|
70,000
Rank-And-File Ocean County Republicans Cynically Sold Out
Again By Axis-Of-Greed As Schroeder Edges Out Murphy, $51,500
To $310 For Gilmore GreedLine Designation
|
Schroeder
Bought GreedLine Position From Gilmore & Dasti |
|
70,000 Rank-And-File
Republicans Got No Benefit From Gilmore GreedLine
Sellout |
Additional Schroeder GreedLine Payoffs For 2005 First Quarter
May Be Reported April 15th If Gilmore & Dasti ELEC Reports Are
Accurate
Schroeder Spin Is Empty Rhetoric As Captain Renault Says "Round Up
Usual Suspects": Amato, Lanuto, Scaturro, Etc.
Both George Gilmore and Robert
Schroeder got rich and made millions from government
contracts, Gilmore as a pay-to-play lawyer and Schroeder as a
purveyor of air conditioned tents.
So when Schroeder, 44, declared
his candidacy for governor last year, he had something in
common with the Ocean County Republican Chairman, proprietor
of the Chairman's PAC, and with Jerry Dasti, another
pay-to-play lawyer who is Chairman of the county Republican
Finance Committee.
Anybody who saw Schroeder on
public television a couple of weeks ago as he debated the
other declared GOP gubernatorial candidates knows it was not
his magnetism as a public speaker that endeared him to Gilmore
and Dasti.
Schroeder
Campaigns Like He Is In Constant Pain
Schroeder is a dull and
factually challenged public speaker who campaigns as if he is
in constant pain.
He is from Bergen County where
he is not particularly well known, even though he has been a
member of the Council since 1991, and a volunteer fireman in
tiny Washington Township.
Schroeder's chances of winning
the 2005 Republican gubernatorial nomination are rated
somewhere between a rock and a hard place, neither of which
are even on the ballot.
Nobody could figure out why the
Ocean County Republican leadership would pay any attention at
all to Schroeder, when the race, at least at present, comes
down to a contest between the two candidates with statewide
recognition, Bret Schundler and Douglas Forrester.
Forrester And
Schundler Are Still Front Runners
|
Doug
Forrester |
|
Bret Schundler |
Both Forrester and Schundler
have a better command of the issues than Schroeder; one of
them will probably win the nomination and go on to a very
tough fight in the general election against U.S. Sen. John
Corzine, the certain Democrat nominee.
Then some numbers surfaced from
the January 15th E.L.E.C. reports that show pretty clearly
that Gilmore and Dasti sold the endorsement and the party line
to Schroeder for a waterfall of contributions during the last
three months of 2004.
Gilmore And
Dasti Sold Out The Interests
Of 70,000 Rank And File Republicans
Schroeder and his company, ASI
Distributors, gave a total of $35,000 in four contributions to
Dasti's PAC, the Ocean County Republican Finance Committee.
The same reports show Schroeder and
government-dependent ASI Distributors also gave $16,500 to Gilmore's
PAC, the Ocean County Republican Chairman's Political Action
Committee during the same period.
Total Of
$51,500 Paid By Schroeder In 2004 Alone: Will Reports Due
April 15th Show More Schroeder Payoffs?
The total of $51,500 given to
the two Dasti/Gilmore PAC's by Schroeder during the last
quarter of 2004 does not include any payments Schroeder may
have made during the first three months of 2005, which may be
disclosed in reports required to be filed April 15th.
The runner-up in the Gilmore/Dasti
greed derby was Morris County Freeholder John Murphy, who gave
a total of $310 in two contributions.
|
Jerry Dasti |
The Schroeder payments were
rewarded with the endorsement of the Republican organization
for Schroeder's candidacy, which had the effect of selling out
70,000 rank and file Ocean County Republicans who thought that
Gilmore and Dasti, and their little troop of flunkies, might
have enough sense and judgement to act in the best interests
of the party's rank-and-file members once in a while.
What A Phony:
"I'll Take People
Over Money Anytime" Says Schroeder
In exulting over his Ocean
County victory, Schroeder told the Asbury Park Press: "We're
going to beat Jon Corzine in November, and I'll take people
over money anytime."
It's a good thing for Schroeder
that Gilmore and Dasti don't share the latter sentiment, the
one about taking people over money; we'll explore in a future
article the level of hypocrisy that is necessary to make such
a blatantly phony statement.
In the Asbury Park Press and
Ocean County Observer accounts of the Schroeder endorsement,
Gilmore stooges Ruthanne Scaturro, Carmen Amato, Barbara
Lanuto and Suzanne Cummings gave unconvincing and inaccurate
reasons for endorsing a mediocre candidate who cannot possibly
win.
In addition to Schroeder,
Forrester and Schundler, other GOP contestants for the primary
are Todd Caliguire, Paul DiGaetano, John Murphy (who was
picked by the Ocean County GOP screening committee) and Steve
Lonegan.
Stay tuned for Part II of this
important story, as more of the insulting details come in
regarding the Schroeder endorsement and how it might (or might
not) affect the statewide race for the GOP gubernatorial
nomination.
This article prepared for
publication 3/27/05.
|
