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| Great memory: In 2011, First Ward Candidate Eric Kurta hung this billboard across the street from his opponent, Terry Castellano's Washington Street store. |
ALTERNATIVE FACT:
"...just for some history on this in 2012 there were two questions on the ballot. One was to move the elections to November the other was for the runoff. Those two questions, the referendum for them, the petition was one- you had to sign once. So there were many people, and I was part of the discussion so I know it well."
- Council Vice President Jen Giattino
FACT:
There were two petitions, and guess what? GA's got 'em both, thanks to Eric Kurta, who started 2012's grassroots petition drives.
GA explained to Eric that Jen Giattino and Peter Cunningham had flipped on runoffs; this was his reaction:
"So they want a runoff right smack between Thanksgiving and Hanukkah/Christmas. That should work out real well for the good government types*. [*sarcasm]
Off-year, the vote-sellers will hold sway, as they will in a December runoff. Never mind the governmental implications, though. Just ask the voters if they want the bother of another election during holiday season. Hoboken voters want to be left alone - shouldn't be a hard sell."
Run-off elections are six weeks after the primary, putting them mid-December, one week before Christmas. Kurta is right; run-offs in mid-December guarantee the election of the Russo-Raia-Ramos candidate.
Why don't Jen Giattino, Tiffanie Fisher and Peter Cunningham care?
Giattino cared enough in 2012 to sign twice.
REFORM'S INITIATIVE PETITION
The overarching message in all of this is that Giattino, Cunningham and Fisher would rather DeFusco be mayor than Ravi. I wonder if they realize how few of Jen's voters agree with them?
ReplyDeleteThey're politically tone-deaf enough to not realize that runoffs will mean an old guard candidate will win, not one of them. But either way, they don't care, they just want to punish a former mayor. Can't wait to start supporting their replacements in 2019. Now that we know significant sums were spent with Trump's MAGA mouthpiece, can we stop pretending that party doesn't matter, and when is Fisher going to resign as the chair of the Democratic Committee?
DeleteI sometimes wonder if they realize how few voters Jen had.
Deletenumbers, who are Jen's voters? She held a "Coffee with Jen" at Maroon cafe in the 6th Ward this week- according to Facebook, 5 attended, from other wards. Nice, if they could vote here. The temperature on the streets here is chilly, and I don't mean the weather.
Delete"Just ask the voters if they want the bother of another election..."
ReplyDeleteSeriously? People have fought for the right to vote. When would exercising that right ever be a "bother"? !!??
LOL yeah that Eric Kurta, he's always had his head on backwards. What does he know about voter behavior? If only there were anything in his background, any civic engagement or having, say, run for office himself that might give him any insights into the reality of such things. Phooey!
DeleteIndie if you don't understand voter fatigue look no further than Jersey City's December run-off which saw 35% to 45% drops in voter participation.
DeleteVoting is not supposed to be an exercise in endurance.
Voter apathy reaches a zenith when elections happen too frequently and for insane reasons, like unnecessary, expensive runoffs, designed to allow corrupt politicians a chance to buy votes with one form of capital or coercion or another. That was the case for decades in Hoboken, keeping city hall, as well as the school board and its un-checked budget in the death-grip of those who didn't give a shit about Hoboken's largely black and Latino students. When we had multiple elections in a year, Hobokenites simply didn't go to the polls unless it also coincided with a state or national election.
DeleteIndieComa knows this. What they don't know, or don't care about, is if the runoffs return, it will not be their current crabby candidate who gets elected through nefarious means, proving once more that they have no business being in office.
They and their supporters have demonstrated themselves to be petulant, narcissistic, neurotic and useless, and we're afflicted twice a month with the frenzied foaming of the furies. The 2019 elections can't come soon enough, when hopefully they will grow up, shut up and give up being the hysterical standard bearers of this irrational insanity. Or leave town. That works too.
Pretending to be obsuse doesn't help advance your argument Indie. Though I'm almost convinced that you are really as obtuse as you appear. Perhaps your not pretending.
DeleteAsk Jersey City's Ward E candidate Rebecca Symes how that run-off worked out. Sure, Indie. After months of being pelted with campaign lit, robocalls, TV commercials, print Ads, canvassers and candidates interrupting dinner, all Hoboken residents want to do one week before Christmas is go to the polls again. Yeah, you will and I will. But turnout will drop maybe 50% and that paid for VBM harvest will trounce the guy who doesnt buy votes. That's not democracy in action, that's election fraud. That's why your pals Rubens and DeFusco want runoffs so badly. Easy to cheat, plus what me worry about cash to sustain 6 more weeks of campaigning.
DeleteThe voters can make their choice in November with no runoff just fine.
DeleteLOL...gotta luv indie, going the fox news route: taking one small element of a comment out of context and blowing it up, OMG!!! i look forward to her telling us about mayor bhalla's "secret society".
ReplyDeleteWell, the lot of them have gone alt-right corruptocrat.
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ReplyDeleteBest we not discuss Roman here.
DeleteOne area where I always had a grudging respect for the OGs - they never bothered with the internet. They weren't going to try to invent a palatable narrative for what they were doing. Sure Russo would occasionally try to dress up some "you do for me, I do for you" scam in a "best interests of the public" velour track suit. But Castellano would rather eat a bag of ants than pander to "new" Hoboken. They were in it for themselves, their families, and their inner circle. You didn't like it? Screw you. It's "our town" as they and the terrorist flyer would say.
ReplyDeleteThen Beth came along and insisted on an "internet presence." But it was a stew of pathologies, and suffered from the same paradox as all of Beth's public gestures: it was at once overkill and remarkably ineffective.
Team Beth went where the OGs would never tread. They conflated service on unpaid public boards with p2p hires. They used the most unflattering images available of their political enemies and photoshopped those for added impact. They violated the privacy of their subscribers for political purposes. Net effects - the website and everyone associated with it was ruined and Beth became, to use her replacement's word, "unelectable."
They validated the OG skepticism of the internet. Better to just buy the votes, hand out the favors, and leave the internet to people who care what other people think. An occasional midnight flyer maybe. Otherwise, don't bother.
Then along come the new OGs. The NOGs. They're as tribal as the OG's. They make their decisions purely on tribal grounds. You're either with them or the enemy. It's a zero sum game.
But condescension is as essential to them as it was to Beth. The NOGs, unlike the OGs, want to bring a presumed gullible public along for the ride. So suddenly terrible ideas are being NOGsplained.
Voter fraud, which the OGs never bothered to lie about, is NOGsplained as no longer a problem. December runoffs are NOGsplained as "more democratic" even with the guaranteed precipitous drop in voter participation. The purely tribal decision to attempt to embarrass "the enemy" by blowing off committee meetings is NOGsplained as just following the Sunshine Laws. Likewisee the purely tribal decision to embarrass "the enemy" by shit-canning the more cost-effective and democratic option of instant runoffs before it can get started. It was NOGsplained as being poorly worded.
Bottom line - like the OGs before them, the NOGs want their low turnout elections. They think they can win those. After all what's the point of forming a tribe if you don't think you can kick the other tribes' asses? And they think they can get Ramos and Defusco and everyone that comes with that package deal to become sufficiently the good government types that they have never shown themselves to be.
But the NOGs aren't going to say that. You aren't smart enough to spoken to that way. Just trust that they know what's best for you, and if they have to cut a few corners or lie a little to get there, so be it. Let a NOGsplanation be your umbrella.
Fortunately I have at least one option to avoid the sad spectacle of seeing people I have long admired and respected getting played by the NOGs. I can disconnect from facebook. I've exercised that option.
Nobody wants horse crap on their facebook feed. It is just stinks too much.
DeleteOur polling data says the public wants to read more Trump executive orders and collusion denials. Done and done. I don't know what they hell polling you're using here.
ReplyDeleteALTERNATIVE FACT: Run-off elections are six weeks after the primary, putting them mid-December, one week before Christmas.
ReplyDeleteFACT: A primary is different than a runoff - Jersey City's runoff as Dec. 5 - looks like runoffs are 30 days after the election.
Indie is the best argument you have is that a person said the run off would happen in December 6 weeks after the November general election when it's in December 4 weeks after the November general?
DeleteFact: Jersey City's runoff saw abysmal voter participation compared to the November election and you damn well know it.
DeleteSo please, just stop pretending you care about voter participation already because you aren't in favor of it. The last thing you want is for busy professionals who work 60 hours a week and pay a ton of taxes to show up on election day and vote in a mayor we support. You know damn well we don't have time to be screwing around with some silly runoff and that is the only reason you want to go back to runoffs. You don't want the working people in town making decisions.
BTW, really hoping this bites you in the ass next election cycle. Can't wait to see you screaming at CC meetings when the vote farmers put in an anti-rent control mayor and CC and just rent hike you out of town. It would be sweet sweet justice.
FAP: It wasn't an argument, I was making a correction. Please don't project onto me.
DeleteDo Ojo: Shut up
Well said, InDenial! (sp?). It was NOT an argument! It was a quibble about which date during the holiday season the sparsely attended runoff will occur. We have no intention whatsoever of mounting and argument. Turnout will drop by a third or so and a thousand or so votes will be bought by our friends to rig the outcome. What’s to argue about?
DeleteThese clowns don’t get it.
And there you have it, Indie basically not even pretending she cares about the will of the people or turnout - because she doesn't. She wants elections decided by underemployed gadflies, vote farmers and other similar people who have plenty of time to show up and cast a ballot in a runoff on some random Tuesday in December.
DeleteNo, what just happened is Indie (me) just told you to shut up, nothing more, nothing less. You are too tiresome to respond to at any greater length.
DeleteSo have I misinterpreted why you want the city to adopt runoffs and see a greater than 50% decline in voters for the runoff vs. the general election? Please do tell Indie, inquiring minds why you want to insure those of use who get our asses out of bed at 5 AM and sometimes don't get home until well after sundown have to be inconvenienced twice in a month to go vote. Or do you just not care that you'd be disenfranchising the working people that pay all the bills in town.
DeleteALTERNATIVE FACT: IndieCom is an independent-minded concerned citizen who tells it like it is in the interest of the community and good government.
ReplyDeleteFACT: IndieCom is a political hack who aggressively shills for whatever team s/he's on at any given time and will say literally anything in the service of a political agenda regardless of how far it is from anything resembling honesty, integrity and the truth.
ALTERNATIVE FACT: Run-off elections are being pushed by Giattino, Fisher, Cunningham and De Fusco in the interest of fair and open elections with the greatest number of voters electing our next mayor.
ReplyDeleteFACT: Run-off elections always have abysmally low turnouts, and in Hoboken, a significant number of those who will vote in a run-off will have been bought or coerced in some way, and the number of voters will be even smaller than those that elected the current mayor in a five way race.
It's OK for elected officials and others to have changed their minds since 2012 and support a new referendum.
ReplyDeleteIt's not OK that instead of explaining honestly why their positions have changed these people simply lie.
Changing your mind and honestly explaining why is OK. Lying is not.
Between now and a November runoff referendum redo folks will have the opportunity to either tell the truth and try to get voters to agree with them, or continue to lie.
No matter what happens with this referendum the voters in 2019 will certainly take note of whether folks claiming to represent good government lied or told the truth.
Two of them, Cunningham and Fisher, are "DINO's" (Democrats in name only). Jen was honest about her party, but not forthcoming about how she voted. And then we learn that the bulk of her campaign money was spent with Trump's MAGA guy. If they lie about something as basic as their party affiliation and voting records, they'll have no trouble lying about anything else. And when they're not lying, they get the furies to spin for them in the public portion of council meetings.
DeleteIt's also not OK to lie about this referendum allowing Hoboken to adopt Instant Run-offs as Indie has been doing. I've heard CC members have been disseminating that lie privately.
DeleteYes, Indie and the rest of them all like to ignore the facts on instant runoffs and the facts are as follows:
Delete1. State law must be changed to allow instant runoffs
2. bills allowing instant runoffs have been introduced in Trenton and gone absolutely nowhere for going on 2 decades (and will continue to go nowhere)
3. Anyone suggesting instant runoffs are a viable alternative at this point in time is either a complete moron or an outright liar.
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DeleteIndie- No screen name outing allowed here.
DeleteIndie - you have said both at council meetings and I'm writing on this site that the city can institute run-offs itself because it is "unauthorized not illegal." That is a lie. Try not to show your true colors by first lying and then lying about lying.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteOh, so you admit all the talk of instant runoffs is complete nonsense and in reality we are going back to runoffs after an election and likely a massive reduction in turnout and increase in voter disenfranchisement. Good job there Indie in supporting the selling out of the town to developers and vote farmers. You really are earning your OG stripes now.
DeleteIndie- No screen name outing allowed here.
DeleteThat’s a stupid policy. Obviously we can’t argue these issues so we try to “out” the commenters instead and hopefully intimidate them into silence. We do it on our sites and Patch II all the time. What’s the objection?
DeletePlease stand by while we wrap this tactic in the flag for the no-information voter.
#MoreOfOURVoicesIsAlwaysBetter
right...better to let all of the lies stan d without being addressed...
ReplyDeleteNot at all, Indie. I have very few rules. Throw all the punches you want, just don't out the folks here. I believe I once (accidentally) referred to your given name and you were upset- and I deferred to you. Address the alleged lies, just don't out folks. It's not too much to ask, right?
DeleteAgree w/you but then why isn't the outing comment about my speaking at a cc meeting deleted too? Narrows it down, no? By the way, you never outed me here....
Delete" stan d"? oh, aren't you clever. you think you're clever but that's just juvenile.
DeleteSure, I did. I accidently called you C____l and you were none too happy. Btw, last night you called my comment on your Facebook page "Blog BS" and gave a thumbs-up to the dolt who called me "clown." So really, why are you here with that kind of attitude?
DeleteHave I missed one of your outing comments? Honestly, I might read less than half your comments here. Maybe 10% Seems to me you come here to shit on people.