RANDOLPH – Tweets are a big deal in politics these days. And it makes no difference what level of government we’re talking about.

The latest example of that brings us to Legislative District 25 in Morris County and the evolving Assembly race between Republican incumbent Anthony M. Bucco, his running mate Brian Bergen, and the Democratic team of Lisa Bhimani and Darcy Draeger.

The GOP team has come up with a so-called tweet of the week. These are previously posted  tweets by Bhimani or Draeger that the Republicans consider offensive, extreme or just plain silly.

This week, the GOP pointed to a Draeger tweet in which she purportedly claimed that the late John McCain “betrayed” the United States.

The Republicans’ release noted that Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, who represents some of the LD-25 towns in Congress and who backs Bhimani and Draeger, has often praised McCain. That was a two-way street. McCain said nice things about Malinowksi too. All this took place when McCain was in the Senate and Malinowski was in the State Department overseeing human rights abroad.

The strategy of Bucco and Bergen is not hard to figure out – paint the Dems as extremists who are out of step with the district.

Jumping on the latest tweet issue,  the Morris County Republican Committee said, “We ask you, is this the type of representation our towns in the 25th District need or deserve?”

That question was accompanied by a request for campaign volunteers.

The Democrats don’t seem ruffled.

The Bhimani-Draeger campaign responded with a statement that began, “While Anthony Bucco and Brian Bergen have been throwing mud and taking years-old comments out of context, Lisa and Darcy have been out knocking on doors and talking to voters every day. Anthony and Brian know they have nothing to run on, that’s why they’ve consistently lied about their records, just like Anthony did last week about gun safety and why they’re running scared and gasping at straws now.”

It added that the Republicans should spend more time working on property taxes, health care. infrastructure and gun safety and less time on Twitter.

Wednesday night found the GOP duo not on Twitter, but hosting a fundraiser at the Black River Barn restaurant. It was a festive affair, complete with a cook grilling burgers and hot dogs, cold beer and wine and a man singing Sinatra songs. Really. The event drew many local GOP office-holders and candidates, including Jack Ciattarelli, who is running for governor in 2021 and Rosemary Becchi, a 2020 candidate for Congress in District 7.

Bucco thanked supporters for coming out on a hot, summer night and set forth an overall campaign theme.

“We are calling our opponents out on every progressive, far left issue,” he said. “We don’t need any more Murphy Democrats in Trenton.”