The annual Monmouth County Lincoln Day Dinner was a huge success. Congratulations to Chairman Joe Oxley and his Lincoln Day committee, Christine Hanlon and John and Mary Fran Lane.
Honest Abe has an excellent report on the event.
In addition to the movers and shakers that Abe mentioned, it should be noted that the entire 13th District delegation, Senator Joe Kyrillos, Assemblywoman Amy Handlin and Assemblyman Sam Thompson were present. Senator Sean Kean and Assemblyman Dave Rible were there representing the 1th, Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon was there from the 12th and Assemblyman Ron Dancer was there from the 30th.
Tom DeSeno graced us with his presence, even though he had such a long drive. Now that he knows the way to the Sandy Hook Bay, he can take the ferry to his FoxNews gigs.
In recent years the Lincoln Day Dinner has been a showcase for Freeholder candidate hopefuls. This year it was more of a testing the waters and getting a lay of the land. There was quite a bit of buzz about whether or not Democratic Freeholder Director Barbara McMorrow will even run. Deputy D'Amico and the Trenton Democratic machine, including the Governor's office, are making McMorrow's life miserable for not allowing a partisan house cleaning of the Hall of Records personnel and for not jumping on the D'Amico/Cryan Inspector General bandwagon.
Of the potential Freeholders candidates present, only Eileen Kean has declared her candidacy. Gus Toomey of Aberdeen was present doing his perennial water testing. Former Mayor Joe DiBella, who twice lost the nomination by the thinest of margins, sounded as if he wants to be talked into running. Mayor Robert Walsh and Councilman Mike Howell, Independents of Howell, were there and making their support of DiBella well known.
Chairman Oxley reiterated his call for candidates to declare by February 27th.
The highlight of the evening was the speeches by gubernatorial candidates Chris Christie and Steve Lonegan. I'll post my thoughts on their speeches and the match up some time tomorrow or Wednesday.
Photos by Rhoda Chodosh
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10 comments:
Any shots of the room? How many people showed 1000 2000?
About 500 were in attendance.
Art,
It was indeed a pleasure to finally meet you.
The republican party of Monmouth County and especially the chairman, should be very proud of the success of the annual Lincoln Day dinner.
As for the gubernatorial candidates speeches, I felt like Mr. Christie was saying what people wanted to hear while Mr. Lonegan told them what they should hear, that our state is in trouble and that he is the only candidate to thus far have taken on Mr. Corzine and not only has he taken him on, but beat him and beat him soundly. At this point, I am inclined to put my support behind Steve Lonegan the former mayor of the town where I grew up.
You are correct in your assertion that I am absolutely in support of Joseph DiBella as the republican candidate for freeholder. This party has put their support behind three candidates in as many years who could not get it done. They being Andrew Lucas, Jeff Cantor and most recently, Mr. Curley. The time is now to take back control of the government of Monmouth County! It has been a scant seven weeks since the democrats have been in control and already their is more disharmony within the county than anyone can remember, are we really ready to let the democrats bring in outsiders with the biggest check books and to allow them to run amok in Monmouth County? I surely hope not.
Joseph DiBella can be, in my opinion, the one person who can campaign hard enough, deliver the message that people not only want to hear, but need to hear and can work to achieve the platform which he runs on.
I have had the privilege of working with Joseph for two years on the council and while we didn't always agree, he was professional enough to take the time to lay his argument out as well as to listen to mine and there were no hard feelings, just different opinions, but we respected each others opinion.
That in my estimation is the kind of person we need at the county level of government, one who listens with an open mind.
Mike Howell
Councilman
Howell Township
So would it be fair to say that after you subtract the elected public officials, the Chairpeople who have to approve the Freeholder candidates could not even turn out 10 people each. Yeah these are real movers and shakers. I don't think anyone should be allowed to run for municiple chair unless they can turn out 100 people each for Lincoln day.
It was more like a convention of party bosses, municipal chairs and their associates/committees, rather than a turning-out of "active" Republicans across the County -- and this is just a microcosm of what is wrong with the County Republican Party in general -- a failure to generate enthusiasm among Republican voters and activists, a failure to recruit young talented and engergetic people (have you looked around the room lately -- what's the average age 55?) and a failure to deliver a message and a reason that Republicans would want to turn out and show their support. Boy, do we have our work cut out for us -- and it's not just Joe's responsibility either!!
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to run for municiple chair unless they can turn out 100 people each for Lincoln day."
Who would set such a by-law?
Interesting thought. That would mean approximately 5300 attending Lincoln day...making it the largest such gathering in the universe.
The turnout on Sunday was very impressive. Nice cross section from all four corners of the county.
Riiiiight. The impressive leaders who should approve Freeholder candidates can not even turn out a fraction of the county committee members from their own town, can not even get half a dozen people to show up. Real impressive. You folk just don't get it, the leaders are the problem with this party. Any chair that can not even turn out a dozen of his/her own county committee for a event like this is a failure. I am sure McCain's people said the same thing as Obama spoke to millions. The rank and file are there -the leadership is missing.
"Interesting thought. That would mean approximately 5300 attending Lincoln day...making it the largest such gathering in the universe.
The turnout on Sunday was very impressive. Nice cross section from all four corners of the county"
Umm -- I think you missed the point of the other blogger...the turnout could have been better and the "mix" of the type of Republicans (other than your typical party bosses and minions) present is more telling of where the party is and where it is going. It would have been nice to see the guys who go door to door for signatures, or the people who put up the lawn signs, and the ladies who make the calls on election night...they're not there. That's the story!!
Interesting last comment. I guess you were not there. I was sitting with the people who put out the signs, made phone calls every week, went door to door. I saw many of them at other tables as well. Maybe you don't know who they are because you weren't working with them during the campaign last year.
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