We wonder what’s behind the scenes
During a year in which a majority of Americans are unhappy with the two main choices for president in November, there is general dissatisfaction bubbling up in local races as well.
It’s hard to tell if the agitation people are feeling about the national election is making its way down the metaphorical ballot or if it is just the periodic jockeying for power and control in our communities.
There is a heavily contested election in Ocean City with races for four of the five seats up for grabs May 14. Following that, it’s shaping up to be a potential brawl in the Republican primary in Upper Township leading up to June 4.
Last week in Upper Township, Republican Mayor Jay Newman and Republican Deputy Mayor Kim Hayes announced they had filed their petitions to run for re-election. A few days later, a son and a nephew of former mayor Rich Palombo announced they had received the endorsement of the Upper Township members of the Cape May County Republican Committee.
That sets up a primary fight in which Zachary Palombo, Rich’s son, and Samual Palombo, Rich’s nephew, claim they will get to be on the regular GOP line on the primary ballot. In the 2021 election, it was Hayes and Newman winning on the Republican line, defeating slates of Democrats and independents.
Now it’s an internecine fight.
The two Palombos say they are fighting to restore morale among township employees.
Newman and Hayes say they don’t respect the endorsement process that was used, claiming it is hijinks by their former campaign manager Larry Trulli, aided by anger from former mayor Curtis Corson (now a committeeman) that is splitting apart Upper Township Republicans.
There is nothing untoward or unfair about having primary challengers. People are welcome to run for office against incumbents of their party or an opposing party or challenge for open seats. It should end up a net benefit for voters who get choices.
Choices are good and we encourage more people to take part in the democratic process.
How things are handled behind the scenes: who knows all the political grudges and power plays? That can be as ugly as we have all come to expect from television political ads that bombard us every election season. What is accurate for the legislative process is accurate for the (hidden) political machinations that create candidates: people may not want to know how the sausage is made.
The same goes in Ocean City, where there are challengers in three of the ward races and for the remaining term of former councilwoman Karen Bergman’s at-large term.
Again, choices.
Among the interesting aspects is who is supporting the challengers who popped up in three wards against incumbents, although one incumbent later decided not to seek re-election. Another is that a political action committee announced its formation last week, saying it would be dedicated to supporting candidates for City Council and the Board of Education who will help maintain the “traditional values” of the resort.
The new group, FOCUS — Families of Ocean City United in Success — has a website on which it lists all nine candidates for the five seats with endorsements to come. It is likely the group already has a good idea about whom it is supporting given the City Council election is less than two months away.
Considering the way most candidates frame themselves as loving and maintaining Ocean City as “America’s Greatest Family Resort,” we are already curious how this PAC will determine which candidates it deems care most about “protect(ing) Ocean City family values and our way of life.”
Our enduring but fragile hope in all the local elections is they don’t devolve into the nasty spectacles we see every election cycle that try to convince us that just about everyone running, in some way or form, means an end to our way of life as we know it. (We long ago gave up hope for that in statewide and federal elections.)
How the sausage is made
Editor’s note: A political reporter we know once used that well-worn line about people not wanting to know how the sausage is made, prefacing it with an apology to a local butcher who made wonderful sausage. The butcher was apoplectic. He didn’t want his sausage compared to politics.