We’re inching closer to the N.J. Republican gubernatorial primary, Save Jerseyans, when four candidates will vie for the party nomination to challenge Phil Murphy in November. Every primary is different. Sometimes it’s a straightforward “establishment vs. movement conservative” contest like Bob Franks vs. Bret Schundler back in 2001. In 2009 (Christie vs. Lonegan), the contest boiled down to a war of large personalities as much as anything else.
This year’s contest features four men with four decidedly different campaign focuses.
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The frontrunner (Jack Ciattarelli) is running to “fix New Jersey.” That’s the slogan. What does it boil down to? It’s a fairly conventional campaign with fairly conventional right-of-center messaging on tax reform, small businesses, opposition to late term abortions, challenging the excesses of Murphy’s power, etc. Nothing sexy, but also not much to which most Republican primary voters could object. Jack does have “the lines” so he’s got establishment support, but he also has a history of less-than-cordial relations with the Christie clique and former Ocean County powerhouse George Gilmore is on Team Rizzo.
Perennial candidate Hirsh Singh desperately wants to be the “MAGA” candidate; I saw someone joke on social media over the weekend about getting more texts from Singh than his own wife (hilarious and accurate), and most of these Singh blast-texts mention MAGA. He occasionally talks about something else but Singh’s mailers/Internet trolling boils down to (1) I’m the Trump guy and (2) my opponents are now. Trump hasn’t endorsed in the race, by the way, and is unlikely to do so.
Phil Rizzo, a pastor, is a darling of the “Medical Freedom” crowd led by NJ 101.5’s Bill Spadea. It’s certainly the biggest political issue of 2021 and likely to remain so, and Rizzo’s messaging is lockdown-centric. He’s hoping to wrangle the 20% of Republicans who allegedly don’t intend to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but his failure to secure matching funds has led to a distinct lack of mailers/ads relative to Ciattarelli and even Singh who lives with his well-heeled parents.
Then there’s Brian Levine, the affable CPA and former Somerset freeholder with a famously high vocal range. He’s not expected to draw much support (which was also the case back in 2009 when he last ran for governor), and some of that is probably attributable to the fact that his old school “fiscal conservative” campaign just isn’t in vogue. Politics and the culture have fused in the 21st century. No one is willing to set all of the other stuff aside to focus on fiscal issues, and Phil Murphy’s radical social agenda makes it impossible to do so.
Which one deserves your vote?
Whose campaign is best oriented to challenge and defeat Phil Murphy’s narrative?
Are those two things the same thing?
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