Shaftan vs. Space in Sussex

Anti-Establishment Political Consultant Primaries Assemblyman for Sussex County GOP’s State Committeeman Seat

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

Political consultant, campaign pollster and long-time Lonegan ally Rick Shaftan is taking on the New Jersey GOP “establishment” yet again, Save Jerseyans, this time in his home county of Sussex.

He’s making a run for the Republican county organization’s state committeeman position. It’s a prospect that I suspect would give many of his potential NJGOP committee colleagues genuine fits. Shaftan would undoubtedly enjoy that. He also thinks it’s necessary.

“Eight years of Barack Obama because the GOP Establishment rigged the rules to give us a candidate who ‘couldn’t lose’ and then did,” the Sparta resident told me on Saturday morning. “The campaign to stop that from happening again in 2016 begins on June 4th.”

As with many of Shaftan’s political brawls in the Garden State, the controversial operative’s latest effort to rage against the machine will be an uphill climb over the next month. The incumbent GOP state committee members from Sussex are newly-minted Assemblyman Parker Space and his wife, Jill Space. Asm. Space recently replaced Gary Chuisano in the General Assembly after having served as Sussex County’s freeholder director. Shaftan and his primary running mate, Deborah DeLuca, almost didn’t qualify; they were added back on to the June 4th ballot by a Superior Court Judge.

I still wouldn’t make the mistake of counting Shaftan out, folks. Watch Anytown, USA. You may not the love the guy but you can’t deny his capacity for running hard. Much stranger things have happened in a low turnout cycle…