The Watcher: South Jersey progressive no-shows

Here’s something.  Let it slip through your fingers.

For the last several years, South Jersey progressives led the fight against the county line, challenging the powerful Camden County Democratic machine in countywide contests.  They lost them all by rather substantial margins and argued vociferously that they could win if not for the advantages of preferential ballot positions, phantom candidates, and the practice of ballot Siberia that sometimes made their slate difficult to find.

Since U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi granted an injunction that ended county lines in the 2024 Democratic primary, dramatic changes to New Jersey’s ballot design laws have abolished the line, mandated office-block ballots, and banished ballot Siberia. 

This was the great equalizer South Jersey progressives said they needed to win, but with three county commissioner sets up for grabs in June, the organization candidates- the ones backed by George E. Norcross III– are unopposed in 2025 after an opposition slate failed to materialize.  To state the obvious: unopposed candidates are the strong favorites to win.   Fair ballots had the opposite effect of what South Jersey progressives had fought for: they waved the white flag of surrender to Team Norcross.  

Have the South Jersey progressives moved on to another shiny object?  That’s not entirely clear.  Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, a fierce critic of party bosses — particularly Norcross — has fielded slogan-sharing candidates for State Assembly in six South Jersey legislative districts, but he’s not playing in Camden commissioner races.

Last June, with no lines — but admittedly without time to fully organize and fundraise (Quraishi’s order came after the filing deadline) — Pam Lampitt won the Democratic nomination for Camden County Clerk with 60%, down nineteen points from the 79% her predecessor, Joe Ripa, received in 2019.  That could be Ripa’s popularity, but Lampitt, who was serving her nineteenth year as an assemblywoman, was also well-known. 

In 2019, progressives ran over 90 candidates in the primary, from the legislature and countywide contests to races for the Democratic County Committee.  Their lone win came in Collingswood, the Montclair of the South, where they won sixteen county committee seats by a 52%-48% margin; Camden elects their county committee in at-large, winner-take-all elections where voters cast a single vote for a slate.

Kate Delany, now the president of South Jersey Progressive Democrats, became the Collingswood Democratic municipal chair.  While that didn’t get her a seat at the table, it at least offered her access to the room.  But that didn’t last long.

In the May 2021 non-partisan municipal election in Collingswood, Delaney and her slate lost by a 2-1 margin.  The following month, the Camden machine flipped all sixteen county committee seats back by 27 points. 

By the Monday filing deadline, the progressives are hardly playing in county committee races.  Delaney, unable to recruit fifteen running mates, is the lone candidate in Collingswood.

SPRING CLEANING:  Former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett, scrubbed some past, but not necessarily old, social media posts as she seeks to challenge two-term Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. in New Jersey’s 7th district.  The posts weren’t provocative — her deleted tweets included praise of Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker — but a Republican critic suggested that Bennett’s attempt to excise at least some portions of a limited public record suggests that she’s “a big fan of the far left and even deleted tweets in a desperate effort to cover it up.”

Bennett’s campaign pushed back, arguing that Kean’s first run for office was pre-social media, “so he might forget what it’s like to live a normal life like the rest of us.  But Rebecca is a first-time candidate who professionalized her social media accounts when she announced her campaign, removing some innocuous personal posts.”

MORE THAN THREE TIMES THE LEGAL LIMIT: Lumberton Mayor Gina LaPlaca scored an incredible 0.3% on a breathalyzer test administered by a local police officer a little before 5 PM on St. Patrick’s Day, with her toddler son in the car, police records show; the legal limit in New Jersey is 0.08%, which means LaPlaca was allegedly hammered.  She told police she’d taken prescription medication at 7 AM, last ate at 8 AM, and had one drink, vodka, — perhaps a really, really stong one — at noon.

A text message exchange between Lt. Christopher Cheesman and Chief Anthony Nippins, obtained by the New Jersey Globe through an Open Public Records Act request, began about a half-hour after the mayor’s arrest, after Lumberton police received a report of an “erratic driver.”

“They got Mayor LaPlaca in the driveway w/ damage on her car, stumbling around,” the lieutenant stated.  “She had their (sic) little child w/ her.  She was arrested, and the child turned over to the neighbor.”  Nippins instructed the lieutenant to notify Meredith Riculfy, the township administrator, “so she can notify other committee members.”

Cheesman told Riculfy that LaPlaca “was being cooperative and admitted to the alcohol consumption as she did have some open containers in the vehicle.”

“The call originated in Mount Laurel, so they already looked her tag up and knew who it was when they passed it off to our guys, so the Mount Laurel crew knows who it was,” Riculfy was told.  “There were multiple callers on this who witnessed the erratic driving.”

Later, the Cheesman reported to Riculfy that “Committeeman (Terrance) Benson just called me in reference (to) this and had already received numerous phone calls about it.”

“I kept a majority of the details out, however he is now aware of the DWI,” Cheesman said in a text.  “I didn’t mention anything about the child of details; kept everything very generic.”

MAKING SURE HE’S HYDRATED AND FED: U.S. Senator Andy Kim took a break from a hectic week in New Jersey to have lunch with his 2024 Republican opponent, Curtis Bashaw. That came before a weekend town hall meeting in Brick where the senator sprinted toward an attendee who was having a medical emergency but stopped when he saw a law enforcement official was handling the issue.

ON TRIAL: Former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez has not appeared in court for the corruption trial of his wife.  Prosecutors allege that Nadine Menendez “did the dirty work” for her busband’s bribery exploits and called her the “bribe collector.” Bob Menendez was convicted last July and resigned the Senate seat he’d held since 2006; he’s been sentenced to eleve years in federal prison.  Two of the ex-senator’s co-defendants, Fred Daibes and Wael Hanna, were granted a 45-day extension from their own prison sentences so they can testify in the trial.

BELATED CONGRATULATIONS: The Center for Effective Lawmaking at the University of Virginia named Bob Menendez as the tenth-most effective member of the United States Senate in 2024.

RED CHAIR NO MORE: If you’re wondering who Monica Brinson is, The Watcher can assure you that it doesn’t really matter.  Brinson sought the Republican nomination for governor this year, participating in some county conventions and local candidate forums, and complaining that other GOP leaders left her out of the process.  But when filing day came and went on March 24, Brinson and her nominating petitions were absent.  The same thing happened when she ran for governor in 2017 and for president in 2024: noise but no petitions.  What does the red chair mean?  Brinson carried a red metal chair around with her, quoting the late Shirley Chisholm: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

Another unrealistic candidate, Hans Hersberg, couldn’t get the 2,500 signatures needed to get on the ballot.  Now he’s running as a write-in candidate.  

AS PROMISED: One day after dropping out of the race for governor, Ed Durr spent Tuesday evening at a party for his preferred candidate, Bill Spadea, where Spadea donors applauded him.  The event was in Freehold, about 76 miles from Durr’s home in Gloucester County. 

THE WATCHER SEES WHAT YOU’RE DOING: The Democratic Governors Association sent a message to Republican primary voters with their own spin on Ed Durr’s withdrawal: “Jack Ciattarelli Has Always Been a Never-Trumper.”

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