Jack Ciattarelli has a party unity problem after getting just 49% of total Republican votes in the June 8th primary election. Ciattarelli did not get the party majority as the party statewide has been split between conservative factions and Ciattarelli’s GOP establishment faction.
Jack’s message to the room of dissenters who supported his opponents was, “It doesn’t matter who you voted for in the primary, now you must unite behind me to defeat Phil Murphy.”
“We’re all on the same team when it comes to beating Phil Murphy,” Ciattarelli said. “You may not love me, you may not even like me, but we need to beat Phil Murphy, he’s bad for the country, he’s bad for New Jersey.”
At the reunification meeting, Ciattarelli noticed a woman filming his speech and asked her to stop recording.
“Are you taping me?” Ciattarelli asked.
After not answering, Ciattarelli began staring the woman down.
“I got four kids, I can stare you down,” he said.
Murphy said he’s going to be talking about campaign strategies and doesn’t want his speech in the public domain. He then pulled the Brooklyn card saying that being Governor is not a title that he needs. The woman was then kicked out of the room.
Maybe Jack should have hired the workplace human relations firm that Phil Murphy hired and this might not have happened.
The woman, later identified as Caitlin Cunningham said the campaign made a snarky comment in her direction.
“It’s not the first time it’s happened, and after today, I’m sure it’s not the last,” Cunningham later said. “I am not going to stand for people talking down to me. I was told to turn the video off…I did not respond to the request and with that I got a stare from Jack and he made a comment about playing the staring.”
“If you want to unify, being sarcastic is not the way to do it,” Cunningham said. “That’s when I stood up and said let’s talk about how I’ve been publicly told by Jack to stop lecturing him…there’s only so much I can take when people think they’re going to publicly embarrass me.”