CD7 Flashpoint: Running as a Republican, Brown Says Democrats Will Never Beat Lance
SOMERVILLE – Offended by Donald Trump, Lindsay Brown says she changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in 2016 in an effort to try to blow Trump up in the GOP Primary.
“Reluctantly [John] Kasich,” she told InsiderNJ when asked about her doomed rumble strip choice to try to stop the Trump stampede, before the newly minted Republican backed Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Having failed to block Trump, Brown – a 29-year old web developer – now wants to make U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7) pay for what she sees as that increasingly troubling condition of the Republican establishment: too much time in office without results.
She filed to run for Congress last March, and as a pro-choice Republican, stands to offer Lance something he hasn’t faced, assailed from the right as he’s been for the entirety of his ten-year tenure.
“He’s a out-of-touch,” said Brown. “He thinks it’s a consummate pro-life district.”
But why run as a Republican, in a year when Trump ally Craig Heard has already attended a White House briefing helmed by presidential political strategist Bill Stepien?
“It’s a gerrymandered Republican district,” Brown told InsiderNJ over coffee this morning. “The Democrats who have jumped in to challenge him have created a kind of clown car situation. They’re not going to win. They’re not very good at math. They’re never going to elect a Democrat in the 7th District. Peter Jacob running last year came closer than anyone else to beating Lance in a general and he had an 11-point loss margin to show for it.”
The fledgling candidate – nurtured somewhat by fellow Democrat-turned-Republican Dana Wefer of Hoboken – says she basically likes Trump’s populist message of re-empowering the American middle class, but opposes him on implementation.
“I fall more in line with the populist camp – but without the bigotry and racism,” she said. “I agree with a good deal of what Trump ran on economically.
“I think he’s a good CEO,” she added. “Certainly he made some crappy business decisions. He picks people who get the job done, though. I think his tweeting is irresponsible and unprofessional. It’s brilliant, but the content of his tweets is irresponsible.”
How is it brilliant?
“Utilizing social media as president makes voters feel like they know him personally,” she said.
As for her political decision – in Wefer’s words – to run into the burning building of the Republican Party under Trump’s leadership – “I’m a student of history,” Brown said. “Abraham Lincoln founded the Party and saved the union. Teddy Roosevelt picked up the mantle as a champion of unions and a trust-buster. Eisenhower established the national highway system.”
She loves the late Millicent Fenwick of Bernardsville.
Like Lance, she would have voted against the tax plan put forward by Trump, and opposes the cutting of state and local tax deductions.
“I believe in simplifying the tax code, but cutting corporate taxes is not the answer,” she said.
Brown grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, when to Skidmore College, lived in Connecticut for a short time, and moved to Clark with her husband two years ago.
“We need more people my age representing us at the federal level,” she said. “It’s true I’ve never held elected office, but do you really want a career politician going on and on in office?”
If elected, Brown would make history as the youngest ever congresswoman.
So, she’s telling CD7 that they should consider a #fauxrepublican? Hahahahahaha
So there are a few problems with this. Getting any useful number of Dems to switch parties to vote for a fake Republican is going to be near impossible, especially 55 days out (if you’re going to do this please at least know the deadline). Unaffiliated voters are unaffiliated for a reason, even if they lean left, if they didn’t declare as Dems, they don’t care enough to come vote for a fake Republican. You may have picked off some moderate Republicans, but because you’re publicly talking about this all being a sham, you won’t. If you start to gain any traction, it’s really easy for them to just mail to the 15,000 people who actually vote about how you’re openly running as a fake Republican. Finally, taking advice from or following the lead of Dana Wefer is your worst mistake. She has never won an election, not in many tries in Morris County and not in Hoboken, where she was the only Zimmer backed council candidate who didn’t win, and just this past November her candidate came in 4th place for mayor.
Play your games with the Republican primary if you want, but don’t badmouth the Dems who are trying to build a base. Most people don’t win their first time out, maybe Jacobs does better this time or a different candidate emerges, maybe they eke out an anti-Trump win or maybe they don’t, but what they are doping is far more honest and far more intelligent than this juvenile plan, and can at least allow people to build something genuine.
She’s obviously a Lance supporter trying to give him cover against anyone smart enough to take him on in a primary from the right. If Larsen could hold him to 54%, in the post-Trump world, Leonard is a goner to any credible opponent.
Rick Shaftan is wrong! (as if that were news…) She’s obviously an American who thinks she could do better than Lance. Lindsay Brown deserves resect and consideration… but she will need luck finding those among Trump-era Republicans.