GOP freeholder candidates wage uphill fight in Camden County
Republican Camden County freeholder candidates Kimone Smith and Teddy Liddell are running a shoestring, shoe-leather campaign.
They're knocking on doors and shaking hands in hopes of serving on a board that has been GOP-free for 21 years - in a county government where the last elected Republican left office in 1996.
And they're campaigning in a county of 228 square miles and half a million people where their party is locally competitive in just a handful of municipalities.
"Yes, you can call me something of an idealist," Smith, 25, a fitness trainer who lives in Camden's Parkside section, says with a smile.
Democrats have a 3-1 registration edge over Republicans in Camden County, and Smith and Liddell are African American, a demographic accounting for perhaps 5 percent of the Republican electorate nationally.
Facts like these can stimulate interesting conversations on the campaign trail.
"When I'm out in the city, talking to people, everyday people, and I tell them I'm a Republican, they go, 'Oh, why are you with those boys?' " Smith says.
"I have to break it down for them: Republicans have not done anything wrong to Camden city, or Camden County. We are not the reason why the county is in the shambles that it is."
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GOP freeholder candidates wage uphill fight in Camden County