| It's a lesson I frankly forgot during the GOP primary in NJ-6: Sometimes organization plus engaged and motivated voters trumps the power of cash, and the institutional inertia of party infrastructure. I didn't see this coming:
Anna Little, the darling of Tea Parties, is declaring victory over Diane Gooch in the GOP Primary in NJ-6, and the right to oppose Rep. Frank Pallone from the right. This, despite a monster difference in their fundraising and spending - the last FEC filing pegs Gooch at about $433,000, Little at just under $22,000. And almost 50% of that came from the deep pockets of Gooch herself, the publisher of Two River Times, married to the CEO of a Wall Street brokerage firm, whose wealth runs to the hundreds of millions of dollars. Gooch, though Little was elected mayor of Highlands, also manages to be the establishment candidate, as the Monmouth County GOP Vice-Chair and universal favorite of the inertia set.
Despite Little's claim of victory - and the attendant Tea Party joy that must accompany it - Diane Gooch is so far refusing to capitulate:
It's going to be a close call, and I assume that it's going to be a recount. I'm sure it's going to be a recount, because we need to count everyone's votes in the 6th District.
Yeah, the race is very close; less than one percent of the vote separates them - 105 votes out of 13,387 cast - and Gooch is talking recount. If I were Gooch, I'd be stammering recount too.
There's something refreshing about watching this play out. There's delight in watching the farther-right Republican best the party favorite - that can only be good for Pallone. But there's something organic and refreshing about watching civic engagement win out on the other side, like it sometimes wins out on ours. No matter who eventually wins the GOP primary, that kind of cleaning out the cobwebs feels right as rain today. |
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