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Many Democratic Workers Still Complain That Self Appointed Party Boss
Jack Moriarty, Political Publicist And Grand Strategist, Took The
Bread For Himself, And Left Only The Crumbs For 2001 Democratic
Campaign
Democrats Have The Issues Again This Year, But Will They Follow
Through And Use Them Effectively? So Far It Doesn’t Look Promising For
Larsen And Rodgers
Dover
Township Democrats, Lacking A Consistent Message And
Fighting Among Themselves, May Blow Another Important Local Election
By Default - Part I
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Rich Larsen
Dover Township: Democratic candidate Rich Larsen had all of
the momentum and all of the issues last year, coming off a big
Democratic victory in 2000.
Republicans had already sold the town down the river to developers who
were bulldozing every tree and overdeveloping everything they could
get a friendly planning board to approve; which was plenty.
The public
was mad as hell - and they weren’t going to take it anymore.
Republicans shot themselves in the foot every week.
Apartment
units sprung up by the hundreds to “comply” with affordable housing
rules invented and pushed by Republicans in Trenton, and profitably
twisted by Republicans in Toms River.
Larsen
And Democrat Publicist Moriarty Had It Made
Larsen and
the Democrats had it made: the polls showed Larsen beating Inteso
badly.
But the
Republicans wouldn’t drop dead: Inteso claimed he persuaded “Acting”
Governor Donald DiFrancesco to put up state money to stop JAMM Realty,
a 320 unit affordable housing project in the Barnegat Bay Estuary
approved by local Republicans and the pliant GOP Planning Board.
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Virginia Haines
"Looking Ahead"
Inteso
also promised to “cut spending, reduce taxes”.
Sewer
Authority Chair Virginia Haines, greedily looking ahead, used DMUA
funds to buy votes for Inteso’s campaign with a $50 credit on 2002
sewer bills.
Inteso
JAMM Claim Was An Outright Lie; Tax Cut Pledge A Joke
Larsen and
publicist Jack Moriarty knew the JAMM-DiFrancesco claim was an
outright lie; that the tax cut pledge was a joke, and the $50 sewer
rate credit would end up costing taxpayers ten times $50 every year
because it would create a big operating deficit at the DMUA and make
it impossible to build a coherent program to fight overdevelopment.
The
Democrats also knew that Republican overdevelopment policies would
produce a big increase in school taxes starting this year.
But they
inexplicably failed to seize on any of the issues that could have won
for them.
Instead,
Larsen and Moriarty said the town needed “an accountant in Town Hall”,
a dubious argument at best, and wasted an entire mailing saying they
didn’t like the arithmetic on residents tax bills, an issue that was
nowhere on the public’s barometer of concerns.
By
Default, They Lost The Chance To Control Local Government
So, by
default, they lost the election and, with it, the best chance ever for
Democrats to control the local government for the first time in 22
years.
Now, a
year later, things have deteriorated for both sides. Issues are still
the same; Republicans greedier and more arrogant than ever, grabbing
every perk and bauble that isn’t nailed down, and nominating township
committee candidates who have real bad baggage.
Russo
And Furey Are Not Talking
But the
Democrats are fighting among themselves. John Furey and John Russo
Jr., the two candidates elected in 2000, are now separated by separate
standards of ambition and greed, and won’t even talk to each other if
they can help it.
As this is
written, well into September, Larsen and running mate Tom Rodgers have
no campaign, even though local Boss Jack Moriarty, their publicist and
Great Thinker, evicted by Russo from office digs they shared, has been
told by party leaders he is finished in Ocean County if he doesn’t
produce in 2002.
Part II from OceanCountyPolitics•Com
Coming Soon • • • Very Soon. |
