OPINION: Joe Salerno’s Comparison of Tim Alexander’s Campaign to Lee Atwater Misses by Grand Canyon Lengths
Tim Alexander. Photo courtesy Tim Alexander.
OPINION
BY CLYDE HUGHES | AC JosepH Media
Why are we getting mentions of the notorious late Southern strategist Lee Atwater in New Jersey’s District 2 Democratic primary for the right to take on Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew?
The head spinning analysis comes from Joe Salerno, who lost to Van Drew in the 2024 general election. But he’s not making the comparison with the former Democratic turned MAGA Republican, but against current Democratic candidate Tim Alexander.
To better understand why this would be so stunning, especially those of us familiar with the racial politics of the 1980s and 1990s, here’s a little refresher course on who Lee Atwater was.
Atwater, who died in 1991, was a South Carolina political strategist who worked with the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was infamous for using race to stir the emotions of White voters and get them out to the polls. Unfortunately, his strategy proved to be successful and many of his tactics are still used today.
The research website EBSCO described Atwater’s political antics this way:
“Atwater’s strategic prowess came to the forefront during George H. W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign, where he employed a mix of traditional and populist themes to engage swing voters. Notably, he utilized racially charged tactics, exemplified by the controversial Willie Horton ad, to portray opponent Michael Dukakis as weak on crime.”
Here’s one of the Atwater’s better-known quotes that helps you make the connection to what you hear a lot of today’s politics and what it often really means.
“Y’all don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*****, n*****,
n*****.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*****”— that hurts you. Backfires. So, you say stuff
like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now
[that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are
totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] Blacks get hurt worse than
Whites.
“And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m
saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with
the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting
around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing
thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N*****, n*****.”
That’s Atwater in a nutshell. Whether it is in your face or coded in what appears to be today’s political language, his racial antics to move White voters were clear.
So why in the world is Salerno singling out Alexander and comparing him to Atwater and accusing him of taking pages out of Atwater’s “playbook?” Ironically, Alexander is the only African American in the race.
In Facebook video posted March 9 (See Video Here), Salerno admits Atwater was the author of “some of the nastiest campaigns in modern politics” but never mentions the racial angle of the strategist’s scheme. He appears to sanitize Atwater just enough so he can make a comparison to Alexander.
He bemoans Alexander’s alleged attacks on Democratic primary opponents Bayly Winder and Zach Mulloch, as being akin to Atwater. There was no mention of polarizing racially-coded language or other deeply personal attacks that were the hallmark of Atwater. The examples Salerno gave could be seen as nothing out of the unusual.
In the video, Salerno never mentions Atwater’s political stock and trade of race because, I can only guess, it would have made his comparison fall flat on its face.
Salerno did admit to a beef he has with Alexander, which appears to be the source of his discontent with the civil rights attorney. A little bit of context here.
Alexander won the Democratic nomination to run against Van Drew in 2022. Two years later, Salerno won a nail-biting Democratic primary against Alexander, where it took a few days after ballots closed to determine a winner. (Click the link to see what Salerno said about Alexander then.)
Salerno claims in the video that Alexander never endorsed him after the race and “never said so much as a kind word about me or our campaign.”
Okay, you have a beef with Alexander. Those happen in politics all the time. Intra-party squabbles? Those happen every election cycle. Nothing new there. Now, no one is above criticism on how they take on campaign opponents. The voters will ultimate judge that.
However, comparing Alexander to Atwater is a Grand Canyon stretch at best and MAGA dog whistle at worst – in the likes of, well, Lee Atwater.
I would invite Salerno to the pages of Front Runner New Jersey.com to explain why he ignored the racial aspect of Atwater’s politics to go after the only Black in the Congressional race. I’ll give you two email addresses: chughes@acjosephmedia.com or clyde.hughes@yahoo.com.
Just a note, after the Democratic primary two years ago, Front Runner asked Salerno on two occasions to write a column connecting our Black and Latino readers to his campaign. We never heard back from him. I’m hoping this time will be different.
In full disclosure, we’ve run ads for Tim Alexander on our website. FRNJ is open to ALL candidates wanting to reach our readers and always have been. We are the only daily news website that covers the Black and Hispanic communities daily in South Jersey. One would think that would be of value in political campaigns.
It would be interesting to hear from other District 2 candidates if they are comfortable with such analogies, particularly Winder and Mulloch since they were mentioned specifically by Salerno. My email is open for you to use as well.
Atwater was no friend of the Black community nor African American politicians. Anything but! His tactics, while sadly entrenched in today’s politics, have never been a winning strategy for candidates of color. Comparing Alexander to them has indeed introduced and darker side to this campaign, and it did not come from Alexander himself.
Note from AC JosepH Media: If you like this story and others posted on Front Runner New Jersey.com, lend us a hand so we can keep producing articles like these for New Jersey and the world to see. Click on SUPPORT FRNJ and make a contribution that will go directly in making more stories like this available. You can reach Editor Clyde Hughes at chughes@acjosephmedia.com. Thank you for reading!
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