Jack Ciattarelli is set to concede the gubernatorial race at 1 o’clock Friday afternoon, Save Jerseyans, falling short in his quest to unseat King Phil Murphy by less than 3-points.
I know that it’s poor form to cite one’s own stuff, Save Jerseyans, but in this case, I think it’s extremely important to hop in our Save Jersey time machine and revisit two posts from the not-so-distant past. Specifically, let’s go back to 2018 when it became clear that the GOP had a major, five-alarm suburban fire on its hands…
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Exhibit A: In January 2018, after Phil Murphy’s first victory and before the 2018 Midterm rout, I posed what I thought was a fairly obvious formulation of the challenge facing New Jersey Republicans in the post-Christie era: how does the party of low taxes win over voters who aren’t motivated by taxes?
Here’s the basic gist of what I wrote:
“Are these attitudes a luxury born of indifference, reflective of life in a solid peacetime economy? Maybe. Although I think it goes deeper than that. Republicans lost the culture wars long ago, and Democrat populists have long understood that the average voter regardless of age, gender or other demographic factors – preoccupied by daily life and uninterested in the minutia of policy and ideological debates – requires a MORAL motivation to rally around reform.”
In other words, a generation of suburbanites reared on “social responsibility” and “social justice” aren’t moved by math alone, at least not until things get really, really bad (we’re on the way thanks to Brandon). Wokeism is a religion. If you want to convert Wokers to conversatism? You need to give them an OPPOSING, attractive alternative.
Of course, very few actual candidates/campaigns listened to us.
Exhibit B: Flashing forward to about a year later (February 4, 2019) after the 2018 dust had settled, I wrote a follow up to ‘Exhibit A’ above: “It’s time for the Right to re-engage social issues.”
The context: our neighbor to the north (New York) was in the middle of radicalizing its birth certificate and abortion laws, moves which were garnering national attention…
“The good news? I’ve talked to countless educated younger voters on matters ranging from the NY abortion law to New Jersey’s wacky gender neutral birth certificate law.
Guess what? They think the Left’s positions on these issues are BONKERS and, in the case of the NY law, utterly revolting.
There are other topics, too, like school choice, illegal alien driver’s licenses, free college tuition for illegals, chemical treatments to delay puberty in suspected transgender children, the rights of disabled Americans and the sexualization of school textbooks where Republicans can and should reclaim some ground with these voters in battleground jurisdictions.”
That last paragraph (controlling for the fact that the pandemic, BLM and CRT weren’t on the radar yet) is pretty much a beta version of the campaign you just saw from Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin.
I’m not a genius, folks. Ask my wife! I also don’t own a crystal ball.
My secret power: like you, even though I’m involved in politics and follow it obsessively, I live outside of the bubble. I have a kid, a non-political job, and associate socially with a primarily non-political crowd of 30-and-40-something suburbanites who – despite how they self-identify or somehow vote – are not NEARLY as liberal as these bullshit polls would lead you to believe. They THINK they are because that’s what they’ve been told they’re supposed to be, and as they becoming increasingly uncomfortable with what they’re hearing/seeing from their kids (and watching first hand during last year’s remote learning sessions), they’re afraid to voice un-woke opinions to neighbors and pollsters. Republicans need to jumpstart these conversation by recruiting happy warriors into their ranks and confidently engage these voters on cultural issues. Yes, you need to be strategic in how you do it, but running away from or failing to emphasize issues like education is clearly a self-defeating mistake.
Suburban parents are ready to hear an alternative to what their kids are hearing at school. They’re growing tired of the politicization of everything and most of all their children. Not only are suburbanites ready to hear from Republicans on this stuff after years of silence, but Republicans talking about this stuff intelligently and confidently MAKES IT OKAY for voters to talk about it, too. There’s strength in numbers.
Before some of you get your pants twists: I’m not trying to dump on Jack here, folks. I have a great deal of respect for him as a person AND for all of the hard work he put into his campaign. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a statewide candidate attend more events, shake more hands, or do more to try and assist down-ballot running mates. You don’t come within striking distance of a well-heeled incumbent in a state with one million more Democrats than Republicans by being a complete dunce.
At the same time, I’m not going to temper my opinion to protect anyone’s feelings, Save Jerseyans. That hasn’t been my practice in the 13 years that this site has been in continuous operation. The buck always stops with the nominee. If Jack had leaned into the culture wars as many of us wanted him to? Who knows. Maybe we’d be talking about Phil Murphy’s forthcoming concession speech given how close things ended up.
One example: Jack 100% said the right thing when video dropped of him criticizing the Murphy-era practice of teaching sodomy to young children in public schools. But instead of putting Murphy on trial, demanding that the governor – not the challenger – defend his policies, Jack sounded defensive because he focused on trying to defend and justify his own remarks. Jack then pivoted to Katie Brennan and, thereafter, more tax-related messaging for most of the late summer/early fall. That was clearly a mistake based upon what we saw in other races here as well as down I-95 in the Old Dominion, another state that Joe Biden carried by double-digits one year ago.
And before you say it: this isn’t Monday morning quarterbacking either because, as I’ve illustrated in detail above, I said all of this before the game even began.
I’m not interested in blame games. Again, that’s not my goal here. I am interested in seeing the opposition learning, evolving, and moving closer to the ultimate goal of saving New Jersey from the fools and crooks who are pushing her to the brink.
We know the path forward. It’s not hypothetical or theoretical; we’ve seen it work. Now let’s go put it into practice in 2022.
