It’s only October 4th and we’ve already had two “October surprises” in one legislative race, Save Jerseyans. I’m talking about Legislative District 36, which encompasses the southern 1/3rd of Bergen County, as well as the city of Passaic.
On Monday, The New Jersey Globe reported that LD36 Assembly Republican candidate Joe Viso “has a record of convictions on federal and state drug and gun charges” and was charged with possessing a sawed-off shotgun near a school and multiple drug offenses (be ultimately accepted a plea deal).
It got a lot worse today, with another Globe story that’s as deeply disturbing as it is bizarre. In 2009, the GOP Assembly hopeful pled guilty to spreading fecal matter on an East Rutherford children’s daycare center door. His justification for such an act? Viso claims he was in a feud with the daycare’s owner and that he was distraught owing to the fact that “Obama came into office the year before.”
I wasn’t happy about Obama either. I didn’t take it out on a daycare!
All of this is undeniably a setback for New Jersey Republicans. As we have written about at Save Jersey, while LD36 is far from a toss-up race and few harbor extremely high hopes for a party control change in 2023, the district has also grown more competitive in recent cycles and Republicans were optimistic that they might be able to pull off an upset. Republicans might need a surprise win in LD36 to put them over the top in acquiring enough seats to win an outright majority in Trenton.
It’s now looking like a fairly grim prospect.
Was this preventable? Definitely, considering Viso’s long and sordid history of criminal charges is PUBLICLY available information. It’s almost as if no vetting was done on Viso whatsoever? Either that, or it WAS done and ignored? One prospect is as troubling as the next. So who’s to blame?
Fixing the NJGOP’s recruitment dilemma isn’t solvable with a simple answer. But in almost every district, every cycle, candidates for the state legislature are recruited and vetted by the County GOP Organization’s Chairman owing to New Jersey’s long and storied tradition of strong county parties and proclivity for home rule preferences.
Are there exceptions? Sure. But multiple well-placed sources tell me that in this case, not only was Bergen County GOP Chairman Zisa supportive of Viso’s candidacy, but he also he balked and scoffed at overtures made to him from state party leadership this past spring to search for a stronger legislative candidate.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one such source told Save Jersey today that while the specific nature of this week’s revelations surrounding Viso were not known to senior State GOP leadership at the time, folks who are close to NJGOP Chairman Hugin, Assembly Leader John DiMaio, and then-Senate leader Steve Oroho expressed their concerns about candidate quality to Zisa, and were allegedly met with a less than receptive attitude.
“Folks from the Oroho, DiMaio and Hugin camps got on a call with Jack (Zisa) back in the Spring and basically said ‘Hey, there’s concern here about the baggage of a few of the candidates you’re floating,” my source explained. “We want to help, here are some other names of folks who may be interested in running.’ Zisa not only said he was ‘aware’ of his preferred candidates’ baggage and that he was only going to run them anyway, but his message to Trenton was basically to pound sand. He made it seem as though his time was being wasted by the attempted help.”
“In short? A job applicant at McDonald’s has a higher bar to meet than a candidate for high office does in Jack Zisa’s Bergen County Republican Organization,” the source added referring to not only this year’s snafu, but the fact that Zisa recruited Oath Keepers for a neighboring Legislative District in 2021, and allegedly refused to swap them out when confronted with this information.
It’s hardly the first time there’s been dysfunction in LD36. The GOP almost didn’t even HAVE a slate of candidates here in 2021.
Meanwhile, it’s hard not to feel for Viso’s running-mates, the Auriemma brothers. They’re both firefighters and Iraq War veterans and have been working tirelessly to flip these seats for almost three years. While their path to victory is not an impossible one, it just got a lot harder because of this week’s revelations about Viso.
Is it important for County Committees and their Chairmen to have the ability to pick the candidates they want for office? Absolutely. Is it time for Senate, Assembly and State Party leadership to start playing an earlier and more consequential role in these processes (at least for State Legislature) where County Party leadership is unwilling to put in the time and work to recruit and properly vet candidates? It might be.
We can’t have these missed opportunities and self-inflicted wounds continue. Because as we’ve witnessed in our nation’s capital this week, Save Jerseyans, our party’s deepest wounds are usually the self-inflicted ones.
I’m not trying to depress you, folks. Can New Jersey Republicans still take a majority this Fall? Sure they can. But the map and the pathway might’ve just became steeper because of recruitment problems in New Jersey’s most populous county. This is a math problem. Republicans can’t win statewide if the most populous county’s GOP organization is dysfunctional.
