Passaic County Republican Chairman Scott Rumana refused to acknowledge a flawed countywide strategy as the culprit behind his party’s losses on Tuesday night. But he did cite demographics and a lack of funding and party unity as contributors.
“I don’t know how to explain the turnout in Paterson other than to credit the get out the vote effort of Democrat machine,” Rumana ssaid in a statement. “I am troubled, however by the statements made by various Democrats concerning their ability to employ ‘street money’ in their GOTV effort.
Rumana extended congratulations to Democratic Sheriff-elect Richard Berdnik on his win, but worried about voter turnout in Berdnik’s hometown of Clifton.
“While I will give some hometown points to Berdnik for his vote total in Clifton, I think the lack of turnout for Republicans in what is a non-partisan town is hard to explain,” said Rumana, who eleborated on the unique set of circumstances the GOP faces when it comes to winning county elections.
“A lot of Republicans did well in the state and around the country, but most of them are not dealing with the voter registration and demographic disparity that we are dealing with in Passaic County,” said Rumana. “This is not a suburban county.”
Rumana said that while demographics explain part of the Democrats win On Election Day, another factor was the lack of complete support of the GOP ticket by fellow Republicans, incluidng GOP Strongman Peter Murphy of Totowa.
“The public support of our opponents by Peter Murphy, who purports to be a Republican while openly supporting Democrats, obviously does not help our cause,” said Rumana. Murphy opposed the election of conservative candidates backed by both the Republican Party and Tea Party, and supported U.S. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) and Berdnik, as well as Freeholder Terry Duffy.
“I think its time for Peter to change his voter registration,” Rumana said. If he is openly going to support liberal Democrats – including Democrats who raised county taxes $150 million over 10 years — then he should simply join the Democratic Party and stop masquerading as a Republican,” said Rumana.
“The truth of the matter is that Mr. Murphy calls himself a Republican, but, as in previous years, he supported Democrats. He can’t deny it. He had their campaign signs plastered all over Totowa while there were virtually no signs for our Republican candidates anywhere.”
