Well, well... look who came back after a very long hiatus...
GA's Dark Side informant whom I call Deep Uvula.
Why Deep Uvula? If the Washington Post cold have a throat, why can't I have a uvula? But be clear: my chatty informant DU dishes from the 'Old Guard's' camp; he is one of them.
For newbies, back in 2011-2012, Deep Uvula made frequent appearances here on GA. Check out this 2011 "Deep Uvula Unplugged" about the staged arrest of Zimmer Administration Parking and Transportation Director Ian Sacs. Use keyword "uvula" in my Search Box and you'll find many others.
So, five years later... DU is back; heard from my Dark Side informant out-of-the-blue last night.
Understand you guys kicked the crap out of Masons weasel boy. Good. Seems like its safer to talk these days. Thought you might like to hear some stuff.
Stick stuck it to that little bastard Defusco. Nobody likes the little prick, but Maurice did for some reason. He always said he saw something in him no one else did. Stick cleaned his clock with the VBMs. Gotta give that one to Pablo. It was funny Defusco’s people whined like babies putting out that flyer about stealing votes and don’t trust no one. Defusco knew when they put that out he was not gonna make it and Stick had done him bad.
Everyone knew from jump the Indian guy was out front. After the stand off with the VBMs, it came down to how many votes the girl could steal. I hear both Stick and Defusco people kept telling the horse guy a lot of shit to keep him and her hopped up thinking she had a chance. Knew she was in 4th at the start and she would end up in 4th. Too bad for both Stick and Defusco she didnt have pull at the polls.
You have to hand it to the Mayor. She is a tricky one. This was the last chance for us old timers to get City Hall back. Russo, Ramos, Raia, Stick, Defusco, Garcia, they will all make nice at some point. They don’t have any choice. They'll take what scraps they can get.
We’ll see about that little prick, though. The new guys life will be hell for as long as they can make it tough for him. But its over as far as any majority or the mayor’s office. Hell, even Biancamano couldnt get reelected. The BOE is a lost cause.
You guys almost blew it. Really. It was a close clusterfuck. If her campaign hadn’t been so fucked up, she could have thrown it to Defusco.
Thanks, Uvula. Let's not wait another five years to hear from you again.
Interesting perspective with much truth to it.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I disagree with though is that Jen was inevitably 4th. Jen has excellent political skills and could have had a real chance to become Mayor had she taken the high ground from the start, saying something like i respect the mayor and her fine service to the city. I'm disappointed she chose to endorse Ravi but the voters not the mayor make the ultimate decision and I'm running because I believe I am the best person to lead Hoboken forward.
With that narrative and the $150,000 or so she raised she would have been a formidable candidate with a real shot at winning.
Instead, she started out the gate with pure negative nonsense about backroom deals, Ravi being unelectable, Ravi and the mayor not being good at math, Ravi and the mayor not knowing how to negotiate, Ravi being unqualified for an executive position and a fictional reform resistance. Then she proceeded to join with DeFusco to try to smear the mayor over Suez complete with insinuations of criminality.
The folks who came up with and marketed that stuff doomed her from day one.
Hopefully, Jen and Peter realize this. They are good people who made the mistake of letting others with different agendas devise their strategy. If they go back to listening to their own hearts and minds Hoboken will be well represented by their continued service to their community.
spot on, numbers. this is probably what bummed me out the most, that reformers who we know are decent people didn't just say "hey, i think we have a good message and vision for hoboken and we're going to campaign passionately on what we believe", but instead felt the need to go full-mason and get in the gutter with complete BS accusations of administration corruption and incompetence.
Deletethis is particularly why i'm completely done with "tiff", she was perhaps the worse offended in getting on Facebook and blathering on and on (and on...) about this type of completely over-the-top, insulting nonsense. if i were her, i'd be ashamed sit on the dais next time and look ravi in the eye. unlike some others on team jen, i question whether "tiff" is capable of self-reflection and recognizing a learning moment. please, let's find someone else for the 2nd ward.
IMO, that campaign always felt (and acted) more like a mutiny. Not a good start, and a foreshadowing of doom. Jen got terrible advice- but she took it, and the buck stops with her. They were kicking Ravi out of the gate, he took it all, and when he kicked back they screamed. If they think that invoking party politics wasn't fair, take a good look around America and see what happened electorally all over this country. We are living in very different times, and anyone who doesn't see that doesn't want to.
DeleteTiffanie prides herself on being a data/numbers person. It has to be obvious to her that her "analysis" was completely flawed. She would have to actually be nuts (and I don't think she is) not to recognize that the results prove pretty conclusively that in this case it was her math skills that turned out to be badly suspect.
DeleteHopefully the result will be a recognition on her part that there are lots of people as smart as she is, and even lots of people smarter than she is. She would have much to contribute to the future discourse if her takeaway is that listening to and learning from what others have to say is an important skill that she currently lacks, and that needs to consciously work hard on developing.
Not sure if I agree that Jen could have done better. I agree that what they did about Suez was a mistake. But by running against Ravi, and saying that Jen is "the best person to lead Hoboken going forward," I think she and her supporters would have to say something about why she is better than Ravi. It's hard to see how she could have done that without reflecting upon Ravi or the Mayor negatively in some way.
DeleteAlso, there was genuine anger by some for how the Mayor decided to suddenly announce she wasn't running and Ravi would be her candidate. That anger was, I think, a major motivator for the campaign. "You can't tell me who my candidate is!" Even if Jen could hide it, her supporters couldn't, they were human beings, not robots or paid employees. It was never realistic to expect them to hide that anger, and so any "Jen wins" scenario that depends on such hiding is intrinsically unrealistic.
Agree 100%, GA -- the more-viable positive message numberscruncher outlined was never going to happen, because the Jen's candidacy from the outset was a magnet for anti-Zimmer resentment. I agree with numbers that Jen and Peter probably weren't on that page to start with but were manipulated and used by the usual suspects with their nefarious, self-serving agendas. There were a handful of bona fide reformers over there who simply did believe Jen was the better candidate for legitimate and honorable reasons. Deirdre and Greg, in particular, I think could never be argued to be anything less than salt of the earth who were surely not involved with the uglier side of the Giattino campaign. I'll add that Jim Aibel and his wife Bev are IMO absolutely lovely people who have done enormous good for this community. Jim was in many ways the most credible person on that ticket, and I fear he was exploited for his good reputation by the crew that grinds so many decent people through their machinations. I've always liked Niall. And I'm sure there are plenty of others I can't currently think of who were over there for reasons tracking closer to "the positive message that wasn't."
DeleteThe rest were people who hate Zimmer and always have, and they were driving the bus. The resulting mix of "Zimmer is corrupt" and "Ravi is 'unelectable'" rhetoric was inevitable with that crew at the helm.
As for Roman, whatever the Dark Side may have been feeding him, no one told him to go full-on corruption-conspiracy-theory or post headlines like "Sikhing the Vote." That's all him. And as far as I can tell, no one from the Jen side discouraged him from doing so or tried to distance themselves from it. That's on them. He positioned himself as the lunatic-fringe face of that campaign, and instead of reining him in, they cut him a check. Inconceivable.
Still, it is certainly time to move on and mend fences where we can, weeding out the prodigal children from the permanent snakes in the grass.
Hopefully people will remember who the militant disgruntled "reformers" are and never allow them to get close to future campaigns. If that sort of support is all the support a candidate can get when running for office, they have no chance in hell of running an effective campaign.
DeleteAs for going full blown dark side, Roman wasn't alone. A couple of the folks writing comments went down that dark path with him. They all went off the deep end and I suspect that is where they will stay. I suspect they went too far over the edge to ever come back.
Virtually any reform movement anywhere that becomes successful experiences a period of tension between two factions -- those who genuinely believe in ending corrupt practices, and those who simply believe "now it's OUR turn to feed at the trough." Fortunately in this case, the REAL reformers prevailed once and for all.
Delete"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
-- George Orwell
The complaints about process were inevitable but the tone was not. "The mayor should have followed a more inclusive process" could have been folded into the more positive messaging.
DeleteInstead, they went overboard with blathering about backroom deals replete with nutty conspiracy theories and insinuations of corruption.
The possibility of a positive message was there. But I agree that the reason it didn't happen was that Jen's inner circle included some very angry people who have long hated the Mayor for reasons having nothing to do with a concern for sound public policy. Those people had spent two years urging Jen to run against the Mayor so "splitting reform" and electing Romano or DeFusco was obviously not an outcome that troubled them in the least.
Anecdotelly, I know longtime core Reform people who were on the fence until the SUEZ fiasco- blaming the mayor, dragging Ravi's employer into it, calling for an "investigation" of the mayor and the renegotiated contract. That upset a lot of Reform - if anything, Zimmer is honest. Also, our Reform peeps are well-informed, and understood the $8.3M wasn't an unfunded liability, but a contingent liability which was a function of the lousy contract amendment signed off on in 2001. Really, the impact on many folks of thsee nasty political hijinks turned on the mayor pushe'd many Regormers off the fence. This I know.
DeleteI have to admit to being shocked, SHOCKED that so many Reformers fell for "Jen"s and "Tiff"s schtick. These were people I respected and worked side by side with on all of Mayor Zimmer's campaigns and those of Peter Cunningham, Mike Lenz, Kids First candidates, etc. I am at such a loss to understand why these folks turned their back on the Mayor and, by extension, Ravi. I guess I'll never understand how very gullible intelligent people can be!
DeleteIn Roman's defense, we all thought he was making stuff up re: polling showing Giattino in first place ("surging"). While none of that jived with actual data- in fact was so far afield of reality- now we know that he was being jerked around by DeFusco and Romano camps to keep the Jen candidacy hopeful and alive.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, in hindsight, GA was jerked around by the Romano camp big-time: they told me over and over again they were not touching VBMs, they were running a clean race. Apparently not. Hindsight is 20-20.
Presumably the election results make clear even to Roman that his "sources" were feeding him BS. Just because someone is telling you what you want to hear doesn't mean they are telling you the truth.
ReplyDeletethat's pretty much the dictionary definition of a con job, isn't it? the con man gains the confidence of the mark but telling them things they want to believe. roman and team jen got conned and were too starry eyed to notice.
DeleteI stand corrected. I started this election cycle saying that in a non-partisan mayoral election, Jen being a republican shouldn't matter to anyone. "me" and a few others said I was wrong, but I thought they were. But, I was wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt's off topic, but: Donald Trump will (hopefully) ruin the republican party to the point that they must rebrand and recenter themselves. Nationwide, people voted against Trump and democrats took all sorts of seats, even when the republican was more qualified. My hope for the good of this country is that the republicans are rebranded and centered and the lunatic fringe (of both parties) is relegated to insignificance. I think most people would like a moderate, thoughtful candidate. But, I was wrong before.
With Republicans flirting with the idea of eliminating SALT and the Republican Gubernatorial candidate attacking Hoboken's treatment under school funding formulas, anyone saying partisan politics doesn't matter is an idiot. I know you aren't an idiot, but Jen's supporters liked to completely ignore the fact that Republicans are doing things that damage residents of Hoboken - Jen is a Republican and she was completely silent on these issues! She was a horrible candidate and I am glad she got creamed.
DeleteIt's pretty clear in hindsight that in this election being a republican was a much bigger political problem than being a minority.
DeleteWhen I said Jen could have been formidable with a different strategy, I meant in the multiple candidate race we had i.e Ravi and Jen both in the race with DeFusco competing with Ravi for the partisan Dem votes.
If Ravi had not run, and Jen had the "reform" field to herself, DeFusco would dominated the Dem vote and won easily. That is simply the reality of the electoral math in a democratic town in the age of Trump.
Frankly, he likely would have beaten her even in a three way with DeFusco and Romano splitting some old Hoboken votes. That's what the "electoral math" from this election indicates.
The Mayor has made clear that she had significant local policy differences with Jen that informed her decision, but that the electability of a republican was also a factor.
Which is pretty ironic given the obviously discredited "Jen is electable Ravi is not" narrative that was peddled as the main rationale for her her candidacy.
@Snoopy, you have a reputation here for cutting through the BS and correctly getting to the heart of an issue, so you're certainly allowed to be slightly off rare occasion. speaking as a life-long democrat, there's nothing i want more than a spirited but functional two-party system, hopefully someday we'll get to a place where honest dialogue and compromise for the good of the country (or city) are possible and the hyper-partisian fringes play less of a role.
DeleteYou know, I hadn't thought about that numbers. I think you're right. In hindsight, had only Jen run, it's very possible, even probable, that DeFusco would have won. The headwinds against Republican candidatesin this election cycle were too strong. These are not normal times.
DeleteMe, you are too kind. Thank you.
DeleteIt will be interesting to see if Bhalla will try to seat Doyle as City Council President. It is clear to me that Zimmer didn't have the votes and couldn't unseat Giantinno and install Bhalla before the election. Zimmer knew that with her massive approval ratings she could easily win the election and then could have walked away leaving Bhalla as acting mayor. Stepping out early was a risky gambit.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look at the entire field, Bhalla would not have won if Romano had not entered into the race and went toe to toe with DeFusco and his old guard crew. It was was in my opinion always a race between Bhalla and DeFusco. Giantinno was a spoiler for DeFusco and Romano was a spoiler for DeFusco.
HG, did you mean that Giattino was a spoiler for Bhalla, and Romano was a spoiler for DeFusco?
DeleteJen was definitely a spoiler and only she and the handful of delusional rubes who coalesced around her were too stupid to figure that one out. But I suspect a couple of the folks who put her up to running knew it all along and really were pushing for DeFusco to win. Why else put up someone who had no chance in hell of winning to run and siphon off votes from the reform camp?
DeleteNo. Jen being in the race was helpful for Mike as she did little to challenge his positions directly and he didn't challenge her's. In the same way Anthony was helpful for Ravi by focusing on Mike did little to go directly after him. Was that intentional ? I can not say for sure but I would bet a lunch at DeFrisco's that it was very possible.
DeleteAs if you needed more proof of the political climate, there's already a Snopes page on Bhalla. Supposed to be "satire." But it's using satire as the trojan horse for hatred. "Reagan Was Right" has three despicable articles up in just 2 days, resulting in Snopes actually having to waste time debunking one.
ReplyDeleteIt's as if someone switched on a light in 2017 and we saw where all the cockroaches were. But instead of running to the corners they all said "fuck you, we're stayin'."
It wasn't a good year for a candidate who wanted to avoid taking sides.
Giattino didn't lose, Fisher did.
ReplyDeletejen lost the election, tiff lost her credibility and perhaps (hopefully) her political future.
Deleteand some people lost their damn mind.
DeleteAMEN, Snoopy!
DeleteWhy did the public hear more from Fisher than Giattino? That's my point.
DeleteTo set the record straight, this false statement was recklessly published 'somewhere' with malice today, with "zero" effort to fact check.
ReplyDeleteLIE: "Some people like [GA] did zero work but got a Bhalla campaign challenger badge to show up in the 4-1 right before the polls closed to obtain voting tallies off the machine. That's zero service to voting integrity, 100% service to politics."
TRUTH: GA volunteered for the campaign at the Tea Building from 6AM-9AM. In the evening I canvassed in the rain. After that, I was asked to pick up machine counts, for which I was given Challenger credentials. These facts could have been easily checked., including this one: The Bhalla campaign did not station challengers in polling locations all day- they thought is was a waste of manpower. They had everyone on the streets canvassing. It seems to have worked.
One more thing...
LIE: "... when she isn't creating the many "Deep Uvula" voices in her head.
TRUTH: "Deep Uvula" is a real person.
There you go, peeps. Lying about my service on election day requires correction.
When the future holds out nothing people try to "win the past." But there's no such animal. Moving on....
Delete"You can be an advocate of political violence and an honorary member of Hoboken Antifa but registered Independents, Libertarians and Republicans are the political equivalent of untouchables in the new Mile Square caste system."
DeleteThe Indian-culture metaphor may generously be seen as incidental and signifying nothing. The Antifa/political reference (which he links to another piece on Ravi denouncing the Charlottesville Nazi rally) is sheer lunacy. But on the whole, this, right here, is why Jen had no shot. By signing onto the PR efforts of a delusional racist maniac, she doomed herself from the outset.
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DeleteWell it is over. Time he realized he backed a horse that always was a losing horse and no amount of pretending otherwise will ever change that.
DeleteThe untouchable is actually outside the caste system. "Tainted by birth." It has come to mean the polar opposite, but that's the actual def.
Deletei stand corrected, thanks dang.
Deleteroman's just embarrassed that his ludicrous steve bannon mini-me act (which everyone always knew was ludicrous but humored him about for their own purposes) has finally blown up in his face for all to see. not only did his crush lose the election, but it now appears he was played by romano and defusco people as a way to blow smoke up team jen's ass and keep her in the race.
ReplyDeleteno sense in beating a dead horse.
GA - while you were wasting time helping the campaign you supported get votes, Roman was single handedly battling against the evil schemes of the Hoboken Antifa in "the 4-4 and the 3-1."
ReplyDeleteYou did nothing at all to help in the battle against Antifa so Roman's account was factually correct as always.
Roman states in his comments that he feels Jen is a superior public official to Dawn because while Dawn does an outstanding job in her official capacity, Jen goes above and beyond her official capacity to perform various charitable functions. The inherent silliness notwithstanding -- Dawn does plenty of charitable work, and invoking how much each of them received in compensation for their public service opens the door to the Beth Mason "I'm better because I don't draw a salary" argument -- this implication certainly does leave the impression that Roman may favor Jen as a result of possibly having been at the receiving end of her largesse, perhaps the $1,000 "ad" buy, perhaps something more.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly attest that Roman is favorable toward people who give or loan him money and disfavorable toward those who ask for loans to be repaid.
I do not quibble with the fact that "Jen" is known for her hands-on constituent services in the Sixth Ward. As admirable as that quality is, it does not, of itself, make "Jen" Mayoral material. We certainly saw that in this City-Wide election. "Jen" obviously learned little-to-nothing about being the Mayor of Hoboken from her years of working with Mayor Zimmer. Sad!
DeleteRegarding Roman's alleged loan: I have no knowledge about that, but I would think that what he's putting in the public domain leaves plenty of fodder without going into his non-public personal and financial life. We know he was paid $1000 by Jen's campaign, and we know what he writes. Isn't that enough?
Delete