Trouble brewing for the Middletown GOP

Like the Monmouth County Freeholder Board, partisan control of the Middletown Township Committee is at stake this year. Due to split votes the last two years, Republicans' two plus decades of governance is at risk in both bodies in the upcoming election. Another split vote on either body and the Democrats take control.

Middletown Republicans should have had an easy time this year, with popular incumbents Pam Brightbill and former Olympic medal winner Tom Wilkens up for re-election. But Wilkens decided not to run again, citing the old stand-by, family and career obligations. Maybe that really is why he is not running.

With Wilkens out of the running, the Middletown GOP recruited newcomer Anthony Fiore to the ticket. Fiore was politically active in his former home of Carteret. An unknown candidate always starts off with a handicap. They just have not spent enough time in the community to build the relationships it takes to get elected on the local level.

Fiore gave himself a harsher handicap by exaggerating his qualifications in a interview with Sable Minded blogger and Courier reporter Melissa Gaffney. Gaffney has made no secret of her disdain for the Middletown GOP. Most people associated with the Courier dislike the Middletown GOP. Perhaps all, except me, even though senior members of the Middletown GOP are making financial contributions to the Highlands Democrats. (That will be a future post.)

Middletown GOP chairman Peter Carton needs to replace Fiore on the ticket. Not because he is a newcomer and not because he exaggerated his resume to a young reporter that he obviously underestimated.

In keeping with the theme of the week, Fiore must go because he is an guido Italian American. When was the last time Middletown elected a guido Italian? Lenny Inzerillo was elected to the board of education, but no one votes in those elections. Lenny almost beat Joe Azzolina for Assembly, but that was a battle of two guidos Italians. Azzolina and his nephew Phil Scaduto (Board of Ed) may be the only guidos Italians ever elected in Middletown. But they have been here for decades, own Foodtown and The Courier, and employ almost every teenager and single mother in town.

Middletown elects Anglos, Irish and Germans. Smith, Peters (Italian by birth but no one knew), Bugsy O'Grady, Parkinson, Scharfenberger, Brightbill, Brodski, Wilkens. Democrats Short and the Irish guy.

While it is a Republican tradition to break racial,ethnic, and gender barriers--the first black US Senator, first black Secretary of State, the first female UN Ambassador, the first female Supreme Court Justice, the second black Supreme Court Justice, the first two Italian Supreme Court Justices, most of these were appointed, not elected positions.

Sure, the Democrats have broken some ground too. JFK appointed Thurgood Marshall to the US Court of Appeals Second District in 1961, but Democratic Senators held up the confirmation and he served several months as a recess appointment. Lyndon Johnson appointed Marshall Solicitor General and then Supreme Court Justice. The Democrats also had the first female Vice Presidential nominee, also an Italian, and are on the verge of nominating the first black Presidential candidate.

Even guido Italian Democratic chairman Joe Caliendo has finally learned not to nominate an Italian candidate in Middletown.

Fiore should come down with a case of family and career obligations. Maybe Carton can sit down with Wilkens and address what is really bothering him. Wilkens could be a future GOP superstar.