Get The Hell Out From Behind Your Keyboards!

Since the primary ended I see many Republicans complaining on social media. On one county party Facebook page I saw a guy wrote in response to an event the local GOP had, “Can I go to the poll…to vote in November. What are you doing about it. Don’t all answer at once.”

Of course, no one ever saw the commenter at a party event, not phone banks, not door knocking, nothing – not even any of the organization’s free events. Yet this person had the nerve to ask what the organization is doing about it.

If that isn’t bad enough there are still people complaining and whining and crying about the party bosses and the results of the GOP Senate primary. Many of these people are rarely, if ever, seen at party events or volunteering for even their municipal candidates. But they have plenty to complain about.

Let’s first address the “party bosses” crap. If you don’t like the way your county party is being run then get up off your ass and do something about it. The first step is to become a committee person. Get the signatures, get on the ballot and win the election for committee person during the primary. You better recruit others who think like you to do the same. It is the committee people who elect the county chairs. Committee people are the frontlines in protecting our representative form of government. Committee people are representatives of their respective political parties.

Until such a time comes as you get your crap together and become a committee person while getting others elected with you – work with what you have. Volunteer and help get Republican voters to vote! I get it, you wanted a different Senate candidate. It didn’t happen. Get over it. I wasn’t a Hirsh Singh supporter but if he won I would be supporting him now. Why? Because all the candidates in the GOP primary are better than Cory Booker. Stop being butt hurt and get to work!

If that’s not good enough then consider this: In 2018 Bob and I both preferred former Assemblyman Sam Fiocchi in the Republican CD2 primary, I even worked for Fiocchi. Did Bob and I whine about losing the primary? No! We supported the winner of that primary, Seth Grossman. Grossman was the guest on our first radio show and many other shows during the general election campaign. We did the right thing!

Now, let’s address moronic questions like, “Can I go to the poll…to vote in November. What are you doing about it. Don’t all answer at once.”

Yes, you can go to the poll in November, but you have to vote by provisional ballot. Republicans didn’t make it that way, Governor Phil Murphy did. Maybe if certain Republicans weren’t so busy not voting for Kim Guadagno things would be different today.

What is being done about it is the state party and the national party have joined the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump in suing to top Governor Phil Murphy from sending over 6 million vote-by-mail ballots out for the general election.

I don’t know if they will win their lawsuit, but if we are smart, as a party, we will work under the assumption the suit will not be won. We will get to work figuring out how to get our voters to vote. It doesn’t matter how they vote, so long as they vote.

So rather than asking stupid questions, why don’t you get up from behind your keyboard and do something?

We have three congressional districts in South Jersey. I guarantee every one of our Republican candidates, Claire Gustafson (CD1). Congressman Jeff Van Drew (CD2) and David Richter (CD3) will be running phone banks and likely literature drops too.

Get out from behind your keyboards and volunteer at their phone banks.

The county parties will be running phone banks. Join them.

Every county has freeholder candidates. Volunteer to help your freeholder candidates. If your town has a race volunteer to help your municipal candidates.

Trust me, sitting behind your keyboards and posting things is not going to help win this election for anyone. Stupid questions and accusations that the Republican party, or Republican candidates, aren’t doing anything helps no one.

Never Trumper Republicans who don’t vote hurt the entire GOP column. Whining about the Senate primary hurts the entire column. Not voting for a candidate because you disagree on a single issue hurts the entire column.

This election is too important to let your hurt feelings ruin the entire ticket. The thing to remember is any candidate in the Republican column is better than every candidate in the Democratic column. Vote the column, by mail, dropping your ballot in a box or by provisional ballot, but vote the column.

As for me, I’ll find the time to walk my neighborhood because that’s what committee people are supposed to do. I’ll help my mayoral candidate. I’ll do some phone banking even though I hate it.

All I ask is that you get up off your ass and do something. Maybe I’ll see you at a phone bank.

Your Candidate Might Not Win, But…

It’s Primary Election Eve! Thank you to every candidate who put their name on the ballot, even those we criticized.

It’s not always easy putting your name out there. You know you’re going to be attacked. Internet trolls make up lies about you. Some people even believe those lies. They repeat those lies over and over until other people believe those lies to be true. Sometimes we try to set the record straight.

It all comes with the territory.

Volunteers line up behind a candidate. Some become emotionally attached to the campaign they aggressively represent on social media (some are honest, others simply repeat the lies).

Folks argue about what candidate is best. Sometimes it gets personal.

This year is certainly different than past years. A couple of races got really ugly.

Because this election is mostly a mail-in election it could take at least a week – maybe more – to declare a winner.

After the votes are all counted your candidate might not win, but remember you chose to get involved in partisan politics. Candidates especially, please remember you chose to get involved in partisan politics. No one forced you to compete in a primary election.

Primary elections are family fights. As with any family fight, we all kiss and make up after the fight for the greater good.

In other words – if you are a candidate and you lose, it is your duty to support the candidate that just beat you – it’s the price you pay for picking a team to play on.

If you are the supporter of a candidate and your candidate loses the same rule applies.

And, yes, here at the Bob & Steve Show we practice what I am preaching in this post.

In 2018’s CD2 primary I was with former Cumberland County Freeholder and former 1st Legislative District Assemblyman Sam Fiocchi. Bob was with Fiocchi. Seth Grossman won the primary, Bob and I got behind him. Fiocchi got behind Grossman. Bob and I launched the radio show about a month after that primary and Grossman was our first ever guest on the show.

The Republican candidate running in CD1, Claire Gustafson, competed in the primary in that district in 2014. The Republican organization’s in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester all lined up behind Garry Cobb. Gustafson didn’t complain the system was rigged, she ran her race. She didn’t win. She got behind Cobb and even went to one of his fundraiser to contribute financially to his campaign. She did what a partisan should do and supported the team!

As recently as this year Bob and I did the right thing. In CD2 when there was a crowded field we got behind candidates. Bob was behind Brian Fitzherbert. I favored David Richter. Then Congressman Jeff Van Drew became a Republican and earned President Donald Trump’s endorsement. The President is the head of the party and, as partisans, we did as partisans are supposed to do, followed the president’s lead and threw our support to Van Drew.

Considering two guys as opinionated as Bob and I have shown that we can get behind someone we did not support in a primary – you can do it too.

I don’t want to hear any garbage like “I could never vote for someone who believe such and such.” Get behind the winner of the primary because you chose to take part in partisan politics and that’s what partisans do.

Never forget, you chose to play on the Republican team. It was your choice. If you don’t like it then you shouldn’t have decided to engage in partisan politics. Go change your registration to unaffiliated!

Besides, ANY Republican is better than any of the Democrats who will be on November’s ballot.

It Took A While But The First Hard Punch Has Been Thrown In CD2

The CD2 primary is heating up and the first hard punches have been thrown by a guy we at The Bob and Steve Show admittedly like to make fun of, congressional candidate Bob ‘Trojan Man’ Patterson. You may recall Patterson is the guy who once wrote about the remarkable chemicals found in semen and Bob and I, with our sometimes juvenile sense of humor, just can’t let it go.

Anyway, there was a shot launched at fellow Republican congressional candidate David Richter in Breitbart yesterday and it has Patterson’s sticky fingers all over it.

I have no issue with the Breitbart piece, there is no new information in it, at least nothing I didn’t already know. I don’t even have an issue with Patterson taking the shot, as messy as it was. Honestly, I’m a little proud of Patterson for taking a shot because I love to watch a good fight.

But here’s the deal, having someone write an article that complains Richter didn’t support candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 primary is stupid. There are many Republicans who didn’t support candidate Trump. That happens in primaries!

If not supporting candidate Trump in the 2016 primary is a disqualifier then I should get zero clients. I freely admit I was not a candidate Trump supporter. In fact, I didn’t settle on him until October 31, 2016 when I filled out my mail-in ballot. I even posted it on Facebook:

Since then I have been an ardent supporter of President Trump and I like him more the longer he’s in office.

I’m not the only political operative who didn’t back candidate Trump. Seth Grossman’s political consultant, Rick Shaftan, was a big supporter of then-candidate Ted Cruz. Shaftan headed a group that sent anti-Trump robocalls to 180,000 Republicans in South Carolina during the 2016 primary. Today, as best I can tell, Shaftan is a big supporter of President Trump.

My point is people take sides in a primary, sometimes the wrong side. After the primary we get together and support the winner. That’s what’s supposed to happen!

Another point in the attack on Richter is he donated to Democrats in the past. That’s what folks in big business do. If a business owner donating to Democrats is a disqualifier then I’m going to have to rethink my support of President Trump because he gave to Democrats, a lot.

Now, before anyone suggests I’m writing a defense of Richter, not all of the punches Patterson threw in the Breitbart piece were bad. The part about Richter having “strong business ties to James Biden, Joe Biden’s brother,” is fair game and, frankly, an attack I’ve been waiting to see. I’ve personally discussed the issue with Richter, he has a good answer, but that discussion was not for this blog so he’s going to have to answer any questions about Biden’s brother himself.

I am surprised to see the attack came from Patterson. If you doubt it was him consider that Patterson, before landing a job a the Trump administration, wrote for Breitbart. There’s also the fact that Brian Fitzherbert is not mentioned in the Breitbart article. The article says:

As New Jersey Republicans consider whom to vote for in the Republican primary for the state’s second congressional district, Republicans can choose between the more establishment-minded Richter and the more populist Bob Patterson.

I’m not going to argue who the “populist” is, nor is it my intent to defend any candidate, I’m just pointing out the that the attack came from Patterson and that Fitzherbert was left out of the first real fight in CD2.

The only other thing I see from this attack is Patterson just kicked the door wide open for Seth Grossman to get into the race.

If Grossman, who has been making noises on social media, does get in the race then Patterson will have succeeded in leaving his stain on this race.