Opening the Party to All

This system sounds great (0.00 / 0)

Should be the rule, rather than the exception. Kudos to Mercer.

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by: Jeff Gardner @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 19:10:04 PM UTC

Somerset Dems Have Open Conventions, too (0.00 / 0)

Doesn't help in winning county or higher races, though.

But back in 2000 its convention voted on the third ballot for Jeff Golkin instead of Maryanne Connelly or Mike Lapolla.  The loss of the line for party boss (not in Somerset!) favorite Lapolla was a major factor in Connelly winning the race in the long run.

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by: huntsu @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 19:12:11 PM UTC

great moment in NJ politics (0.00 / 0)

I was at the convention that huntsu refers to and it was a brilliant tactical manuever for Maryanne Connelly to encourage her supporters to vote for Golkin rather than LaPolla, since she knew that she was going to be on Governor Jim Florio's opposition slate in Somerset County anyway.

By giving Golkin the line in Somerset County, she forced LaPolla to run in Somerset County without the benefit of any supporting slate of candidates.  Her margin of victory in Somerset County was enough to offset LaPolla's margins in Union and Middlesex Counties where he had the backing of the party bosses.

I was working for another Democratic Congressional candidate, J. Brooke Hern, who is now a Republican Councilman in New Providence, and someone who I hope enters the Republican free-for-all in the 7th, but shortly after his campaign ended, I was hired by the Florio campaign to liaison with the Connelly campaign and coordinate the activities of our opposition slate of candidates.  As disappointing as Florio's loss to Corzine was, Connelly's victory over LaPolla made it somewhat less painful.

The fact that the party bosses in Middlesex and Union Counties refused to support Connelly against Mike Ferguson and allowed him to win that Congressional seat is proof positive that they and others like them are the greatest obstacle to progressive change in this state, not the Republicans, who have allowed themselves to become irrelevant by ceding power to the party's most extreme elements.

Eventually, progressives will come to realize that the only way that they can force the Democratic establishment to pass a progressive policy agenda is to build opposition slates of candidates at every level of government in every part of the state, but especially in the most Democratic parts where many, if not, most of our elected officials are not committed to a progressive policy agenda.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 22:45:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Atlantic (4.00 / 1)

We were the first county to have a convention system.  My father was actually told he was going to go to jail!

Each municipality gets delegates according to the votes received by the top countywide candidate.  County Committee and elected officials are guaranteed seats.  Votes are announced by municipality like the national convention.

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by: Creed Pogue @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 19:58:24 PM UTC

kudos to Atlantic County (0.00 / 0)

My first day on the Florio campaign in 2000 was spent working the Atlantic County Convention and Creed is right to be proud of their system.  It is without a doubt the most open system that I have experienced to date.

This event was also my first opportunity to see Jim McGreevey speak in person.  It was quite enjoyable to see two-thirds of the room clear out right before he took the stage.

I didn't have a positive opinion of McGreevey from 1997, when he kept his mouth shut about Christie Whitman's veto of the Republican legislature's attempt to pass a ban on late term abortions, and the weasel didn't change my opinion of him that night or any other night for that matter.  In fact, the only reason that McGreevey was able to run again in 2001 was because he came as close as he did to beating her in 1997.

Sadly, what so many people failed to understand about McGreevey's near victory in 1997 was it was made possible because Murray Sabrin took 20% of Whitman's base when he ran as a pro-life Libertarian (you can find Sabrin's picture in the dictionary next to the word 'oxymoron').

Had Sabrin not run, Whitman would have demolished McGreevey and either Rob Andrews or Michael Murphy would have had the opportunity to beat Bret Schundler in 2001 and who knows where the state would be right now.  I feel confident in imagining that if we were in the midst of Michael Murphy's second term as Governor right now, the state would be in much better shape than it is today.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 23:02:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Fuzzy Math (0.00 / 0)

I am not sure how 4.7% is 20% of whatever you figure to be Whitman's base when she got 47% of the vote and McGreevey got 46%.  Say whatever you want about McGreevey, but he worked very hard in an election that no one thought would ever be close.

It isn't mentioned in the "remembrances of things past," but I was one of former Governor Florio's staunchest supporters at the Convention.  :-)

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by: Creed Pogue @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 03:28:49 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

sorry (0.00 / 0)

20% is the number that I remember being thrown around at the time when Sabrin's candidacy was discussed.

But obviously, even a six-point victory is more significant than a one-point victory, and correct me if I am wrong, which I am sure that you will do, but I seem to remember Sabrin's 4.7% equaling something along the lines of 100,000 votes.

I would also imagine that McGreevey's silence on the late term abortion issue earned him many pro-life votes, which also led to the narrowed margin.  I am alo sure that many pro-life voters stayed home completely, narrowing the margin even further.

Even if my math is fuzzy, the point still remains the same, which was and is that McGreevey was a weasel and only became Governor partially by sheer good fortune and mostly by being willing to say or do anything to win.

As far as your support for Florio goes, I am sorry that I was too busy working the event to notice the staunchness of the support coming from the Estell Manor delegation.  That said, I do remember seeing you there.  You're kinda hard to miss.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 13:50:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Remember? (0.00 / 0)

Oy, vey!

We sat in the same booth with a couple of other people including Mayor Chiarello right afterwards!

You have your Rashomon moment and I'll have mine!  :-)

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by: Creed Pogue @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 16:15:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm still a Florio fan... (0.00 / 0)

and I'm glad we get to see him these days.  I ran Maryanne Connelly's primary campaign operation in Plainfield, where we held the organization's Congressional candidate, Mike LaPolla, to 300 votes less than they needed him to get from the city.  Maryanne won the primary district-wide by about 300 votes.  Don't ever say one vote doesn't count!

My quote of the day, from Teddy Roosevelt:  "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."  That's what we are all doing!

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."  (Teddy Roosevelt)

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by: DottieG @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 05:56:13 AM UTC

A polite observation (4.00 / 2)

I welcome the statewide discussion that my op-ed has begun to generate regarding opening up the process by which we as democrats select our candidates.  In reviewing the comments here on Blue Jersey so far, I would like to post one observation:

While I completely respect my Democratic colleagues and the posters from Atlantic County, and though I have no personal experience to say their process is anything but fair, I would argue that the mechanism of publically casting votes by block is not as conducive to a level playing field as a properly run secret ballot. 

The whole point of the Mercer model is to place as much power as possible into the hands of rank and file democrats.  If a delegate is required to announce his or her vote to a municipal chair or other party official (who may control distribution of election day hiring, etc.) as they cast it, I suggest that individual may be less likely to vote their own conscience. 

Under such a system, the focus of a candidate seeking office is no longer primarily on convincing the rank and filers, but on those who report for them.

Yes, I am aware that block voting is the way that the national party does things, but I would note that the national convention is held AFTER the individual state primaries and thus falls into the apples and oranges school of justification.

Rich  McClellan

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by: Rich McClellan @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 15:59:42 PM UTC

I agree (4.00 / 1)

However, Rich, you have to remember that we were the first county to adopt a convention system at all and did it under threat of legal action because it was illegal back then for county committees to make pre-primary endorsements.

I do want to change our system to have only the county committee and elected officials which eliminates any hint of "packing" and to have a secret ballot which eliminates bloc voting.  But considering the number of counties that don't have any convention system at all, I would think we should focus on them first.

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by: Creed Pogue @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 at 16:18:39 PM UTC

[ Parent ]