OK, now that FEC reports are out it's time to check out how we are doing in Republican held and open seats. Essentially the six seats with incumbent Democrats are pretty much safe, so these are the places where we might be playing.
The middle column shows where we are doing better than the Republican. You expect that Dems would do well in NJ1 (see notes below about what a joke NJ1 is), but we are winning the money game in NJ3 and NJ7 as well -- overwhelmingly.
Cand.
2Q$
CoH
Adv
Cand.
2Q$
CoH
Andrews (NJ1)
$72,240
$15,611
Glading (NJ1)
TBA
TBA
Kurkowski (NJ2)
$172,772
$89,773
LoBiondo (NJ2)
$205,422
$1,491,954
Adler (NJ3)
$738,683
$1,463,747
Myers (NJ3)
$241,762
$155,406
Zeitz (NJ4)
$114,053
$124,535
Smith (NJ4)
$143,300
$503,944
Shulman (NJ5)
$234,249
$258,381
Garret (NJ5)
$293,963
$649,003
Stender (NJ7)
$494,265
$1,100,000
Lance (NJ7)
$191,107
$80,792
Wyka (NJ11)
$11,112
$15,540
Hot Rod (NJ11)
$121,330
$717,893
One source of mystery is Dale Glading, who is running in NJ1 against the alleged candidate Camille Andrews (whose fundraising once again demonstrates she is not a real candidate).
A search for Glading, Republican, NJ, House on FEC.gov produces no results for contributions or disbursements of any kind. No July Quarterly report has been filed, but at the least as of primary day Glading had raised no money.
That means, as near as I can tell, there are no real candidates running in NJ1. Sheesh.
Update: This is updated to include the pre-primary filing numbers. The CoH numbers were accurate last night, but after the comments it was updated to include the whole quarter.
You've no doubt taken Huntsu's Senate Primary Poll already. But what about the other races playing out in tomorrow's supposed-to-be-irrelevant June Primary? Here's a place to share your thoughts, comments and predictions about some of those other primaries happening tomorrow.
Congressional Primaries
Contested Democratic primaries in the 1st, 5th and 11th Congressional Districts, plus Republican primaries in the 3rd and 7th promise to provide more primary-night intrigue than I can lately remember.
On the Democratic side, there are some pretty strong favorites going in, though I think the results will be closer than expected in all three places. On the Republican side, I think that Kelly is going to pull it out in the 3rd, and (I hope I'm wrong) that Kate Whitman is going to steal home in the 7th.
Local Races
And, don't forget about the local races happening here, there and around, like the BCDO showdown with the Real Bergen Democrats, and even a hard-fought mayoral primary in Washington Township (yes, that Washington Township).
How do you think tomorrow will shape up down-ballot? And, tell us what other local races you have your eyes on.
"How do you ask a man...to be the last man... to die for a lie?"
Those were the famous words of the young John Kerry before the Fulbright Committee in 1971.
The question is as relevant today as it was then.
Harry Hager is the only Congressional candidate (Democrat, 11th CD) who is astute enough and -- frankly, PO-ed enough -- to make the point.
Lies have been told, to justify the war. The lies continue to this very day.
They are willful.
Rodney Frelinghuysen knows full well -- or else he's amnesiac -- that this war cannot be won.
Why can it not be won? It should be obvious, but let me spell it out.
We send hundreds of men with guns, big guns, and big trucks and heavy armor into a country where they do not speak the language and have maybe a crash course in the culture.
They take over the roads, they shoot the place up just to make an impression; they are foul-mouthed and disrespectful to the citizens including their women.
We get only one chance in life to make a bad impression.
Almost immediately they have lost any hope of gaining the trust of the locals.
Almost immediately they have lost any cooperation and hope of so-called "actionable intelligence" to find the bad guys.
But they have to do something, so they interrogate people, treat them badly, run around, knocking down doors in the middle of the night.
It takes very little time before they have created more enemies than were there when they came in.
Pretty soon, they are in a cycle: more bad guys, more casualties, more frustrating interrogations, more abusive treatment, more bad guys.
Rodney knows this. He was in Vietnam -- where we saw it every day.
Still he repeats the militarist rhetoric. It's bred in the bone of these old-line families, the McCains and Frelinghuysens, the families who gave their all to fight the cold war.
They still don't get it that a guerilla war -- asymmetric warfare -- cannot be won by brute force.
Moreover, in Iraq and Afghanistan we are surrounded and out-numbered.
The borders are open to unlimited numbers of suicidal maniacs. The Madrassas produce thousands of them. They are waiting line to go out and kill Americans. We have no idea who or where they are. They refuse to wear uniforms. They look just like any other citizen, but they are waiting and watching.
Which goes to another reason why we cannot win: the element of surprise.
According to our own military doctrine -- which goes back to Clausewitz 150 years ago -- the element of surprise today lies entirely with the bad guys. They have a thousand eyes, watching us, they know our every move.
We barely know who they are, much less what they are up to.
As much as Custer at Little Bighorn, Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan are surrounded and out-numbered.
We are always on the defensive, surprised by every IED, every suicide bomber.
Then, throw in the endemic corruption in a society that has never known the rule of law. Throw in the Sunni-Shia fanaticism.
You have a witch's brew of an unwinnable war.
Rodney knows all of this. We should not have to spell it out.
Yet people die every day -- because of Rodney's lies.
"Cut and run," how many times did we hear that from Frelinghuysen? '"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."
Now, he can't spin those lies any more, so he goes back to "...playing politics with our veterans."
He's the one who is playing politics. He's playing politics with people's lives.
He knows full well -- or else he's amnesiac, willfully -- that this war cannot be won.
If we win the primary on June 3rd, we will raise the money, and we will bring Rodney down.
If we win the primary, we will reach out to Congressional leaders like John Kerry, Jim Webb, Jack Murtha, Joe Sestak, and Patrick Murphy -- all either Vietnam or Iraq war veterans -- who would love to see Frelinghuysen defeated.
And they would welcome more anti-war veterans in Congress.
With the grace of God, and a press corps using their God-given native intelligence, we will bring this terrible man down.
Willful lies. The Banality of Evil. Did you guys ever hear of Hannah Arendt?
Six months ago Republicans held a registration advantage over Democrats in 6 of the state's 13 Congressional districts. Today, they lead in just two.
Over half a million voters registered as Democrats since late 2007. The 512,508 newly-registered Democrats represents a 48% increase in registered Democrats in New Jersey. In 2007, 24.9% of registered voters were declared Democrats while 19.3% were Republicans. Today, 35.8% are Democrats and 22.2% are Republicans. Unaffiliated and other voters dropped from 54.2% to 42%.
Thanks to the surge in partisan affiliation, Democrats now hold a partisan registration advantage in four additional Congressional districts that were previously dominated by Republicans: NJ-2 (LoBiondo (R)), NJ-3 (Saxton (R)), NJ-4 (Smith (R)), NJ-7 (Ferguson (R)). That advantage will be incredibly helpful for GOTV efforts, especially in the very competitive 3rd and 7th districts.
The greatest gains for Democrats came in NJ-3, NJ-4, NJ-11 and NJ-12 which each saw Democratic registration increase by over 60%. Republicans now hold a partisan registration advantage in just two districts: NJ-5 (Garrett (R)) and NJ-11 (Frelinghuysen (R)). In the 5th, the Republican registration advantage dropped from about 51,000 to 31,000 and in the 11th it dropped from about 66,000 to 46,000.
"This is more than a trend, it's a remarkable increase in Democratic voters that will have a lasting impact," said Democratc State Committee chairman Joe Cryan. "The people can't wait to bring the Bush era to an end and the best way to do that is to elect Democrats. It's not enough that the Bush Administration is coming to a close, the voters are rejecting everything with the Republican brand name."
Republican registration increased by a more modest 18% which means the partisan advantage for Democrats more than doubled from 240,089 to 600,723.
Last election cycle the status quo in Long Branch was shaken up when Brian Unger, former Democratic party activist, environmental advocate, and former candidate for state senate, defeated the hand picked candidate of longtime mayor Adam "I love eminent domain" Schneider. Unger has been shaking up the city establishment pushing to stop eminent domain abuse, open the schneider administration to more transparancy and accountability, stop the privatization of public beachfront property, and turn municipal government back to putting the people first. You folks at BLue Jersey should notice what's going on in Long Branch, where beating back conflict of interest-riddled local government is working. Unger has been bold, courageous, and thoughtful in challenging the Schneider regime and his rubber stamp council to put true democratic values first. This is the start of a real grassroots change in the city which has motivated and emboldened voters across the region.
St. Gregory's Episcopal Church here in Parsippany holds a "Films for Thought" series about once a month. At the Church last November, my wife and I finally got a chance to see "An Inconvenient Truth", after a long, busy campaign season. It was funny how most of the folks I associated with throughout the campaign, including my campaign manager, had seen the movie, and being a candidate - there was no time to even absorb a good book or even an article, let alone a good movie. In fact, Al Gore was sort of a bookend to my campaign in a sense as my first attempt to reach a group of potential supporters was to stand outside the Drew University field house with a few loyal helpers and pass out fliers about my campaign. That night at Drew - I only caught a few minutes of the tail end of his lecture - so it was great to finally see all the content so many months later.
"Films for Thought" includes a discussion by a panel of subject matter experts after the film (in that particular case only one could make it - Rich Hoffman, a local environmental scientist). When the discussion got around to possible political action/activism, Rich prefaced his comment - "Well - you're not going to see much change in the government unless we get publicly financed campaigns". My wife and I have to look at each other and chuckled loudly since it was a central theme of my campaign.
Why is it that most progressives I talk to see this as the lynch-pin of solving so much of what's wrong with government?
Voters in New Jersey's 11th congressional district need to read up on the person representing them in Washington. Rodney Frelinghuysen, someone who touts his moderate credentials, has gone off the deep end.
"Colleges and universities must do more to contain their costs, including those related to health care, insurance, and administrative and academic salaries," Frelinghuysen said. "Clearly, more must be done to address the cost crisis for those students entering college now and in the years to come."
What does Frelinghuysen mean when he says "contain the costs?"
Maybe he means cutting $12 billion in federal student-loan programs, which Rod and House Republicans did last February -- the day after they gave President Bush a standing ovation when he demanded permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. That day, they also cut from other public services like Medicare, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and more -- all in the name of containing costs.
Frelinghuysen ended up voting for the massively popular bill, as he saw that every NJ member besides Garrett voted for it (Retire Garrett will cover his votes later this week).
But his words and his prior votes beg the question, 'What does Rod Frelinghuysen know about containing costs?' He's been in Congress for 7 terms -- years that have seen a surplus deflate into a deficit. He's cut aid for the aging and widowed. He's made it harder for working families to send their kids to college. All to give the wealthy some taxes cuts and allow the President to spend hundreds of billions (likely trillions) on a war with no oversight.
Frelinghuysen has no right to lecture anyone on containing costs.
My letter to the Daily Record today (I don't know if Fred will print it - but we're going to have an interesting conversation at DL tonight)....
On Monday morning I received a call from Daily Record reporter Rob Jennings asking me for an opinion on John Wroblewski's trip to Iraq . Jennings said he was trying to get some thoughts from "the other side". I reluctantly discussed the subject saying initially that this trip was only about a father's grief, and probably best be left at that, but also added that I was not surprised that John Wroblewski supported the war. Many troops still do, and it's not surprising given the polarization of views that families of the troops can be on either side of the argument as well.
Long before I decided to compete with Congressman Frelinghuysen for his seat in the House of Representatives, I always took a great interest in his email newsletters. His first one of this 110th Congressional session was no exception. As a member of the minority - he's now faced with a new perspective and new agenda. I would imagine that someone who never disputed his reputation as a moderate, who is proud of their ability to work easily with all sides, would be quite at home with the mainstream ideas of fiscal responsibility, ethics reform, affordable healthcare, increased homeland security and the like.
It was nice to see his gracious congratulatory statement toward speaker Pelosi. However, the next item to catch my eye nearly caused my jaw to drop.
Senator Bob Menendez, reacting to the Bush/McCain extension of the NJ Army National Guard's Iraq tour.
In his address to the American people last evening, President Bush said 'where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with' him. However, the immeasurable hardships caused by this war don't rest with him - they rest with the thousands of American troops currently deployed to Iraq and those preparing for their next rotation to the region.
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11) on Bush's new plan:
I commend the President for working to change the dynamic in Iraq and for putting a new team of military leaders in place to lead that effort.
All- Morris County Once again had a successful election night for Democrats, especially considering it has by far the most registered Republicans of any county in the state.
Here are the highlights:
Senator Menendez recieved 42% of the vote in the County, only 1 point off Corzine's pace from the year before. This was absolutely amazing considering the lack of resources available to the county compared to Corzine's effort.
Progressive Democrat Tom Wyka, running on a shoestring budget, won 37% of the vote in the County against Rodney Frelinghuysen, the largest percentage for a Democrat ever. (previous record was 32% in 1996) Tom is committed to keeping the fight going against Rodney in 2008.
Dana Wefer continued making strong strides towards a freeholder seat, cutting her margin of loss from 24,000 last year to about 15,000 this year. She recieved 45% of the vote this time, improving on her 41% showing a year before.
Locally, Democrats won a variety of local elections picking up seats in Chatham Boro, Morris Township, Montville, East Hanover and Mountain Lakes. Two Democratic Mayors, one in Mount Olive and one in Victory Gardens were recalled, however, in the only Democratic losses of Dem held seats in Morris. Other Democratic Challengers lost narrowly in Butler (14) and Rockaway Boro (25) were we are awaiting recounts.
All in all, the effort to make morris blue continues to build. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months.
This is about the little campaign that could. A few months ago if you dropped into the Morristown HQ you might see 3 voluteers and Tom Wyka's wife Betty and their 2 kids stuffing envelopes. The Volunteer Canvass on the weekends looked like 30 people. There was a box of lawn signs up front, and a few stray pieces of lit in boxes.
I was in Morristown last night for the debate between Tom Wyka (D) and Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R) at Morristown High School. Wyka is challenging the congressman for his seat in the House representing the 11th District. The debate was marred by excessive civility and thoughtfulness, making it far less entertaining than, for example the widely deplored Senate campaign in New Jersey that has so many people saying "a pox on both their houses and their garden sheds".
If you read or watch television, then you know our prospects are looking good for Election Day - but you also know that the difference between a two-seat majority and a ten-seat majority in the House of Representatives will have massive implications for our ability to keep the Administration honest and start moving a more progressive agenda.
Just as important, you know - in the words of Councilman Peter Cammarano, speaking with Bob Menendez in Hoboken on Sunday - that "ground zero in the fight for the U.S. Senate is right here in New Jersey." The Republicans know they're losing seats in unlikely places like Montana and Ohio, and they're pinning a lot of hope on stealing back a New Jersey seat they haven't won in half a century.
It's about New Jersey, but it's also about America.
Democrat Tom Wyka of Parsippany lacks political experience, but the 40-year-old technology project manager speaks articulately and knowledgeably on the issues. He argues that incumbent Rodney Frelinghuysen has not lived up to his reputation as a moderate Republican, instead too often parroting the Bush administration line on the Iraq war, tax cuts that favor the rich and other major issues.
But the S/L thinks Rodney deserves to be re-elected:
Although we would like to see him show greater indepen dence from the White House and the GOP's immoderate leadership, Frelinghuysen's record justifies sending him back to Washington.
And earlier in the same editorial the S/L endorses Linda Stender:
Given the overall scorecard, we believe Stender should represent the people of the 7th District
Its nice the S/L has gotten on board, after Linda spent most of the campaign season trending upward, gaining on Ferguson every month. On the other hand there isn't a heck of a lot of difference between Mike Ferguson, Scott Garrett or Rodney Frelinghuysen. All three have voted with Delay & Bush 80%+ of the time.
What the S/L has done is to give the nod to the top 2 Democratic fundraisers challenging incumbant Republicans. I guess that seems like a safe bet. But the S/L endorsements don't jive with the facts
But in Frelinghuysen's favor, he has worked hard to get much-needed federal funding to protect land in New Jersey's Highlands and to finish lagging cleanups of Superfund toxic waste sites.
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Sure its important to protect the Highlands, but aren't we at war? Why does the S/L cite Highlands protection as the reason to return rodney to DC after his multiple failures showing not one bit of leadership on major issues facing out country and New Jersey. Additionally the S/L has no mention of Rodneys votes on Veterans issues. SOooo I went to the Disabled American Veterans web site.
Recently Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ11) agreed to debate Tom Wyka. The debate is to be held on October 27th. The Wyka campaign is awaiting further details from the League of Woman Voters. Thats great, right? Well . . . not really. It seems Rubberstamp Rodney doesn't want the debate televised, or videotaped, or audiotaped.
Rodney Frelinghuysen's mode of operation is to do a photo op in the 11th District and then go to DC & vote against whatever group he was giving lip service to. Rodney is no moderate, he votes with the Republican leadership over 80% of the time. Think rubber stamp. So... here is my video that touches on Rodneys votes that Tom Wyka has labeled the "Raid on Student Aid".
So Last night, (saturday night) was the night for deploying the Wyka SIGN BRIGADE. At the Morristown HQ we filled my dodge mini-van up with Morris Freeholder, Bob Menendez & Wyka for Congress signs. With Tom and another volunteer, we headed north on I-287 to Rt23, came back on I-287 & Headed west on Rt. 10.
On Rt10 we found a Rodney Freelinghuysen office and we of course planted a Wyka sign across the street, he he. Its now about 2am and we are approaching Morristown on I-287. Tom spies a Rodney sign at the Ridgedale Ave exit ramp, & asks me to stop. Before Tom can get out... my van was flooded with flashing lights. Time to get the paperwork out...
On October 5th, Crooks & Liars announced a campaign video contest:
Today marks the first day of a special Blue America video contest at Crooks and Liars. I'm looking for videomakers, animators and flash designers who want to be part of the Blue team and help take Congress back from the rubber stampers. Rickie Lee Jones and Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher, formerly of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, put together a campaign theme song, "Have you Had Enough." Give it a listen HERE
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