By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
South Plainfield wouldn’t be a Republican town if numbers told the whole story, Save Jerseyans.
It’s a 2-to-1 “blue” blue collar Middlesex County borough of 23,000 residents which found itself relocated to Frank Pallone’s NJ-06 after the last round of congressional redistricting. Out of 14,119 registered voters living in South Plainfield as of 2011, fully 4,368 (or 30.9%) were registered as Democrats and 2,235 (15.8%) were registered as Republicans with another 7,511 (53.2%) classified as Unaffiliated.
First term Republican Mayor Matthew Anesh and his team weren’t deterred by the math, and I was thoroughly impressed by the results during a recent visit to his town’s GOP headquarters.
My friends Cynthia Freund and April Bengivenga, the latter of whom serves as chairwoman of the South Plainfield Republican Organization, were kind enough to invite me up earlier in October to discuss Election 2014, participation in the electoral process and, of course, social media.
I hope the membership (about 50 strong in attendance on that particular evening) enjoyed my talk; I can only be certain that I probably learned as much as they did, if not more, about the good work they’ve been doing over the last few cycles. Or at the very least, it reinforced a lot of what I’ve learned from my own experiences living and working in a Democrat county.
Yes, there’s no replacement for good ideas and sound governing. At a time when our federal and state governments are behaving irresponsibly, South Plainfield’s AA bond rating was recently reaffirmed by S&P. They’ve kept spending down by streamlining services, refinancing debt, reducing the borough workforce and even bidding out the town’s recycling program.
The net result? They were able to run on an average tax cut for the average borough family of $178 last time around; not life-changing money, sure, but how many towns in New Jersey are truly holding the line? Even with a 2.0 cap in place? We’ve covered some but it’s an exception, not the rule…
Anesh has been working at it since 2005 when he began his first stint on borough council. He made the move from Borough Council President to Mayor in 2010 when Democrat Mayor Charles Butrico retired. Today, thousands of voter contacts later, only one Democrat – Christopher J. “C.J.” Dianais – left on the 6-member South Plainfield Council.
The best policies and hardest work don’t matter if the voters don’t hear from the candidates about it. All politics is local, and in the case of local elections, no mailer or robocall can take the place of establishing and fostering relationships in the community.
Voters are open to hearing your ideas AFTER they’ve opened up to you, the messenger.
South Plainfield’s GOP team gets it. Most of the town’s GOP elected officials made a point of stopping by the meeting (a rare feat in my experience) despite busy professional and personal schedules and, of course, the demands of door-knocking with less and less daylight as Election Day approaches. Council President Raymond Rusnak, Alex Barletta, Robert Bengivenga, Jr., Timothy McConville and Derryck C. White interact with each other in a way that makes you believe they actually like each other!
It’s just another example of the beauty of South Plainfield’s Republican electoral system where everyone works together as a family unit (and in some cases that’s quite literally true – April, the chair, is also Councilman Bengivenga’s mother and takes it upon herself to care for the club’s volunteer base). It’s a social group, too, and even though the active membership skews a bit older (which is almost always the case in local politics, regardless of party), there’s still a good balance of age groups represented AND willing to stick around afterwards to chat and strategize.
Most importantly, they try to reach out to local residents, community leaders and business owners in an attempt to bring them into the fold, even if it’s as a friend first (and hopefully supporter later).
“With 23,000 residents it really isn’t that small, but it still has that feel. Residents are really invested in this community. We rally around one another and there is ownership and pride and that’s quite unique,” explained Councilman White, a black Republican who spends his “off” hours being a dad and coaching youth sports, during a recent candidate interview with The Alternative Press. “Making South Plainfield a good place to live and raise a family and a place that is comfortable and safe is truly a collective effort.”
I’d submit that Councilman White and his colleagues are helping keep South Plainfield “small” with their refreshingly personal approach to politics.
Typically, at the end of a speaking engagement on the way out the door, I promise to stay in touch and and offer to assist with any social media/new media queries from active members and candidates looking to make a bigger dent locally; this time, I promised more than one friendly South Plainfield GOP’er that I would tell the rest of the Save Jersey community about their good work in the hopes that other clubs will follow their lead!
