Defeated by Weber in Somerset, Malinowski Campaign Excoriates the Process
Beaten by Linda Weber for the Somerset County Democratic Committee line last night, the campaign of former State Department official Tom Malinowski derided the process.
“I congratulate Linda on her selection last night, and am grateful to have had the support of Montgomery, Hillsborough, Bridgewater, Somerville, and Peapack-Gladstone,” Malinowski said. “It is humbling to know that our campaign won the support of not only Somerset’s largest municipalities, but also the areas that supply more than half of Somerset County’s Democratic votes in CD7. Should I emerge from this process ultimately successful I look forward to an open and productive relationship with the Somerset County Democratic Committee.”
Then Campaign Manager Colston Reid opened up.
“Linda’s campaign benefited from the unique selection process Somerset employed this year. Had there been an open and transparent nominating convention in the spring, as has been Somerset’s typical process, I am confident we would have seen a different result,” she said.
i don’t get it. What is the “line” in this balloting? is this a kind of electoral college kind of thing or can the Somerset vote on June 5th still end up in Malinowski’s column? It seem like a rush, moving it up two months — and there are a bunch more really good candidates that are still not well enough considered. I’m new to this process, but seems like unnecessary and premature sharp elbows politics for a united front against Rep. Lance in Nov.
The process used to select Linda Weber to receive the Democratic Committee’s endorsement and advantageous party line was different from past years where this selection took place at the convention with transparent votes by the District Committee Representatives from each town. The total votes of all the representatives determined which candidates were selected to receive the endorsement and advantageous party line position on the ballot.
This year, somebody on the Democratic Committee decided to change that process to a less democratic one, that is more than a bit ironic for a party named the Democratic Party. This year the Distict Committee Reps were asked to choose the candidate they favored, but all of the votes from each town in the county were not added together to yield a popular vote total for each candidate. Instead the “unique” method used assigned one vote for the candidate with the most District Committee Rep. votes in each town. That one vote from each town regardless of how few or how many Representatives voted for a candidate favored the smaller towns with the fewest Representatives and voters and discounted the votes of the many representatives from the larger towns. This obviously strayed from the popular vote democratic principle that all votes count equally. Even more important however is how this process was counter productive toward selecting a candidate with the greatest chance of winning. The winner of the election will be whoever receives the highest number of popular votes, from all towns, NOT whoever wins the most towns with the smallest number of voters. Hopefully, whoever came up with this idea will reconsider it, all the Representatives who voted will demand all their votes in all the towns be added together to get popular vote totals like most elections, that reflect who the majority wanted to represent their party, the results published and the candidate with the most votes be selected to receive the advantageous party line position on the ballot. Otherwise the cynics who complain that politics is just back room deals by party bosses may seem to be right. I hope they’re not.