press.

According to alexa.com, only 15,850 websites in the New York area and 125,439 in the United States get more traffic than MMM.

Special thanks go out to Anna Little, Ernesto Cullari, John Bennett, Christine Hanlon, Vin Gopal, Frank LaRocca, Barbara Gonzalez, Bob Gordon, Linda Baum  Rachel Alintoff, Judge Paul Escandon, Louise Murray and everyone who wears bathing suits on the Asbury Park Boardwalk.  I can’t forget Bob Menendez’s opposition research team.

I doing my monthly review, I couldn’t help but notice the success of my friends in Asbury Park.

Congratulations to Dan Jacobson and Molly Mulshine at the AsburyParkSun.  In only three months they have made a significant impact in the local media market.  Alexa.com says that APS is in the top 200,000 of all websites nationally and in the top 35,000 in the New York area.   Mulshine was the first to report the Asbury Park Boardwalk beach attire controversy, a story that went national.

UPDATE: July 1

Wow!  I haven’t had such a busy last day of the month since I was in the car business.  The final numbers for June are 32,959 visitors fromm 9,194 unique IPs and 58,768 page views.  Ranked 120,646 in the U.S. on Alexa.

As Lois mentioned in the comments, thank you so much to all the commenters, especially the “congregation” as Lois called the regulars.  I won’t name them all because I’m sure to leave an important one out.

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Little Files FEC Reports For Senate Campaign

Still No Reports For Her House Race

Friends of Anna Little filed an undated quarterly report for the period covering January 1, 2011 through March 31, 2012 which disclosed contributions and expenditures for Little’s campaign for U.S. Senate.   The report was marked received by the Secretary of the Senate on June 5, 2012, coincidently the same day that Little won the GOP primary for the House of Representatives in New Jersey’s 6th district.   The report can be found here.

According to the report, Little raised $161,151.95 and spent $147,371.46 during the 15 month quarter while running for U.S. Senate.  The time bending campaign had $13,834.49 cash on hand on March 31.

Little has no records on file with the FEC for her campaign to unseat Congressman Frank Pallone.  Her previous campaign committee, Anna C. Little for Congress Inc, filed a termination report with the FEC on April 2, 2012, 9 days after she received the Middlesex County GOP’s endorsement for the 6th district nomination.

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Who is Christine Hanlon? The Monmouth County GOP Chair’s Race, Part 4

By Art Gallagher

Who is this woman who, only six years ago was not involved in politics and now has State Legislators and county elected officials feverishly working the phones to make sure she is elected Monmouth County GOP Chair on Tuesday evening at Colts Neck High School?

Late last week as I was finishing up my preparation for this series, I called two of the elected officials who had endorsed John Bennett for Chair.   I trust these people’s judgment and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something.

“Tell me why John Bennett will be a better Chair than Christine Hanlon,” I asked both Republicans.  Neither had an answer.  Both said they liked Christine and that she would be a good Chairwoman.  They both spoke of their friendship with Bennett and the support he gave them early in their careers as the reason for endorsements.  Neither disagreed with my concerns about Bennett’s baggage.   

One of them called me back over the weekend and asked, “Why do you think Christine will be a better Chair than John?”  “Bennett is too much of a risk.  Fair or not, he will become a campaign issue and a distraction.   No one works harder than Christine and she’s motivated by something other than personal gain,”  was my reply.  “How can you say that about someone who has only been involved for a few years?” the person quickly asked.  “Because I’ve taken the time to get to know her, just like I took the time  to get to know you when you were running.”  “Oh, I was just asking.”  “That’s OK, I was just answering.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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The Chairmanship and Conflicts of Interest

My friend Jim Giannell  asked that I write a short piece about conflicts of interests and the County Chair, as it relates to the current race between Christine Hanlon and John Bennett.

Jim is supporting John Bennett for Chair.  While I haven’t made an endorsement yet, most people assume I am supporting Christine Hanlon given my recent coverage of John Bennett.  I’m on the fence between Christine and Bayshore Tea Party Group Co-Founder Bob Gordon.   No, not really.

Jim and I started our friendship working on Anna Little’s 2006 Freeholder race.  Over the last six years we’ve been on the same side and opposite sides of various races.  We’re not go on vacation together or spend Christmas Eve together kinds of friends, but we always take each others calls, help each other when we can, and neither of us is ever bitter with the other when a race is over.  I always tell him the truth and he usually tells me the truth after I call him on his bullshit.  When I launched this site and started selling advertising, Jim wrote me a check, even though he didn’t have a website to link an ad to.  We’re friends.  I owe him an ad.

In politics, as in life, holding grudges only nails you’re own foot to the floor.   It can be both humorous and maddening to watch grudge holders spin around in circles, while they think they are getting somewhere.

But enough about my friendship with Jim, and on to his request.

In the comments of the Chair’s race Part 3 post, Jim said,

Hi Art,
Wow ! Things are getting wild out there !
Anyway, talk about “Deals”, many of us have heard the rumor that a certain Chairperson of a fairly large town has been promised the job of “Commissioner of Registration”; an $80,000/yr job to support Christine, should she win. I know you can figure out who.
There is no question that a Republican County Chairperson should not have any business with County Government that is controlled by Republicans yet Christine fails to address this critical issue. Could you do a short piece on this before Tues ?
I could go on with many things I’ve heard but have to get to work. Lunch is either on you or me at the end of the week, we shall see Tuesday eve and then I’ll let you know why you have been wrong & vice versa !

I responded,

@ Jim Giannell

We both know how rumors work.

I promised you that I would find out the truth. From what I hear, the Commissioner of Registration appointment is indeed coming up. I hear that several inquiries have been made about it and that no deals or promises have been made by Christine.

Who, if anyone, has John promised the job to? I’m sure you know.

Regarding the chair doing work for the county, that only became a conflict of interest because John decided to say it is a conflict of interest and his supporters, like yourself and Gerri, are running with it. We all know its a red herring. County work is no more of a conflict for the chair than municipal work is. The county chair has as much power on the municipal level as he/she does on the county level.

In a perfect world, someone who doesn’t need to earn a living would be county chair and do the job passionately. We don’t live in a perfect world. The demands of the chairmanship would put most people out of business or out of a their jobs, or they would not be a successful chair. Vic Scudiery is such an example. Politics is not his business. He always took care of his family and his business and did the best he could as chair of the Dems with the deck stack against him. More than once, political pros tried to take him out. The Dems would have been more competitive in Monmouth if a politico was their chair all these years. There is really no question about that.

If John becomes chair, his income will not take a hit. If Christine becomes chair, her income will not take a hit either.

If a business person like you or me became chair, our incomes would take a hit.

I don’t like it, and I know that you don’t like it. But that is the way it is.

See you Tuesday night and again for lunch on Friday.

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Pallone Expected Anna Little’s Primary Victory

Charles Measley is hilarious.

The Ryder University student, Rumson County Committeeman, and founder of the FrankPalloneNotForNewJersey blog  wakes up every morning thinking of ways to get Frank Pallone out of office.

Early this year when it appeared that no Republican would step up to run against Pallone, Charles set out to find a candidate.  Anna Little was still running for U.S. Senate at that point.

As the self appointed Chairman of the Defeat Pallone Brigade, Charles spoke to dozens of potential candidates; elected officials, former candidates, even bloggers, all of whom had 4 million and 1 good reasons not to run against the incumbent congressman, until Ernesto Cullari said yes.  Charles became a campaign manager.

Pallone doesn’t seem to mind. 

Here, Pallone poses with Charles wearing a Bayshore Tea Party t-shirt during an April 2011 beach clean up in Belmar.

Over the Memorial Day weekend last month, Charles was driving down Ocean Avenue in Long Branch when he spotted Pallone gardening in his front yard. Never one to miss an opportunity, Charles stopped to ask the congressman who he preferred his opponent to be; Little or Cullari.  Charles recorded the conversation. Click on the link to listen to their chat:

Frank Pallone tells Charles Measley who will win the GOP primary in CD-6

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