By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
The battle for Bergen County’s Republican chairmanship between incumbent Bob Yudin and challenger Paul DiGaetano will reach its climax later this month on June 21st, Save Jerseyans, but on Tuesday, at the populous county’s hundreds of local polling stations, the pre-battle (for lack of a better word) is playing out over GOP county committee seats.
Committee members will select the next chairman.
Two of those committee members running for reelection are Matthew Gilson, a frequent contributor to Save Jersey and current Bergen County Young Republican chairman, and Brendan Quinones, himself a former Bergen YR chair and the current New Jersey Young Republicans State Chairman as well as a Rutherford District 3 committee member.
Both men are veterans of county committee despite their 20-something ages who nevertheless were booted off “the line” (the official party column) and relegated to the far-left column of the ballot by Chairman Yudin’s organization. Gilson is a vocal supporter of DiGaetano and critic of Yudin’s leadership; Quinones, who remained relatively neutral before the move, is now slated to server as DiGaetano’s deputy vice chair should the former GOP Assemblyman succeed in dethroning Yudin.
Here’s a graphic shared on Gilson’s Facebook page showing his ballot position:
While “denying the line” is a familiar albeit brutal tool for exacting party discipline, this case raised some eyebrows since the targets are incumbent leaders of the state and county Young Republican organizations, respectively.
Gilson says the “transparently punitive” move is another reason why Yudin, who presided over a GOP freeholder declining to seek reelection this cycle and a GOP Sheriff changing parties in the wake of last year’s county-wide loses, needs to be replaced at the upcoming county committee chairman’s convention.
“Yudin can throw me off the line, but it only motivates me to work harder! Off the line and unopposed I’m hitting my district hard today,” Gilson told Facebook followers on Election Eve while canvassing his Rutherford District 7 territory on behalf of himself and fellow candidate Susan Muller. “My victory tomorrow and our victory together on June 21 is for the party to be back.”
I reached out to Chairman Yudin for comment and he made no apologies for actions he views as necessary to restore unity and proper decorum to the BCRO’s ongoing internal debate.
“I have never been subjected to such vile, vicious, and personal attacks as I have by Matt Gilson, and I have been politically active since Eisenhower,” Yudin declared in our phone interview. “It’s one thing to criticize the chairman and the committee, but [Gilson] gives the Democrat’s fodder and assists the Democrats.”
Yudin specifically noted that he chose not to run anyone against either Gilson or Quinones, essentially guaranteeing that both men would return to county committee.
“The message I’m trying to send is that the dissidents should confine their criticism to inside the party,” Yudin added. “That’s the reason I did what I did and don’t apologize for it.”
“Politicians are detested because of the way these two guys talk.”
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