Incompetence or Deliberate?
Op-Ed by Rob Kovic, Esq.
In a new low on the competence scale, the New Jersey GOP just lost the right to send 37 delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. NJ was supposed to send 49 delegates to the convention. Now it will send just 12 delegates. That’s right– twelve instead of forty-nine.
The reason for the loss is that the NJGOP apparently violated a national party rule that required the delegate selection process to be completed by May 31. The New Jersey primary is scheduled for June 4, 2024. Anyone with a calendar could see the problem.
NJGOP Chairman Bob Hugin tried to address this by scheduling a convention of 650 (mainly anti-Trump) party insiders to select the 49 delegates, but this was rejected because it disenfranchised 99 percent of the state’s registered Republicans. It was also going to be timed and engineered to award all of our delegates to Chris Christie, despite his single digit polling and nearly negative approval rating.
The NJGOP sought a waiver from the RNC to allow the state to have its full slate of delegates attend but didn’t fight successfully and it wasn’t granted. So much for our party leaders protecting the rights of Republican voters in New Jersey to have a say in choosing their candidate for President.
So, what does this mean for New Jersey voters? It means that New Jersey, with a population of just under 9 million people and whose taxpayers pay over $140 billion in taxes to the federal government annually, will go to the convention in Milwaukee with almost as few delegates as the islands of Guam (pop. 165,000 and 2023 tax revenue of $889 million) and American Samoa (pop. 55,000 and 2023 tax revenue of $673 million).
New Jersey Republicans should feel proud and relieved in knowing that their party leaders are handling party business with razor sharp precision and a desire for perfection in protecting our right to participate in the electoral process and our voices heard.
But, on the other hand, perhaps the NJGOP’s anti-Trump and anti-Conservative leaders knew exactly what they were doing when suddenly “botching” this simple standard process that has taken place countless times before.
Obviously, not only are the Democrats trying to find ways to keep Trump out of the election, but our very own NJGOP leaders have shamefully made themselves willing accomplices.
Let’s keep an eye on our RNC representatives three weeks from now when the RNC meets in Las Vegas. Will Hugin, Palatucci and Ginny Haines fight to restore our delegates or will they lay down and deny supporters of President Trump the opportunity to nominate him in Milwaukee? We shall see.
Welcome to the Island of New Jersey!