Watching the final several episodes of the AMC tv series “Mad Men” over the last few weeks led me to ponder, among other matters, the great role of Marketing and Advertising in our daily lives. For most of the 20th Century, and so far into the 21st, American culture has created an art form in the way it can turn into a commodity just about any one or anything, and do its damndest to sell the heck out of it. “Mad Men” showed us the ways in which Madison Avenue tried to persuade us to buy cigarettes, cars, air travel, potato chips, and slide projectors. An oft-recurring undertheme was how the same methods of hard- and soft-selling were turned into selling us lifestyles, wars, and political candidates. “Mad Men” often showed us subtly what we’ve also been hearing and seeing for close to the last 50 years, at least since author Joe McGinniss explicitly compared the 1968 election campaign of Richard Nixon to selling a pack of cigarettes.
Then, as now, the challenge for the ad man, the Mad Man – and the average consumer – is to know the difference between trying to sell what is genuinely New, honestly Fresh, or simply The Same Old Shit in a New Box.
Which brings me to Dan Toto.
Dan Toto is a candidate in this coming Tuesday’s primary election for the Democratic nomination to be one of the 15th District’s (which includes Trenton) two state Assembly members. He is running to unseat either of the incumbents, Reed Gusciora, or Elizabeth Maher Muoio. The incumbents received the endorsement of the Mercer County Democratic Committee members at its convention a few months ago. Mr. Toto did not receive the Committee’s endorsement, that rejection being the basis on which he is focusing his campaign strategy and approach.
Dan Toto is running as an “outsider” against the “insiders” of an allegedly corrupt Mercer County political machine. On the front page of his website he says,
Dan Toto is running for NJ Assemblyman because our leadership in Mercer County has been nothing but disappointing. The county ‘machine’ hasn’t delivered on their promises. In our district, the unemployment rate in areas like Trenton is nearly 50% higher than the state and national averages, and many in the district go to bed hungry every night. Our career-politician representatives have been unable to deliver results on growing our economy, bringing more jobs to our district, and reforming our education system.
He is running, he says, ” so that YOU can have a true Democrat in the State House.” And yet, on his Facebook page today, he encourages non-party-affiliated voters to register as Democrats on Tuesday, just to vote for him. Then they can change their registration BACK to non-affilated on the very same day!
It seems Mr. Toto wants to be a “true” Democrat in the State House, but is relying on appealing to “false” Democrats to get there. He strikes me as being as much of a true Democrat as Joe McGinniss’ Lucky Strike Nixon. His campaign and his candidacy is a fraud. Let’s look at him a little more closely, shall we?
His supporters play up his theme of the insurgent Democrat running against a rotten party machine. In a Letter to the Editor published in yesterday’s Trenton Times, Victor Palinczar claims “there’s a difference between ‘legally corrupt’ and ‘morally corrupt.’ Dan Toto’s [campaign] mailer emphasizes the moral corruption in Mercer County.” He then goes on to cite a litany of “moral” corruption for which many of the mean old Mercer Machine Democrats are responsible.
It’s an odd argument to make, “moral” versus “legal” corruption. Because it positively screams out an invitation to examine Mr. Toto’s past recent association with the latter type – that is “legal” corruption – here in Trenton. Of course, by that I mean Toto’s past association with Tony Mack.
Mr. Palinczar’s Letter to the Times was in fact a response to another Letter published earlier this week in the Times, in which Trenton resident and long-time politically active Mercer Democratic leader Jeffrey Laurenti politely suggested that Emperor Toto was wearing no clothes:
The one critique in his recent mailer introducing himself to Democratic primary voters is not of Christie, but of Mercer County’s “corrupt” Democratic Party. Hmm. The only two political leaders charged with corruption in this county in recent memory have been Hamilton’s disgraced mayor John Bencivengo, who must be credited to the Republican camp, and Trenton’s feckless Tony Mack, whom the Democratic committee ousted from the freeholder board in 2008.
However, Mayor Mack’s campaign manager was … Dan Toto. If “corruption” is the reason for his campaign, he risks the reproach in the book of Job: “Your own mouth condemns you.” I wonder whether he can perhaps offer more convincing substance.
Toto’s association with Mack was not limited to running his 2010 campaign. You may recall that Mr. Toto was also involved in an attempt to get in on the Mack Administration patronage job money train.
In December 2010, Mayor Mack attempted to award a contract to Toto as the city’s Youthstat Coordinator coordinating Trenton’s policy on gang-related issues without City Council approval. Here’s a piece I wrote at the time, offered in lieu of the Trentonian article or Mack Administration press release I reference in the piece, and which no longer appear to be available online. In the piece I quote Mack as saying Mr. Toto was appointed immediately as of 12/4/2010 “on an interim basis subject to council approval but will start right away in a paid role.”
Mack’s attempt to hire Toto came to a sputtering stop after a very contentious City Council meeting, in which an earlier Mack campaign manager criticized Toto. In the Times account of 12/15/2010 by Meir Rinde,
As the mayor watched from his seat nearby, Jerrell Blakely, who served as Mack’s campaign manager at the start of his mayoral run last year, stood at the podium at last night’s city council meeting and accused his former boss of incompetence and cronyism. He pointed out that Mack recently selected a friend, Dan Toto, as the city’s Youthstat coordinator, an anti-gang position.
“Today, I’m here to implore the council to not vote for Danny Toto,” Blakely said. “He has no experience in gang fighting, anywhere. The only reason that Danny Toto is even being considered for this position is because of his relationship with the mayor.”
That’s the last Trenton saw of Dan Toto, until last year when he managed the mayoral campaign of then-Council member Kathy McBride. Trentonians will remember Ms. McBride’s campaign for two things. First, her continued refusal to participate in candidate forums or debates with the other mayoral wanna-bes, based on a strategy that her appeal was to low-information voters who did not care about debates. This campaign strategy, implemented by her manager Mr. Toto, resulted in the second memorable point about Kathy McBride’s 2014 mayoral campaign: her last-place finish in the field of 6.
Dan Toto may have experience and qualifications that may actually recommend him as a candidate for Tuesday’s election. I don’t know; I haven’t heard much about them, and what I have heard is truly unremarkable,
But I do know that anyone with a long record of close association with the likes of Tony Mack – he of the conclusively demonstrated “legal” variety of Mercer County corruption – and Kathy “Blue Waffle” McBride has no business claiming the mantle of Outside Reformer, True Democrat, or whatever other label he’s trying to pin on himself.
“Dan Toto for Assembly” isn’t New. It isn’t Fresh. It’s just more of the Same Old Shit in a New Box.
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