How N.J.’s 2.6 million unaffiliated voters can cast a ballot Tuesday

TRENTON — While registered Democrats and Republicans can only vote in their party’s primary on Tuesday, New Jersey’s 2.6 million unaffiliated voters are not left out of the process. “Voters who are unaffiliated can go in, declare a party, and then vote in that primary,” said Tori Symonds, a spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who… Read the rest of this entry »

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Bruce Jenner is a conservative Republican, Christian woman

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Monmouth Republicans and the Tea Party Row – A National Problem in Local Form

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.

~Ronald Reagan, July 1, 1975

By Tommy DeSeno

Self-identified Tea Party groups are supporting primary candidates against Republican incumbents Senator Joe Kyrillos, Assemblywoman Amy Handlin, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, Monmouth Freeholder Director Tom Arnone, Freeholder Deputy Director Serena DiMaso and Monmouth Sheriff Shaun Golden.

Normally I’d say to the challengers nothing more than, “Hey it’s a free country so have at it,” but to call America a “free country” now is becoming more cliché than reality, isn’t it?  Between Democrat Obama’s view that he has a right to kill American citizens without due process of law and Republican John Roberts ruling that I can be “taxed” on ObamaCare for not buying it, it is becoming increasingly hard to know who to trust in matters of American freedom.

When people ask me nowadays if I’d like to see a third party in politics, I tell them I’d settle for a second one.  The Democrats and Republicans are becoming that much alike.

So let me start by saying to Tea Party folks that I understand your frustration.  I too feel the need to have political ideology inform political judgment rather than concerns over electoral identity.  

The problem, my friends, is the “Tea Party” was never intended to be a third political party, and the local folks in Monmouth County are treating it like it is.  There seems to be a need to serve a full slate of candidates without regard to whether the Republican in question should be challenged, and that makes you look more election driven than ideology driven.  

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Geraldo Rivera Outlines Why He’s Mulling Senate Bid

By Geraldo Rivera, reprinted from FoxNewsLatino

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Mazzola Met With Bennett Before Switching Partys

Mayor Jon Hornik was present at the meeting

Carol Mazzola, right, with Selika Josiah Gore and Kim Guadagno during their 2009 campaign. facebook photo

Marlboro Councilwoman Carol Mazzola met with Monmouth County Republican Chairman John Bennett prior to announcing her to run for reelection as a Democrat this fall.  Mayor Jon Hornik was present at the meeting which took place in Freehold.

Mazzola told MoreMonmouthMusings that she met with Bennett out of respect for the chairman for whom she has great admiration.  She said that Bennett attempted to pursuade her not to switch partys, but that her mind was already made upInflatable Slide.

The councilwoman, who is seeking her second term on the Marlboro Council, said she’s been struggling with the decision for many months.  “In the end, I know I made the right decision for myself and for the citizens of Marlboro,” she said, “win lose or draw, I know I did the right thing.”

Bennett has not returned MMM’s call for comment.

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There Will Be No Bathing Suits on The Road to Serfdom (but in this case I might not mind)

By Tommy DeSeno, first posted on Ricochet.com

This story requires one to consider social mores, conservatism, government powers, libertarianism, class, classlessness, tradition, expression, subsidiarity, humility, pride and manners.  In other words, it’s practically the reason Ricochet.com was created.

My beloved little city of Asbury Park, NJ made national headlines in 2010 when a local storekeeper, while attempting to drum up business, made a push for the City by the Sea to have a nude beach.   The measure was ultimately rejected.  That it was seriously considered at all shows how liberal Bruce Springsteen’s adopted hometown has become (of the 5,418 registered voters, only 390 are Republican).

What a difference two years makes though.   Former councilwoman and Republican Committeewoman Louise Murray has found a 50 year old ordinance on the books that says people in Asbury Park may not wear bathing suits on the boardwalk.  At a recent council meeting she pleaded with the City to once again enforce it.   Her plea has been picked up as newsworthy locally, regionally, and nationally now that Drudge has given it a headline.  The City Council is considering her request.

I don’t know if there is a social conservative backlash to the Obama Administration going on in this country but this might actually be proof of it.  Here is an exchange between Ms. Murray and Asbury Park Deputy Mayor John Loffredo as reported by a local website, www. moremonmouthmusings.net:

“I’ll be darned if I want to be standing at a bar and have somebody slither up in a Speedo or bikini that shouldn’t be in a bathing suit,” Murray said. “It’s disgraceful … I implore you to enforce this, but do not amend it.”

Deputy Mayor John Loffredo responded, “I honestly don’t disagree with you.”

Why is that exchange important?  Loffredo is one of New Jersey’s first openly gay elected politicians and a Democrat.  He’s a liberal.  He supports Asbury Park’s annual Gay Pride Parade (and you know how they dress marching in that).   Yet he doesn’t disagree with Ms. Murray about this.  A shift in social mores?

A bit of history about Asbury Park for context.  It was founded as a Methodist retreat in the late 1800s.  It had been a dry town where certain sports were originally banned as they might attract bettors.  This one square mile City still has nearly 40 churches.   So full of elegance was it that when I was a boy people would dress up to walk downtown and women working at the local department store were forbidden from wearing pants.

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The Color of Justice

By Evans C. Anyanwu

If abolitionist Frederick Douglas appeared today in New Jersey and asked for political support from the African American community, he might be surprised at the fact that his political affiliation would far eclipse his accomplishments. Douglas was a Republican.

In April of 1865, shortly after the Civil War ended, and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Douglas gave a speech at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston. At issue was the voting rights of Black men and to this subject Douglas remarked:

“I have had but one idea for the last three years to present to the American people, and the phraseology in which I clothe it is the old abolition phraseology. I am for the immediate, unconditional, and universal enfranchisement of the black man, in every State in the Union. Without this, his liberty is a mockery; without this, you might as well almost retain the old name of slavery for his condition; for in fact, if he is not the slave of the individual master, he is the slave of society, and holds his liberty as a privilege, not as a right. He is at the mercy of the mob, and has no means of protecting himself.”

Drawing loud applauses from the previous line, Douglas went right into the heart of his speech. He deviated from the conventional thought of most abolitionists, which at the time was that the right to vote should come last. The immediate need for African Americans, most thought, was to end slavery, organize and let voting naturally come at the end of the abolitionist movement. Douglas remarked: “It may be objected, however, that this pressing of the Negro’s right to suffrage is premature. Let us have slavery abolished, it may be said, let us have labor organized, and then, in the natural course of events, the right of suffrage will be extended to the Negro. I do not agree with this.”

Five years after his speech, the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the States and Federal government from denying African Americans the right to vote. Thereafter, Thomas Mundy Peterson, a Republican, on March 31, 1870 cast the first vote ever by a Black man, under the just-enacted Amendment, during the Perth Amboy, New Jersey, School Board Elections.

The right to vote, not only for African Americans, but for women, was very important to Douglas. So it is with this background that I write about a very important vote to ensue. There is likely to be a committee vote this month to advance the nomination of Bruce A. Harris, Esq. to the Supreme Court of the same State where Thomas Mundy Peterson cast his historic vote.

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Average Some One

By Art Gallagher

This post is for my Tea Party friends and my Republican friends in Monmouth County who continue to relate to each other with caution and trepidation or worse.

I’d like you all to consider the evolution of my friend James Hogan and the evolution of our county party over the last two years.

Hogan was the embodiment of the Tea Party before most Tea Partiers got off the couch.  Motivated, dedicated and completely out of his mind, he ran in the 2008 GOP primary for the nomination in the 6th Congressional District of New Jersey.

A few weeks after the 2008 primary, Hogan wrote of his first encounter the the MonmouthGOP establishment. It wasn’t pretty, but it worth reading.

Today, James wrote about his more recent experience with “the establishment.”  There has been a great deal of progress in two + years.

James has not compromised any principles, nor has he become any less outspoken.

He is an example of what is possible for those who are passionate about our politics yet new to the polictical process.  Those who have welcomed James graciously into the process are examples of the kind of leaders who empower the growth of our party.

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LITTLE: HOUSE GOP ‘PLEDGE TO AMERICA’ PUTS POWER BACK IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE – WHERE IT BELONGS

(HIGHLANDS, September 24) – Republican congressional challenger Anna Little – responding to the release yesterday of House Republicans’ “Pledge to America” – today praised the document as a “governing agenda that will take power away from Washington and put it back in the hands of the people, where it belongs.”
 
“For too long, too many decisions have been made in Washington by political elites who don’t seem to care what the American people think,” said Little. “Every decision that’s made in Washington is a decision that’s not made by individual American citizens – and when you add to that the fact that Washington elites don’t seem to be paying attention to what the country wants, you just make the problem worse. That’s not what our Founders wanted for us, and that’s why the ‘Pledge to America’ is not just a governing agenda that will take power away from Washington and put it back in the hands of the people, where it belongs, it’s a modern-day restatement of the principles on which our nation was established.
 
“It’s not surprising, when you stop to consider that the ‘Pledge to America’ was created by actually listening to the people,” Little continued, “and therein lies its strength. The agenda laid out in the Pledge is an agenda that will respond to America’s demand for lower taxes, spending cuts, and reforming the way Washington works.
 
“If Washington elites – like my opponent, Frank Pallone – would spend more time listening to the people than to each other, they’d be a lot better off. And if they actually had faith in the American people, we’d all be a lot better off.
 
“Our campaign has garnered national attention because of our ability to mobilize grass-roots volunteers. And when the reporters ask what’s our ‘secret’ for getting them to come out and do the hard work, I explain very simply that there’s really no secret at all – people everywhere will help if you just listen to them, and respond to their needs. They’re coming out to help our campaign because they know that in doing so, they’re actually helping build a brighter future for themselves and their families.
 
“The simple fact is, you cannot change Washington without changing the people in Washington.
 
“The good news is, there’s an election in 39 days. And then the people will have a chance to make their voice heard!”

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