No surprises in South Brunswick. The Democrats won with a huge margin and the Republicans continued their descent into complete irrelevancy. (The lone surprise was the number of write-ins — more than a thousand, about one in nine votes cast.)
The GOP is likely to cast blame around with the targets likely to be everything from the Middlesex County Democratic machine (legitimate target) to the local Democrats’ money advantage (again, legitimate) to the South Brunswick Post (if only we had the kind of influence the GOP thinks we do).
One target likely to escape blame, however, will be their party’s leadership. The fact is, the party has failed its faithful, running a cast of mediocre candidates for years, candidates who have offered little in the way of vision and little to convince local voters that they should be elected to replace the incumbents.
If money was the only issue, if the party was running strong candidates or offering a compelling sense of where the township should be heading, it wouldn’t be losing by two-to-one margins, as it did this year.
Think about this: There was enough disenchantment with the incumbent mayor that a write-in camapaign against him managed to garner more than a thousand votes — an amazing feat given that writing in a candidate is not the easiest of processes.
If the GOP wants to be relevant again, it needs to find fresh faces and new leadership.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 