Op-Ed

Meet New Jersey’s Right-Wing Democrat

New Jersey Shutterstock/Michele Paccione

Rick Trader Producer and co-host of the nationally syndicated Conservative Commandos Radio Show
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In 1983, one of the most right-wing members of Congress was not a Republican. The congressman in question was Larry Patton McDonald, a Georgia Democrat who happened to be the head of the John Birch Society. McDonald, a staunch anti-communist, was killed on the Korean Air 007 flight as it strayed into Russian territory and was shot down by a Soviet MIG fighter plane.

I bring up McDonald’s name because since his death, and through electoral attrition, conservative Democrats have become political dinosaurs. They are essentially extinct.

But today in New Jersey, a state senator by the name of Jeff Van Drew is running for Congress and he might be one of the most fake conservative Democrats running for office in 2018.

I know the 2nd congressional district very well. Except for the shore towns of Atlantic City to Cape May, it is largely rural with many farms (not as many chicken coops as there used to be but there are still a few). I went through school and lived there for 40 years. I still own the family house where I was raised. Many of my friends and family still make the area their home. The 2nd district is a right-of-center oasis in the belly of liberal New Jersey.

There is little doubt that Van Drew’s voting record is well outside the mainstream of most Democrats and certainly beyond the pale for progressive “resistance” activists who are taking over the Democratic Party. Van Drew faces primary opposition from a progressive African American female whose position is more in-tune with the party, yet the party establishment has rallied behind Van Drew.

WHY? So much for inclusion and diversity.

Jeff Van Drew is a master of measuring the directions of the political wind. He has been climbing the political ladder of opportunism since his first election. For more than a decade, Van Drew has sported a voting record that some Freedom Caucus members would be proud of. Van Drew is the only New Jersey state senator to have earned an “A” rating from the NRA for his votes on gun rights issues while compiling a very low 22 percent rating from the environmentalist group Clean Water Action, the lowest such rating of any New Jersey state senator. He opposed efforts to raise the purchase age on tobacco. He opposed reducing the maximum capacity on rifle magazines. He even opposed same sex marriage. The danger here is, as my mother would say: “The devil will not greet you with horns and a pitch fork but with a big smile, exaggerated handshake — telling you everything you would ever want to hear”!!

For those who walk the precincts, march in the streets and knock on doors for the Democratic Party, Van Drew’s record is outrageous. A far left blog called “Down with Tyranny” rated Van Drew as the worst candidate of this election cycle recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The blog site says about Van Drew, “Once Frank LoBiondo announced he wouldn’t be running for re-election, no one doubted that grotesquely corrupt right-wing Democrat Jeff Van Drew would jump into the race…disgustingly bigoted, Republican-lite, corrupt as you can be without going to prison.”

Blue New Jersey termed Van Drew a “DINO” (Democrat in Name Only). The site pushed the candidacy of African American educator Tanzie Youngblood as an alternative.

The same scenario is being played out in the 11th district of New Jersey. The DCCC is pushing a former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor over liberal African American female, Tamara Harris.

But, rest assured, once Van Drew is elected and seated with Nancy Pelosi, he WILL vote with the liberal left. Van Drew will be seen as the Joe Manchin of the House — that is, to get elected, says all the things the people back home want to hear, but once elected, he will vote with his Democrat friends. That is how political careers are made.

Writing in The Daily Caller, Christopher Bedford explained the Democrats secret sauce to win a majority in the upcoming congressional elections. The blueprint, Bedford describe,s is “run a young, handsome Marine, make sure he’s pro-Second Amendment, make sure he’s anti-Nancy Pelosi, make sure he’s quiet on plans for amnesty, make sure he says he’s personally against abortion but runs like hell from any specific questions, and make sure he’s quiet about Democrats’ anti-energy agenda.”

Democrats won a congressional seat in Pennsylvania using this formula earlier this year. It appears they are using the same strategy to win in New Jersey with Jeff Van Drew. Unlike Mr. Lamb, however, Van Drew has a voting record from the state house that supports his conservative credentials. Easy to do over the past 8 years with a Republican Governor. Jeff loves to be seen by the folks back home as always being on the winning side — whatever the cost, whatever side that is.

No wonder he has the DCCC’s support.

Democrats are desperate to win back the House of Representatives this November and have shown a willingness to turn their backs on the issues they care about in order to do so. The unprincipled Democrat Party will sell their souls to take control of the house and continue with their mission to impede and possibility impeach President Trump.

Just as Republicans have a reputation of running as conservatives and governing as moderates, Democrats are known to run as moderates but govern as liberals.

Rick Trader is the producer and co-host of the nationally syndicated Conservative Commandos Radio Show. Listen to the show at www.ccrshow.com.


The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.