The biggest question of the season in Monmouth County is "What will Bill Barham do?" Except for Bill of course. In his case the question is "What is Bill Barham due?"
Barham's term as Freeholder Director is up at the end of the year, and his Freeholder seat is on the ballot next November. Last August in their pre-election reforms, the Freeholder Board passed a resolution stating that no Freeholder shall be Director for more than two consecutive years, which would mean Barham can't be Director again this coming year. The problem is that resolution is not binding after December 31, so Barham could be Director again.
There is wide spread speculation, fueled by Barham himself, that he will step down as Freeholder if he is not reappointed Director.
That would be a good thing for the Monmouth GOP, as Barham's antics, perhaps more than any other factor, have lead to the loss of two Republican seats in the last two elections. The GOP could have a Title 19 convention, free of Adam Puharic's draconian rules, to select Barham's replacement and embrace the replacement and Freeholder Lillian Burry, who is also up for re-election in November, as the fall ticket.
Candidates to replace Barham would likely be last year's candidate Jeff Cantor, Red Bank Councilman John Curley, the Mayor of Howell, who doesn't like his name to appear in blogs, and Brain Reilly, the Pat Paulsen of GOP Freeholder candidates. Anna Little will not be a candidate, as she is committed to her work as Mayor of Highlands. With Little out of consideration, Puharic would not need a screening committee.
But now that Barham has read that scenario here, he will probably stop threatening to quit and look for another way to keep the Directorship. A bi-partisan deal with Barham as Director and John D'Amico as Deputy Director wouldn't shock me. The biggest problem for Bill with that scenario, is that he read it here first.
If that happens, Barham will very likely be challenged for the GOP nomination, with Lillian Burry embracing either Jeff Cantor or John Curley as her running mate. In this scenario there will be a hotly contested convention under dracionian rules and screening committees, and there will be a primary. The big question then will be, "Can Bill Barham find a running mate?" Maybe Dave Hiers or the Mayor of Howell. The next question will be, "Who gets the line?"
Whatever happens, come January 1, 2009, Bill Barham won't be a Freeholder. That is something to look forward to.
The Legacy of Thomas Lifson
19 hours ago
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5 comments:
Wow. Great read. The question really is:
Will Bill Barham's ego let him step down to aovid losing an election in either June or November?
Or is his ego soooo big that he can not even acknowledge that he will lose?
Lillian Burry is the most ambitious woman in Monmouth County and will not go quietly into the sunset. She will either be up for the Directorship, or she won't move out of the Deputy position. She would certainly step all over Bully Barham to get what she wants, and never look back at the heel marks. And don't think for one minute that Comrade Puharic would stand for either Barbara McMorrow or Judge D'Amico to be considered for a leadership position. He would never let that happen. He still has Clifton to see to that.
Why can't you use Mayor DiBella's name? He is a decent guy who got chrated out of the nomination and was 1500000% times a better candidate than babe in the woods Mr. Lucas, who is a nice guy, but very weak. DiBella is too smart to be bothered with a freeholder run. Good guy too who the bloggers trashed last year because they wanted a weak candidate they could bully around like a puppy dog.
Anonymous said...
Why can't you use Mayor DiBella's name?
When I write the Mayors name, he calls me up, talks dirty, and says he's going to take my house away.
Whoever "Anonymous" is that said Lucas is a nice guy, obviously has been sleeping longer than Rip Van Winkle. After being blown away in a race DiBella would have won easily, Lucas engineered a 28% tax increase, conspired with the Democrats against the running mate that brought him into office, Joe Locricchio, then conspired with the Democrats to try to defeat the person who was supposed to be his running mate this year Susan Cohen (who won anyway. She had an advantage -- McEnery didn't work on her campaign), sued the attorney who got him elected, and is behind the attempt to violate the first amendment rights of Manalapan's citizens, which is now getting international attention. Who's idea of "nice guy" is this?
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