An Open Letter to the NAACP: What is an “Obama Lover”?
/An Open Letter to the NAACP: What is an “Obama Lover”?
May 22, 2023
NAACP
National Headquarters
4805 Mt. Hope Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215
Dears Sirs and Madam:
Rob Eichmann founded this blog. He was a Republican State Committeeman from Gloucester County, New Jersey, and an early supporter of the Tea Party movement.
Eichmann was a passionate conservative. He also hated racism, anti-Semitism, and the use of race or ethnicity to gain an edge in political campaigning. He became disturbed by what he saw as an appeal to race by some members of the GOP during the Obama years.
Eichmann compiled a catalog of instances of what he considered to be racist behavior by Republicans in New Jersey and, after seeking direction from the NAACP, brought it to the attention of the NJGOP in a 2011 “Report to the Members of the Republican State Committee of New Jersey” (nicknamed the “Racism Report”). It is disturbing to read, particularly the references to First Lady Michelle Obama.
The State Committee acted on the Racism Report and passed a resolution condemning the acts outlined in it – but they never forgave Eichmann for having embarrassed them. He ran for re-election to the State Committee while undergoing chemotherapy for throat cancer. Someone was found to run against him, and without a vote of the Committee, the NJGOP authorized paying for a series of attack mailers against one of its own members, which was unprecedented. But Eichmann’s cancer had gotten worse. Unable to speak to even offer a defense, he died before election day. If anyone wonders why this blog allows contributors to use pseudonyms, there is your answer.
Rob Eichmann understood language and how quickly it descends into coarseness. Failing to call out casual or purposeful racist language normalizes it and makes it commonplace. Of course, these concerns can be overdone, and they have been in recent years. The goal is to strike a balance. But complaints over comedy are very different from politicians who use language and symbols to reach past rational political discussion and try to stir a subconscious remembering of "blood and soil". To seek a base and irrational political response.
The NJGOP knows this. In 2017, New Jersey National Committeeman Bill Palatucci sponsored an RNC resolution that condemned racist behavior in the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Virginia, protests. Closer to home however, GOP leaders in New Jersey appear to have a blind spot when it comes to questionable behavior by establishment insiders.
Take the case of Assemblyman Parker Space. In the aftermath of the murder of nine people by Dylann Roof, Space acknowledged going on a road trip with the brother of actress Janeane Garofalo to get a Confederate flag tattoo. That was the same year Space was the only member of the New Jersey Assembly to abstain from voting on AR255 – a resolution to condemn official use of the Confederate flag or “elements thereof”. There were no “Nay” votes.
In 2017, Assemblyman Space posted a picture of himself and his wife, Sussex County Commissioner and GOP State Committeewoman Jill Space, on Facebook under a Confederate battle flag with the logo of Hank Williams Jr. plastered on it and wrote: “Hope no one is offended! Lol.” The logo included the words "If the south would've won, we would've had it made." Space has hosted annual “Ground Hog Day” celebrations for decades with a series of ground hogs named “Stonewall Jackson”.
This isn’t a heritage thing, this is Sussex County, New Jersey. The soldier depicted on the monument in Newton, the county seat, is a Union soldier. The battle honors listed on that monument were battles fought against the Confederacy.
Even though it has long been acknowledged within GOP circles that the continued antics of Assemblyman Space were a bar to his political advancement (at least two recent meetings were held in which this was discussed by party leaders – one on February 17, 2020, and another on March 18, 2022), state and local party leaders have put him forward as the next Senator from the 24th Legislative District (Sussex, Morris, and Warren counties). Space is unopposed in the upcoming June 6th GOP primary but is running with two Assembly candidates who are opposed.
As Senator, Parker Space will have senatorial courtesy over the gubernatorial appointment of all judicial and prosecutorial positions in his district, as well as numerous other appointments. He will also have the ability to review all gubernatorial appointments, of any kind, made statewide.
Assemblyman Space is running with a team that includes two candidates for Assembly – Sussex County Commissioner Dawn Fantasia and Chester Township Mayor Mike Inganamort. Another team member is the Sussex County Surrogate, a judicial officer, who had spoken up with his concerns about Space.
There was a recent controversy over a mailer put out by this team. They claimed their Assembly opponent had voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and pictured the two of them. Some who received the mailer believed the opponent’s skin tone was darkened to match President Obama’s. The First Vice Chairwoman of the Sussex County GOP wrote a letter expressing her distaste for the tactic, noting that the campaign’s political consultant was criticized on at least two other occasions for similar incidents – an ad in which so-called “chop suey” font was used to describe an opponent of Korean heritage and a pejorative reference to another opponent’s religion (Sikhism).
The political consulting firm responsible for that mailer is co-owned by Congressman Michael Lawler of New York. The State of New Jersey’s corporate filings currently lists Congressman Lawler as co-owner of the firm as does his congressional financial disclosure statement (made as a candidate) for 2022.
The campaign’s most recent tactic has been to call their opponent an “Obama Lover”. Parker Space and his team have used the phrase, “shady Obama-loving liberals” in mailers paid for by the three of them. Their attack is based on a CNN focus group interview in 2017, in which their opponent was identified as a Republican who had voted for Barack Obama in 2008 but who then voted for Donald Trump in 2016. The opponent has stated that he voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 (and Romney in 2012).
The latest cable ad targeting the opponent calls him an “Obama loving liberal”. The use of the words “lover” and “loving” is striking to us. What does “love” have to do with it? Why does a vote for Barack Obama, 16 years ago, make one an “Obama Lover”? What is the author of the cable ad trying to suggest?
It is noteworthy that the cable ad is being run by a SuperPAC called Stronger Foundations. Open Secrets reports that this SuperPAC is affiliated with the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) and is funded by ELEC825 – an arm of IUOE Local 825. It is also noteworthy that on his 2022 congressional financial disclosure statement, Congressman Michael Lawler lists that he earned income as a lobbyist for IUOE Local 825.
The problem we see with many GOP establishment politicians and political consultants is that they don’t understand the conservatives in their own party. So, when they try to appeal to them, they assume they are dealing with “racists” and fashion their messages accordingly. But most conservatives understand that America is a nation based on an idea and that to be a part of America one needs simply to embrace the idea of America. Color and ethnicity and all the rest does not matter. But you can’t tell these consultants this because they believe that it does.
As before, we are writing to you to seek your guidance. From the past, we understand how quickly the language of political discourse can spiral into a bad place and we want to avoid that and prevent its normalization. In doing so, we can honor the memory of our founder, the late Rob Eichmann (1965-2013).
Sincerely,
Jersey Conservative
