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"Bi-Partisan Failure-ship" - compounding the mistakes of the past...

Voting for an establishment candidate – compounding the mistakes of the past?

This may seem a lot to read, but it’s your future, folks.  Invest the time to know more.  This is a brutal and realistic assessment of where things stand in the Primary Race for CD3 in Ocean County.

Ocean County is at a crossroads.  16 months after Hurricane Sandy, how many are still waiting for answers from their County and State Officials?

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This is just one glaring example of “bi-partisan failure-ship” with which the County has been rife over the last several DECADES.

This year, we have an open seat in Congress.  The Gilmore Machine has had to go out of the District to find a candidate loyal to their agenda of pay-to-play and favor-peddling, who wasn’t already tainted by corruption in the minds of the voters.  Turning their back on local candidates because the outsiders brought bigger pocketbooks – selling out to the carpetbaggers – the leadership of the Republican Party clearly demonstrated where their loyalties lay – with their own wallets. 

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The two front-runners are from out of the area.  Why?  Because no one from within the machine was clean enough to run, after the debacle that has been the restoration efforts post-Sandy, the huge financial and ethical black-eye of the Ritacco scandal, and the “Scarlet B” of Birdsall Engineering and influence peddling.  Make no mistake - the party line went to the guy who wrote the biggest check.

MacArthur has obviously held his nose and signed on for the whole rotten mess as it is, in order to find a way to Congress.  Why didn’t he run in Randolph?  Because, thanks to re-districting, he would have to run against Rodney Freylinghuysen Jr., who comes from a family so long entrenched in District 11 Politics that every town has either a school, a park, or, at the very least, a street named “Freylinghuysen”.  If there were ever an inherited Congressional Seat in New Jersey, District 11 is it.  As he has no program of his own, his chances of defeating an incumbent were nil.  If he ran here against Runyan, he would have been soundly beaten…and Runyan, while popular, essentially quit because he was unable to tolerate being neutered by his own party leadership.  (among other reasons).

Swooping in like vultures on the road-kill that was Runyan’s tenure, MacArthur and Lonegan, another carpet-bagger (who at least now “sleeps in the district”), see the open seat as the path of least resistance to a Washington D.C. pension – a government check and all they can steal.

Meanwhile, the local party bosses have utterly turned their back on Rear Adm. Maurice Hill, (USN ret’d), a local whose career in politics, while lackluster, has been at least consistently in the interests of those who support him – constituents and donors alike.  Hill would have made a better choice, but the taint of Birdsall gave a big target for Aimee Democrat Aimee Norcross, er, Belgard, the “accidental Freeholder”, who the Democrats have united behind at the insistence of party boss George Norcross, who easily controls the media as the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and other news outlets.  As a relative newcomer, Aimee missed the chance to cash in on Birdsall Bucks – and is so out of touch that she recently intimated that her community didn’t have a drug or gang problem, while the public police blotter clearly states otherwise. 

MacArthur may be affable, and certainly more publically palatable than Lonegan, but he has allied himself with the same people who have systematically turned Ocean County into their own petty kingdom.  He’s a willing puppet, no more than a vassal of the corrupt leadership – and he knows it. 

(“one time….ONE time!” – as the joke goes)

Lonegan didn’t get the nod for the coveted “ballot line” – preferred “real estate” conferred on the head of the anointed of the party, because he is unwilling to bow to LOCAL control, BUT he has no difficulty with taking his marching orders from Americans for Prosperity and the Koch Brothers – or anyone else willing to write him a check (or lend him a place to stay).  Lonegan, while decidedly extreme, has a limited number of moderate views, but comes off little more than a brash bully, dogging opponents on issues that have little or nothing to do with the role he is expected to play were he actually elected to the office he is seeking.  He is the master at creating the illusion of support, rather than the reality, as evidenced by the same folks appearing in every photo where he is speaking.  He apparently brings his audience with him.

MacArthur and Lonegan may both have been mayors in the past, but Federal Office isn’t about fixing potholes or trash pick-up, folks.  The combined populations of the towns in which they served is 33,921 (per the 2010 census – with Bogota’s in steep decline due to high taxes and unemployment), and both would have been hard-pressed to win re-election today on their home turf. 

Here’s the salient fact in that:  That total is less than the number of UNAFFILIATED REGISTERED VOTERS in Toms River, alone….in fact, it’s less than 75% of the total.  They have done fair to poor representing less than ¾ of ½ of the UNAFFILIATED population of Toms River alone.

Lonegan’s extreme positions make him a poor choice for the majority of citizens in Ocean County, especially as concerns education, health care, and the environment, but he certainly does have a following – something Mr. MacArthur would do well to consider, or he may find himself out of the running come June 4th. 

Yard signs don’t vote, and Farmville is not in our district.

The fact that MacArthur’s dollars were sufficient to buy such strong support, (and relatively few were needed, at that), of necessity leads one to wonder – “What other promises were made?” 

Those are questions Lonegan is already asking – and, for once, he’s right…the voters need to consider how an unknown was a better choice than ANY of the 54,267 registered Republicans in the District? 

State-wide, Republicans number less than 18% of the total registered voters.  Another way to look at that would be that 82% of the voters in NJ are NOT REPUBLICAN.

The Democrats don’t enjoy much of an advantage in this, with only 32% of the registered voters…again, 68% of NJ is NOT registered Democrat.

The vast majority of voters in this district are NEITHER Republican NOR Democrat.  They are Independent. 

We’re living in an age of Bi-Partisan Failure-ship, with our communities treated as spoils of war by the Party Bosses, facing ever-increasing tax liabilities as services are cut to pay for sweetheart deals.  Independent voters feel they have to hold their nose and pull one lever or the other. 

Those voters (and many of the registered Republicans and Democrats) have become so frustrated and disillusioned with the corrupt actions of the two so-called “major” parties that they have opted out of the decision-making process – staying home in November on election day – which is the desired result of the cabals who control the party machines.

To that, I say “Well played, you thieving bastards  – but no longer.  We’re coming for those seats.”

To the Democrats and Republicans, I remind you: 

If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve got.  Are you satisfied?

To the Independents…if you don’t vote, you are part of the problem you’re living with.  Show up.

Be a part of the solution.  Register and Vote. 

I urge you to confirm your registration status, by the way, as an effort is afoot by the party bosses to purge the voting rolls, to prevent exactly what we’re trying to accomplish – engaging those who felt their voice would never be heard.

VOTE.

Please Note:  The mainstream media will actively ignore any independent effort, because only the major parties spend dollars – millions, in fact – to promote their candidates.  The folks who sell the ads know on which side their bread is buttered, and influence the coverage you see every day.  Because of this, when a solid choice appears “off” the ballot lines, you probably won’t hear about it.

This illusion of a two-party system has been carefully crafted over the last century.  Look at where that has taken us. 

Choosing between two masters makes one no less a slave.

We’re bringing the opportunity for you to have your voice heard in Ocean County. 

Take advantage of that opportunity, and send someone to DC who wears no party handcuffs.

Had enough, yet?  We have – and we’re doing something about it.

Frederick John LaVergne, “Democratic-Republican” for Congress

“Stand for what’s right, or settle for what’s left” – FJL, 2014


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