by Hank Kalet, Managing Editor
Republican candidates did not fare very well in southern Middlesex County this year.
But that’s nothing new. Republican candidates have been fighting an uphill battle in the region for years and might just be an endangered species.
This year, Democrats won all 11 seats that were in play on the four governing bodies in the region (Cranbury, Jamesburg, Monroe and Plainsboro), as well as picking up a formerly Republican state Assembly seat (thanks primarily to Democratic votes in Monroe, Plainsboro and South Brunswick) and continuing their dominance of the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders.
In fact, if it weren’t for Wayne Wittman’s win two years ago in Cranbury and Assemblyman Bill Baroni’s capturing of the 14th District state Senate seat last week, Republicans would be as invisible in the region as Democrats have been in the “Solid South” since Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential election victory.
Mr. Baroni was the lone bright spot for the party this year, though the numbers show just how weak the GOP is in southern Middlesex County. While Mr. Baroni defeated former state Ratepayer Advocate Seema Singh, of South Brunswick, by more than 13,000 votes districtwide and won every town in the district but Monroe, he was easily outpolled by incumbent Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein and he had no coattails. His running mates — Adam Bushman, of Jamesburg, and Tom Goodwin, of Hamilton — finished about 2,000 votes behind the Democrats in Middlesex County, more than enough to offset the large GOP advantage in Hamilton, Mr. Baroni’s political base.
The results are remarkably similar to those from 2005, when Mr. Baroni and Ms. Greenstein split the district. Mr. Baroni was the top vote-getter in three towns — Hamilton, South Brunswick and Cranbury — while Ms. Greenstein topped all candidates in the rest. And four towns — West Windsor, Cranbury, Jamesburg and South Brunswick — backed both candidates.
The results can be read two ways. Both Mr. Baroni and Ms. Greenstein are incredibly popular in the district — a supposition that is difficult to dispute. But they also show how moribund the Republican Party has become in the southern end of the county. Were the GOP organizations in Monroe, Plainsboro or South Brunswick stronger, it is likely that either Mr. Goodwin or Mr. Bushman could have built on their strength in Mercer County, where both outpolled Wayne DeAngelo (Mr. Goodwin by 2,287 and Mr. Bushman by 1,219), and possibly retained the Assembly seat being vacated by Mr. Baroni.
I’ve written before about how the weakness of the Republican parties in both Monroe and South Brunswick constrict debate on local issues. In our system of government, it is important that the minority party be strong enough to ensure that contrary opinions get a hearing and that elections are competitive.
This has not been the case in South Brunswick or Monroe for a long time.
The last South Brunswick Republican to win a seat on the Township Council was Ted Van Hessen in 2002, his third victory, and Mr. Van Hessen has been the only Republican to win a local election since 1994.
A confluence of factors is responsible not only for the string of losses, but for the downward spiral in which the party finds itself: the influence of the Middlesex County Democratic Organization, a fundraising disparity that has favored the Democrats since 1996 and that has grown more pronounced with each Democratic win and the local party’s mounting inability to find decent candidates.
The GOP in Monroe has had even less success — you have to go back about two decades to find a Republican council member and it’s rare that local elections are even close. This year, for instance, one might have expected the controversy over the proposal to build a new high school on Green Acres land in Thompson Park or the public’s concern with ethics reform to inflict some damage on the Democrats, especially with Mayor Richard Pucci topping the ticket. Mayor Pucci had worked for a political action committee tied to former state Senate President John Lynch, who is serving time in prison after pleading guilty to bribery charges last year.
Instead, as has been the case for several years, the GOP offered only the barest of challenges. Karen Scarpa, the top Republican vote-getter, finished more than 1,500 votes behind Irwin Nalitt for the second council seat and more than 2,000 back of Leslie Koppel-Egierd. Mayor Pucci garnered 60.3 percent of the vote and won by more than 2,500 votes over Republican challenger Tom Nothstein.
And in Plainsboro, the Republicans failed to even field a candidate for either committee seat this year.
As I said, this institutional weakness can have deleterious consequences for policy because alternatives often do not get the hearing they may deserve. Just as importantly, single-party rule tends to perpetuate itself, pushing critics further and further to the sidelines.
Let me be clear, however. This is not the fault of the Democrats. It is clear from the local results over the last 10 years that the Democrats’ message — which has been different in each community — resonates with voters.
If Republicans want to become relevant once again in southern Middlesex County, they will need to do more than criticize their opponents. They need to develop new ideas and make a compelling case that they can do a better job of leading their communities into the future.
Unless they do this, they will remain on the sidelines.
Hank Kalet is a managing editor of the South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press. His e-mail is [email protected] and his blog, Channel Surfing, can be found at www.kaletblog.com.
