Jay Webber's Reagan Day 2007

Yesterday evening, I had the great pleasure of attending the 4th annual New Jersey Reagan Day, a yearly event to commemorate our 40th President. A great Republican (and fellow Hopkins man) Jay Webber, who is making his 2nd bid for office in NJ District 26, has done a tremendous service to admirers of Ronald Reagan by initiating this excellent tradition.

I attended Reagan Day in 2005, which was a fun yet rather small affair - I was delighted to see yesterday's crowd at the Zeris Inn in Mountain Lakes several times the size of what I witnessed 2 years ago. Jay deserves much credit for this outstanding work, as well as support in his Assembly primary, in which he faces off against Larry Casha, the Kinnelon Council President. I met Casha during the 2004 campaign, as he was tasked with lining up surrogate speakers for President Bush (and later Tom Kean, Jr. in the 2006 Senate race). Casha is a solid Republican and would do the district well, but I believe Webber is a better choice because he is young and articulate, principled, and not afraid to take on the machine. Go Blue Jays! It was also great to see Assemblyman Guy Gregg again, and I will definitely be supporting him in his bid for a State Senate seat in District 24 - more on that later.

Addendum, 2:12 pm - Human Events has linked to this post.

The keynote address yesterday evening was given by Stephen O'Connor, the publisher of Human Events, a landmark conservative journal that was Ronald Reagan's favorite magazine, not to mention his bedtime literature. I tend to like Human Events because it balances the (unfortunately) popular neoconservative viewpoints with paleo critiques from the likes of Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts, who was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.

O'Connor dazzled the crowd with stories of Reagan (for whom his daughter is named), particularly the one related by Richard Reeves which told how Reagan warned Gorbachev, in a private meeting, that he could not back down on Star Wars because he promised the editors of Human Events that he would not do so. O'Connor also related his many experiences in post-communist Central/Eastern Europe, where he hob-nobbed with former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, launched several business magazines, and fought for a Ronald Reagan legacy in the post-Soviet era.

O'Connor's talk was enjoyable, entertaining, and a fitting tribute to President Reagan. He left me with a key impression - how "limousine liberals" just don't get it. O'Connor talked about difficult it was to find qualified journalists in Hungary, Poland, etc. at the time because local writers had little experience expressing their own views independent of communist censors. So, he recruited from Northwestern, the University of Missouri, and Columbia, only to find that the graduates of these reputed journalism schools were more sympathetic to communism than the former communists themselves!

I appreciated this tidbit, because it reinforced 2 other examples of this phenomenon that I have noticed lately, which perhaps I will write about more formally in the near future. The first cropped up in the March issue (not yet online) of Reason magazine, a noted libertarian journal to which I subscribe. Editor Nick Gillespie writes:

"Despite the immiseration (to use an apt Marxist term) of his people, his ruthless censorship, his omnipresent informants, and his prison camps for dissidents, homosexuals, and anyone else who aroused his ire, Castro is still venerated by many on the left. A little free health care, it seems, goes a long way toward excusing all manner of tyranny."

Exactly, let the hypocrites point to Castro as a model for Hillary-style socialized medicine, so long as they don't have to suffer the repercussions of getting on his bad side.

Another example was this recent article talking about the influx of Iraqi refugees into Syria. My friend Rime Allaf discusses this as well. Of course the American left loves to point out the wonders of Syria's immigration policy of admitting any Arab national without a visa, but again - do they have to deal with the out-of-control housing prices or social unrest that results from open borders policies? Of course not!

Finally, I note that on an evening meant to honor Ronald Reagan, a hero to American conservatives, there was little talk of George W. Bush - long gone are the days when Republicans at such events would trip over each other racing to the microphone to proclaim their undying allegiance to "the leader". O'Connor referred to the President only in passing, and I don't believe his name was even used. With an obvious look of contempt, "this guy", O'Connor quipped, "is not a conservative." Amen.
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Communication breakdown, it's always the same

It drives me nuts that local political activity completely shuts down from early November until practically April when petitions are due for the Primary ballots. (although I wouldn't say I'm having a nervous breakdown - drive me insane!) From what I have seen over the past several years, this is the modus operandi of the Passaic County Republican Party, and it remains so. In this regard at least, the ascension of Scott Rumana to the Chairmanship has amounted to more of the same.

Had the Party really had its act together and our leaders demonstrated imagination and energy, we would have begun recruiting candidates for Freeholder, State Assembly, and (hold your breath) Sheriff last year. The Assembly and State Senate candidates could have served as surrogates for Tom Kean, Jr. helping the ticket in 2006 and starting their name recognition building process for their own 2007 races. I guess that's a pipe dream.

But the way it looks right now, we don't even have Freeholder candidates, let alone State Assembly challengers in D35 and D34. That's poor. And we will probably continue to play defense in municipal races. So be it. I have also heard, with little shock value, that the preference among the Passaic County GOP municipal leaders is to allow the incumbent Sheriff Jerry Speziale to run unopposed. Once I confirm this, I will write in more detail about it.

From what I can sense (email still works in Africa, mind you), there is large-scale disappointment with the leadership that Rumana has provided. Of course no realistic person would blame him for the setbacks in last November's race – the local tickets suffered from a national backlash against Republicans and one newly elected Chairman, even with a convincing mandate as he had, could not have been expected to counteract a national trend.

But what came next? There has been a pitiful lack of communication from the top, and people are grumbling about it.

"Why is Rumana always using Buckley and Semeraro to do all the work of the chairman?" asks one such unhappy insider, referring to talented longtime operative Tom Buckley and Wayne attorney Mark Semeraro who played a key role in shepherding the legal maneuverings surrounding last year's circus of a Chairman's race. Rumana seems to have failed to cultivate relationships even with key elected figures in important towns for the GOP. Morale is low and at this point he seems to have squandered much of the goodwill he carried in with him.

This can be seen in several domains. First, more consistent communiqués from the Chairman right after the election and in early January would have kept the County Committee more engaged and at least pre-empted the usual critiques: "only cared about the County Committee when their votes were needed", etc. I understand that Rumana recently got married and thus has had plenty on his plate – fine, then delegate. Jennifer Scully, the young Vice-Chair from Hawthorne, is a great communicator with lots of energy. Rumana needs to rely more on her as a spokesperson, since she serves in an official capacity.

Secondly – the pending Presidential race. While Rumana's team showed an admirable grassroots style in 2005 by doing a straw poll on their County Committee members in Wayne for the 7-way GOP Gubernatorial primary, this has not yet been done for the far more important Presidential contest, and already municipal leaders are going their own ways and joining up with (so far) McCain or Giuliani. In my personal opinion, this should indeed fall to the individual level in terms of endorsements, but Rumana has missed a great opportunity to involve the newly-elected County Committee while stoking some excitement and issue-based discussion.

Thirdly, the excuse "we have no money" is pathetic. Even from Africa, I can see that the media in NJ is anti-Democrat at the moment – they don't like one-party rule – and there are key fiscal issues that the GOP can attack at any time during the year (not just October). Holding press conferences to draw attention to hot issues affecting property taxes costs nothing, generates positive media coverage, and excites the base. People will be more likely to give to the GOP if they see a concerted year-round effort, not a glorified begging operation in the fall.

No one is expecting miracles, but Rumana's radio silence has left a lot to be desired. It is not too late and I hold out hope that Rumana will institute a convention process for the nominations, as has been rumored. In any case, he needs to take a more hands-on role to reassure those who elected him and trusted him to lead the Passaic County Republican Party.

I will close on a humorous note with a quip from one outside observer: "They should bring [former Chairman Mike] Mecca back – at least he was entertaining!"
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Snowy still water surprise

What a delight, descending upon Heathrow from Dakar 2 days ago (on a BMED flight), to hear the captain announce that London had been covered in a blanket of snow the previous day! In my experience, snow (or at least snow that sticks) is quite rare there.

But I had a bigger shock when a friend and I sat down to eat at Sofra (a Turkish chain) in my old stomping grounds of St. John's Wood, and the waiter brought us the still water that had been ordered. Having been in Africa for the past month, such highly-advanced packaged and marketed products seem other-worldly. I mean I really did a double-take when served such "high-class" hydroxylic acid.
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