Mr. Bramnick And The Marquess Of Queensbury

The patrician 9th Marquess of Queensbury who set himself up
as the self-appointed arbiter of sportsmanlike behavior.

Once again, people have been asking us about this guy, Jon Bramnick.

We don't know the guy personally. Never met him. 

Yes, he's running for Governor of New Jersey as a Republican and we've been to lots and lots of Republican events throughout the state (and reported on them here on this web site) but we've never run into him, never even seen him at any of those events. Which is sort of strange because he is a state senator.

Anyway, this guy lectures Republicans so much (mostly about their manners or lack thereof) that he's coming across as an imperious, modern day version of Emily Post -- the 1950s doyenne of deportment. But here's the problem: Emily Post is long gone and so is the Republican Party of Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Bush pere et fils. That era has passed. 

Whether Bramnick likes it or not, more and more today's post-Obama GOP combines Ronald Reagan's bold defiance of the established order ("government is the problem") with a brash, hardscrabble populism that scoffs at elites and welcomes the battered and bruised everyday graduates of the School of Hard Knocks. 

This is no "turn the other cheek" party. Instead, what's arising is a brazen, scrappy, audacious party that is increasingly inclined to take the fight directly to the enemy. In short, this appears to be a party that's finally starting to catch up with the times -- an accessible, street smart party. As such, this is more likely to be the party of your local auto mechanic or Amazon delivery person than the party of your doctor or financial advisor.

Of course, one could argue that New Jersey hasn't quite yet figured all this out. And maybe Bramnick is betting that we'll never figure it out -- that we can be nostalgically lulled into some sort of genteel trance that allows a lordly uniparty in Trenton to  continue to deceive us. And with a compliant media (or what's left of media in New Jersey) who's to say he's wrong? After all, hasn't this been the pattern all along? 

Indeed, we've permitted a string of losing GOP candidates to give us a sorry, squalid line of statewide Democrat officials for decades. And well-heeled Republicans were mostly cooperative through that long, dreary march to statism. In fact, one wonders whether they ever even bothered to lift their gaze beyond whatever sand trap they seemed to be stuck in.

But take heart, dear friends. 

Because there are propulsive pockets of defiance bubbling in key parts of the state where political tectonic plates are rapidly shifting and producing a new crop of GOP leaders --  they're younger, they're bolder, and they don't play by Queensbury Rules. Which is to say they have no intention of being lectured about which fork to use while someone is planning to knife them in the back. Oh, no -- they've had enough! And we suspect they're ready to follow Reagan's mantra: "If you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat."

Avanti!