Maplewood’s Mayor for 2019

tomdevon said:

yahooyahoo said:
Lembrich spent somewhere north of $32,000 in his last election. 

I think you mean in his first election (2015), not his most recent one.  I just spent a few minutes on the NJ ELEC website and found that, in fact, Nancy Adams and Greg Lembrich combined spent less than $9700 on their re-election in 2018, according to the state filings.  And, given how little opposition they had and how quiet their campaign seemed, I'd guess they spent well under that amount (that's just the threshold the state sets at which you need to file additional ELEC paperwork if you exceed). 

As for the Lembrich 2015 primary spending, I looked up his ELEC filings on the state website as well and see that he raised about half of the $33k he spent and loaned himself the other half.  Even so, $33k is substantially less than DeLuca spent when he won his 2005 primary "off the line" to get back on the TC (approx. $53k according to state filings).  And also less than Profeta and Heumer spent on their campaigns in the early 2000s (both spent north of $45k).  The same filings show that both DeLuca and Profeta loaned themselves over $20k each for their respective campaigns.  In that sense, Lembrich wasn't breaking new ground with an expensive campaign in 2015, he was just following the precedent set by DeLuca (and others). 

@author, care to revise any of your statements?     

Yes, I meant his first election in 2015.

Lembrich and Adams could have spent $0 this year and gotten re-elected. They had the MDP endorsement and no challengers.  

Your data just further shows it takes a sh$tload of money to get elected if you don't have the party endorsement.

yahooyahoo said:

Yes, I meant his first election in 2015.

Lembrich and Adams could have spent $0 this year and gotten re-elected. They had the MDP endorsement and no challengers. 

Your data just further shows it takes a sh$tload of money to get elected if you don't have the party endorsement.

 I agree.  And that is part of the process that perhaps we should try to change, though I haven't the foggiest idea how we would go about it.  My point was that folks here are quick to accuse Lembrich of buying his TC seat, but seem to forget that DeLuca spent even more to win his 10 years before.  It appears that many people dislike the advantage that the line gives to the party's preferred candidates, and likewise despise when non-line candidates successfully employ the methods necessary to overcome it.  As my son used to tell me, "Dad, don't hate the player, hate the game"