By Matt Rooney
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His staff is quitting en masse. State Democrats are shunning him. Local leaders want their donations back. The blue dogs kicked him out of their ‘moderate’ caucus. Meanwhile, Republicans are issuing “welcome” press releases and conservative media is hailing him as a hero. Trump even tweeted his ultimate compliment: that the anticipated switch is “big.”
The one person not commenting on Jeff Van Drew changing parties this week is… Jeff Van Drew.
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“We change jobs — all of us,” quipped Van Drew to a CNN reporter who caught up with him on Impeachment Eve. “You have the same job your whole life?”
He said little else when confronted on Capitol Hill (other than delivering a brief nod to American Exceptionalism).
South Jersey politics is turning into a bad dating reality show. Addiego broke up with her party, Van Drew is reportedly breaking up with that his own, Howarth tried to date party x and then party y found out and dumped him…
Paging Bravo! Buy the rights now while you still can.
But Van Drew’s anticipated switch is the most bizarre of them all. By a mile. There’s never been a stranger similar story line. We’ve seen weeks of speculation culminate in four days and counting post-“confirmation” (his staffers wouldn’t be quitting and Governor Murphy wouldn’t be attacking him if it wasn’t coming), all without any official word from the candidate or his team as to when and how this is going down. Or even that it is happening!
I’ve also spoken to fairly prominent in-district Republicans – the sort of elected and party title-holding folks you customarily call before making a big move – who haven’t heard anything from anyone. Just rumors and whispers.
“We have had positive and continuing dialogue with party leadership in South Jersey and Washington and welcome Congressman Jeff Van Drew to the NJGOP,” NJGOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt said Tuesday, betraying few details of what he knows. “This is a quickly evolving situation, but we look forward to continuing to work to ensure that South Jerseyans have a Republican Congressman for years to come.”
What’s happening?
A few things.
(1) Pressure is being applied to Van Drew’s new Republican primary rivals (especially David Richter, who has the purse to compete) to drop out. Meetings are happening. The establishment ideally wants a show of unity for its new darling. Next up: the professionals working with the rival campaigns will receive the same sort of ultimatums delivered by the Democrat leadership to now-former Van Drew staffers. Whether the GOP establishment gets the same level of compliance remains to be seen. Richter is on our friend Bill Spadea’s NJ 101.5 program this morning. Tune in.
What’s clear: without Trump? Van Drew would’ve been in deep trouble. Luckily for Van Drew, very few South Jersey GOP leaders are brave enough to buck POTUS on this or anything else (even if they situationally wanted to, or were at least keen to letting a primary play out). What’s now clear is that Van Drew will start the 2020 GOP race (if there is one) as a front runner if he has Trump’s vocal endorsement which, by the way, he will have:
Congressman Jeff Van Drew is very popular in our great and very united Republican Party. It was a tribute to him that he was able to win his heavily Republican district as a Democrat. People like that are not easily replaceable!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2019
(2) Trump and impeachment are, after all, what this is all about on the GOP side of the equation. Getting the impeachment timeline squared away such as to provide maximum positive impact is all that’s on the mind of Team Trump and its Garden State functionaries. Check the polls: Trump is winning this argument. He’s now leading the Democrat field. Waiting until impeachment happens – and letting Van Drew vote no, still nominally as a Democrat – arguably has more rhetorical power than NOT dragging this thing out. It keeps the story alive.
(3) The Van Drew network is being re-appropriated. His “Van Drew Team” dominated big races in Cape May and Cumberland counties for a decade. Now some are moving on, but others – like one Ocean City Councilman – are switching side out of loyalty to their man Jefferson. It’s sort of like if North Korea and South Korea suddenly merged armies. That can’t happen overnight.
The bottom line:
Van Drew, his network, the White House and its agents are in no rush. “JVD” is a calculating politicians. So are the people around him and those working to ease his transition. They want to do this “right” even if it takes a couple of weeks.
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