It should be obvious by now that milquetoast Democrats going with the flow of corporate establishments will lose races in the post crash/bailout environment.
People are really hurting, and even those not really hurting are scared shitless. The Republicans have been brilliantly evil in exploiting these fears.....and Democrats like John Corzine and Barak Obama and now Martha Coakley are paying the price for not having the chops to run as AGGRESSIVE PROGRESSIVES. Until and unless Democrats do that....they/WE will continue to lose elections. That is 100% guaranteed.
In good times the bullshit walked....and people put up with the legalized theft and corruption in the system because they were relatively content with the crumbs that fell their way.......but now there is REAL economic and social dislocation. People's LIVES are at stake because they're losing their health coverage and can't afford to buy in outside of an employer subsidized group plan.
The Republicans under were the chief proximate CAUSE of all of these problems.....but President Obama has insisted on being a nice guy and bipartisan and not truly taking the lead on calling them out on the last eight years of corporate looting under the Bush administration..........instead he played footise with the same corporate interests and socialized their losses by printing and borrowing money on the backs of future taxpayers and gave the big banks interest FREE TRILLIONS to invest and play with.......meanwhile main street was/is still in agony while the fat cats get fatter and fatter and laugh all the way to their bailed out banks and seven or even eight figure "bonuses".
Instead of running as a progressive progressive as some of us here had been openly imploring Jon Corzine to do....he ran as an Obamacrat at a time when Obama was way way way off course.
Thew bum who won in Massachusetts is about the same type as the bum who won here. In normal times neither would have got far.......but with Democrats running as compromised milquetoasts and aroused and pissed off and angry and disgusted electorate came of of the woodwork and dealt the Democratic establishments crushing defeats......and yet we STILL see a stupid dense idiotic reluctance to face reality.
Meanwhile the real base of the party, progressive grassroots activists (who aren't just wannabe hacks looking for jobs for themselves) are understandably despirited because they all knew EXACTLY what was wrong with Obama, and Corzine and Coakley.....and no one listened.
We might as well have elected Rahm Emanuel to the presidency
Unless NJ Democrats, ordinary grass roots progressive Democrats, literally take over the New Jersey Democratic party from the ground up...we are screwed. This idea/assertion is nothing new. People have been saying that here for YEARS......and often they caught a lot of crap from the machine toadies for doing it.
Running with the corporations and with the machines will result in the loss of the house and senate and presidency by 2012.......and rest absolutely ASSURED that in that scenario, the Republicans WILL change the cloture rules allowing them to pass what they want.
There's virtually nothing in the following link that hasn't been said by me and many other progressives over the last YEAR!!! But it's a well written and well organized piece that deserves to be read and to be studied..........and maybe some here will be able to absorb it given that it's coming from a stranger with no "history" here.
And while it is written with the national agenda in mind...I dare say it all applies to New jersey politics and speaks to the spirit of what we progressives have to support at all levels throughout the state.
The Democrats have turned off their voting base. In all three elections the reason for defeat was turnout. People who voted for Obama in 2008 stayed home in 2009 and 2010. Unlike Republicans, who work to excite their base with red meat, right wing issues, the Democrats take their base for granted assuming they have no where else to go. Now they are paying a price, but the price will get higher if they do not learn the obvious lessons from these three elections: excite your base, challenge big business and demonstrate the change in direction by re-making the White House.
A campaign can never control its surrogates, but the Corzine campaign opened the door to a flood of idiocy when they started obliquely referring to Chris Christie's obviously unhealthy weight problem in an ad last month. The Corzine campaign seemingly wanted to be sure people knew it, but didn't want to be called on it. They tried to do the Rovian dog-whistle thing where they could pretend not to have said what they implied, but the media and Christie partisans glommed onto it in a successful effort to distract from various mini-scandals like abuse of power to avoid tickets, over-paying for hotel rooms and travel, poor policy statements from the primary, etc.
But when you whistle, dogs hear it and start to bark. Unfortunately, we now see a series of barks on Twitter and other places. Democratic state chairman Joe Cryan asked how it would feel to have the heavy Christie as Governor. Steven Goldstein, who is supposed to be a champion of tolerance, told a joke suggesting people mistook Christie for a large balloon floating over the state.
Sure, dog whistling worked great for Bush for six years, but it imploded and we see the results. We're supposed to be better than that, fighting for the issues that matter for people and not just doing whatever disgusting thing is needed to win elections. Corzine, who is a good and decent man (sometimes to his detriment), is better than this.
There are so many issues in this campaign that matter to New Jersey and our future. A Christie administration would gut education and health care, the foundations of a good place to live. The environment, contrary to the Tittle-ing crowds, would get short shrift and likely irreparably damaged. Whatever political good will there is in this state would be removed under Christie's My Way Or The Highway attitude.
Added to that, Corzine has a good story to tell. He has cut the budget by almost 15 percent during his time, and reduced the state workforce. While there are more types of taxes, there are fewer dollars collected. Our math scores are up, our air is cleaner, more money is going to property tax relief, and more people -- including children -- have health insurance while the national trend is for people to lose it.
There are a thousand reasons to oppose Chris Christie in this election, and just as many to support Jon Corzine. Christie's health should be a concern for voters as the health of any candidate is, but it should not be a campaign issue.
El cuidado médico de calidad debe ser un derecho, no un privilegio ... Así piensa nuestro Gobernador Jon Corzine.
La campaña de Jon Corzine tiene un anuncio de televisión en español que se aproxime al tipo de comunicación de la campaña que me gustaría verlos hacer más. Sólo una mujer, un votante, hablando directamente, acerca de por qué está votando por Corzine - por el programa Family Care que proteja a los niños - cerca de 600.000 niños de Nueva Jersey ahora - y lo que significa para ella. Por favor, envíe esto a sus amigos que hablan Español-, y me interesaría saber qué piensa del anuncio.
The economy is terrible and incumbent governors naturally get some blame. New York Governor David Paterson has a 28% approval rating(Siena Poll -PDF). Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is at 47% approval (Quinnipiac poll). In the latest New Jersey poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University, Governor Jon Corzine lands in the middle, with 40% approval and 46% disapproval. Worse yet, we find him well below 50% in the re-elect numbers, trailing Chris Christie 32%-41%. This poll has 751 registered voters for a margin of error of 4%. I don't think there is anything to say that I haven't said before.
The average of all five 2009 polls from four different pollsters leaves Corzine trailing Christie 37.6%-39.2%. Never mind about 50%, we do not have any polls with Corzine above 40%. The average of the six polls with approval-disapproval gives us 41.3% approve, 46.3% disapprove.
There's a New York Times mini-article mentioning a proposal from the New Jersey Senate that would allot our 15 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote - in effect, the candidate who wins New Jersey may not win their electoral votes.
It's one thing for Carla Katz to intervene as a private citizen. I heard she convinced the Executive Board of Local 1034 to finance this court action. If that is the case the members should all call Local 1034, at 609-530-0060, and express their outrage. If that is the case they should also contact each Executive Board member that agreed to fund intervention in the Tom Wilson lawsuit and share their feelings about their union dues being used in this manner.
The next election for officers and the Executive Board of Local 1034 is in the fall of 2008. Lucky for Carla, her fellow officers and Board members it isn't in the fall of 2007. Plenty of time for damage control for a politico like Carla.
The last time 1034 had an election, she and her slate were unopposed. I doubt that will happen in 2008. That might explain her stated intention to run for re-election when she was interviewed by gossip columnist Cindy Adams of the NY Post. She must be getting nervous about her re-election chances.
