well the power of parents appears to be the top issue facing candidates running in this Fall's legislative elections with battles over parental rights taking center stage and inflaming campaign talk on everything from book bans to school gender policies and Republicans have been eager to engage on the culture War topic Bergen Record political columnist Charlie Stile says the GOP in New Jersey sees the debate as one of several wedge issues that could rally their core conservative base he joins me now Charlie style good to talk to you as always you know it's interesting because it seems like political analysts disagree on just how much parental rights issues are going to play a role in the upcoming election but they do seem to agree that Republicans are owning the topic is that the case here and have Democrats sort of dropped the ball on it well the Republicans are exploiting the topic and um they seem to have a coherent narrative that parents rights are being stripped away from them by the big Phil Murphy liberal State and the Democrats um particularly in sensitive districts swing districts don't seem to have any kind of coherent push back and it's going to be a problem for them there were obviously a number of issues that have played out in recent days uh we had a State Board of Education meeting yesterday over some language in policies adopted you've got National right win groups uh joining in the chorus here in New Jersey on what would otherwise seem like local issues I mean why is it that they're biting on this issue in particular I I think this is part of a national movement to um infiltrate on the Grassroots Schoolboard level um and to uh begin a sort of an an ongoing crusade to push back on what they consider the lgbtq woke agenda and um but I think there's some there's some broader targets here I think this is also a um it's related it's a tangent to a power struggle over public employee unions and the school Choice Movement and I think some of this is also being fueled by some of the residual anger over the uh School masking and the vax mandates and it's a big combustible mix that the Republicans are uh fueling how are Democrats responding I mean you wrote uh that Republicans are spinning this into Political gold what's the democrat's response I I I I don't see much of one uh at all I think what you'll see from the Democrats and and I'm seeing a little uh bits of this is that they're going to try to put the focus on uh issues that work for them one is there you'll see in certain districts they'll be painting their Republicans as Pro uh supporting uh anti-abortion measures and try to link them with the national uh right-wing push to have a National Abortion ban and fears and they'll play on that fear with um uh uh some of the Republican candidates and um even though that's not an issue really in this C uh race at all I I I think you're also going to see a big heavy emphasis on their on affordability they're going to say well we're the ones that are really delivering uh uh rebates and other affordable measures on Healthcare and education that um people really want and that have some practical real world value for you so they're going to try to change a narrative Charlie stile columnist for the Bergen Record Charlie thanks as always uh you're more than [Music]