The Future of Lakewood

[JMHO]

next up get rid of Bob singer. no reason why we dont have 2 frum assembly and senator. Lets move on from him

Why do we Davka need Frum politicians?

[yuneeq]

2023: With pulling out all the stops, 43%
2021: 35% (Governor)
2019: 16%
2015: 22%

Why don't people vote? What am I missing here?! It don't think it's a time thing as you can vote by mail, early voting, weekends etc. there are many options. I don't think it's a Hashkafa issue that's preventing people, especially this election where we saw such strong Rabbinic backing.

Is it just laziness?

Yes

[yuneeq]

OK numbers.... Here you go as per hefkervelt-
- More than 57% of registered voters in Lakewood did not come out to vote in the election. Lakewood has 58995 registered voters a total of  25,226 ballots were cast  that makes  42.8%  of registered voters who came out to vote  including a full week of early voting.  In 2021 the voter turnout was at 35%. with 57,491 registered voters

Only 2.6% more registered voters since 2021, that's pathetic. Need better turnout in Lakewood and that includes getting more people to register.

[imayid2]

What percentage of Lakewood is Jewish?

[YitzyS]

Wow, a lot has been said since I last logged on. I'm going to go back and try to add any insight I have into posts.

[YitzyS]

Not really directed at you, but a convenient segue to my rant. Without even getting into the pluses or minuses of Avi's big win and what it means for Daas Torah, Judaism as a whole, prospects for world peace, or any of the other local or state wide political implications, there is one thing that the Lakewood community definitely was a big loser on IMHO. The word unprecedented is misused in an unprecedented way for all kinds of things, but I think we can all agree that the "maximum PR/pressure" of this campaign was truly unprecedented in Lakewood politics. And seeing as "it worked", it's probably what we have to "look forward to" for all future campaigns as well, which is not a good thing on so many levels. Beyond the simple aggravating nuisance of the endless signs on your car, ramkols,  posters, and seemingly endless texts emails and robocalls, there is also something more, that we will now be doing things exactly as the PR firms dictate for all of America in election seasons. Perhaps most disappointing is the matching campaign intensity where we get every Rosh Mosad/Rov/and Feivish sending dire texts/emails/robocalls with the gevald strategy of "We're hearing it's too close to call" "Insiders say Avi is behind" "turnout is strong in the Arab Monmouth County" etc., which may be familiar in general election campaigns and unfortunately in Israeli campaigns, but has not really happened here to this degree. It's just so shallow and fake, it's nauseous. Not to mention, that after a while it just stops working, as people are not gullibe like that in election after election. Of course those behind it will point to the fact that it worked and obviously that's what you need to do to win. They may be right, I don't know, but if so it's a sad commentary on our community as a whole. In general people are not that dumb, and will vote their obvious best interests if its presented openly and honestly, this whole Gevald style really puts me off and ultimately is not a good thing. OK, rant over. Congratulations Avi Schnall and the rest of the winners, I hope you accomplish a quarter (at least) of what your PR promised.....

1. My "source" was NOT an affiliate of any of the campaigns, but an independent person who has access to many of the numbers. Based on turnout earlier in the day, as well as their assumption of a more skewed Monmouth County (as mentioned earlier, they thought a much higher percentage would've been Thomson), this person legitimately told me it's closer than he expected.

2. I think the race would've looked very different if a few prominent publications wouldn't have come up for Thomson. It is my feeling that the Schnall team went into panic mode at some point and ramped it up.

3. Aside from my two above notes, I think your post is on point.

[YitzyS]

Can someone explain to me why the whole daas torah thing was necessary in this election? The pro Thomson people made a few arguments. Why couldn't those arguments be addressed by the AS campaign without having every rov and RY declaring it a chov kadosh to vote? People here are intelligent for the most part, why were we not treated like adults?

It is my feeling that whenever there are "two sides", many people just stay home. I'm assuming that just answering the arguments would not have penetrated into the non-politically-active crowd, as they wouldn't have read anything. Whereas Rav Yitzchok Sorotzkin telling you to vote works.

Full disclosure: I voted for AS even though I was bothered by the pro Thomson arguments.

Every one of the pro Thomson arguments that I saw was so hollow and dumb. Feel free to post any of them, and I'll try to explain why.

[Sammy82]

Could somebody explain to this non-Lakewooder, why vouchers are such a big (and only) topic being discussed? Is that all the people of Lakewood need? And if they don't get it, would they be any worse off than almost every other community who have tuition? Somehow tuition will be paid. I always thought Lakewood's tuition rates were much lower than other communities.
Why not find other issues to run on and promote?

[YitzyS]

Once he was running it was essential that he win by a real margin.

+1.

I spoke to one of the greatest marking people in the frum world (not saying the name, but I'm sure some can figure out who he is). He told me that he thinks it's the biggest mistake for Schnall to run. But once he made that mistake, he needs to win big.

[imayid2]

What percentage of Lakewood is Jewish?

I don’t know the answer to this but if it’s factored in the turnout is a lot higher than 43%

[YitzyS]

next up get rid of Bob singer. no reason why we dont have 2 frum assembly and senator. Lets move on from him

From what I hear, Bob Singer is a tremendous asset to Lakewood. Even though he is a Republican, he manages to get tons done in Trenton. He always hustles, and he has tons of connections, which he uses to help Lakewood. I'm not saying that a Democrat may be able to do more, but I don't think the Lakewood community should dump him so fast.

[YitzyS]

2023: With pulling out all the stops, 43%
2021: 35% (Governor)
2019: 16%
2015: 22%

Why don't people vote? What am I missing here?! It don't think it's a time thing as you can vote by mail, early voting, weekends etc. there are many options. I don't think it's a Hashkafa issue that's preventing people, especially this election where we saw such strong Rabbinic backing.

Is it just laziness?

You left out another critical race, 2016. Trump was on the ballot, and turnout was higher than any of the above mentioned elections. There is no reason why our commnunity would not come out again in such numbers... if they really believed in the cause. For example, if there would've a united front, and if that side would've been good for Eisemann, etc, I think we couldn't reached 2016 numbers.

Yes, turnout was pretty good. But it was nowhere near our maximum.

[iwlw2]

+1.

I spoke to one of the greatest marking people in the frum world (not saying the name, but I'm sure some can figure out who he is). He told me that he thinks it's the biggest mistake for Schnall to run. But once he made that mistake, he needs to win big.

That does seem to be how the Shchnall/AH people were operating. But can you explain it, why was it so important to win so big? I mean I get the necessity to show the strength of the voting bloc and that we can drive turnout and votes to support our issues, but is a say 5000-6000 vote margin which I think would still be classified as a landslide really so significantly different for that than what was? What else is there to it that Im missing?

[imayid2]

You left out another critical race, 2016. Trump was on the ballot, and turnout was higher than any of the above mentioned elections. There is no reason why our commnunity would not come out again in such numbers... if they really believed in the cause. For example, if there would've a united front, and if that side would've been good for Eisemann, etc, I think we couldn't reached 2016 numbers.

Yes, turnout was pretty good. But it was nowhere near our maximum.

There are other populations in Lakewood who had zero motivation to vote in this election as opposed to a presidential election.

[fisherprice]

Bottom line, when does free tuition start? Rosh Chodesh or December 1st?

Poor Avi... people are really going to hold him to this!

I actually checked my cc statement last night to see if my childs school refunded me for the month of november but then I realized that it may take up to 5 business days to receive the refund... or maybe if you have direct deposit you may receive it sooner...

[YitzyS]

I actually checked my cc statement last night to see if my childs school refunded me for the month of november but then I realized that it may take up to 5 business days to receive the refund... or maybe if you have direct deposit you may receive it sooner...

You sound like a relative of mine.

He went to the doctor for a well visit and his kid got the MMR vaccine. Before he left, he turned to the nurse. "So when should I expect the autism to start setting in?"

[shapsam]

That does seem to be how the Shchnall/AH people were operating. But can you explain it, why was it so important to win so big? I mean I get the necessity to show the strength of the voting bloc and that we can drive turnout and votes to support our issues, but is a say 5000-6000 vote margin which I think would still be classified as a landslide really so significantly different for that than what was? What else is there to it that Im missing?

As aygart mentioned, you make it sound as if AS can control exactly how many votes he gets. They wanted to make sure they win and ran a successful campaign, no one knew he'll win with 9k votes.

[shapsam]

I have to agree, noone has ever heard of the Thomson guy before today. Poor ML who is just sitting in lakewood twp when he could have done this years ago.

Chayala K from JCN was paid 250k or so to run ads. They accomplished what they wanted. It was out of control and next time will mute all those pesky statuses.

Why didn't you mute the statuses this time?

[shapsam]

I think it's fair to say that a lot was learned in this election. One of the great unknown variables was the Monmouth Democrat votes. The fact that Schnall had some support among Monmouth democrats was a pleasant surprise.

He got votes from Monmouth Democrats that voted down the ballot, it was basically the same amount of votes as the other Democrat in the race.

[yuneeq]

That does seem to be how the Shchnall/AH people were operating. But can you explain it, why was it so important to win so big? I mean I get the necessity to show the strength of the voting bloc and that we can drive turnout and votes to support our issues, but is a say 5000-6000 vote margin which I think would still be classified as a landslide really so significantly different for that than what was? What else is there to it that Im missing?

Every extra vote for Avi was a voter that changed parties, the most desirable voter every politician salivates over.  It’s not enough to win in a landslide if the raw vote totals are not large enough to influence a future race. Show your power in numbers and the election has consequences that are far beyond what AS can accomplish on his own.

Speaking of strength, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where Lakewood will have the power to decide the next governor.