Twice Congressman Leonard Lance (R-NJ7) was given a chance to vote up or down on the economic stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama yesterday. Twice Leonard Lance chose to stand with his party instead of with his constituents in his vote.
He even wrote a piece defending his vote against the bill that was run in multiple papers, suggesting that it was a vote of honor rather than a vote of partisanship.
But now Lance is trying to have it both ways, touting his "principled" vote against spending while getting photo-ops for the papers hoping stimulus money will come to his district.
Under the terms of the stimulus plan signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama, infrastructure projects that are "shovel-ready" could be the first to be funded with economic recovery money.
That's the hope of Rep. Leonard Lance, R-Clinton Township, who toured the project's construction sites Tuesday morning with Mayor Carey Pilato, members of the Green Brook Flood Control Commission and representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the project.
"This is a classic example of a "shovel-ready' project," Lance said after the tour.
You never heard Lance say this before the stimulus vote. It would have gone against the GOP bosses position that stimulus spending was bad if Lance had suggested we should put the Green Brook Flood Control Project in the stimulus package. And going against the bosses can be bad juju for a freshman Rep.
Further proof that this was a partisan effort to take credit for a bill he voted against, Lance toured the area solely with Republican Pilato -- former staffer for Mike Ferguson -- and none of the Democratic council members from Bound Brook.
He didn't invite the Democratic Mayors of Green Brook, Manville or North Plainfield either, three towns that flooded massively in the 1973 storm that spawned the Green Brook Flood Control Project, flooded again in 1999 when Hurricane Floyd hit and gave new impetus to the effort. Manville again flooded in 1997 when the Nor'Easter hit.
No, after voting in lockstep with his party against the Democrats in the House Lance blocks out Democrats from working with him in protecting their homes and businesses from flooding.
In the State Senate Lance had a reputation for bi-partisanship and working to solve problems without being a blind party follower. In just a month as a member of Congress he's giving up that hard earned image to become another drone in the national Republican party.
UPDATE: Jay Lassiter shows us that Lance is using Facebook to pimp his wish for more stimulus dollars he voted against to come to NJ. Sheesh.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), chaired by Congressman Chris Van Hollen, today announced the DCCC is launching the second phase of the Putting Families First campaign on the economic recovery bill by running automated calls in seven targeted Republican freshman districts. The calls focus on the Republicans' out of step priorities by putting partisan politics before the needs of the jobs in their districts.
Naturally, Leonard Lance (NJ7) is one of the targets of the calls, which go something like this:
Did you know Congressman Leonard Lance voted against economic recovery that would immediately create and save nearly 106,000 New Jersey jobs?
Yes, he did not merely vote to do nothing in a crisis, as I would put it, but against recovery itself. Come to think of it, it's probably true.
Let me know what you think of the DCCC calls. Are they an important step, a waste of time, or are you just bitter that the calls would have done more good in 2006?
Radio ads targeting 28 Republican congressmen - including freshman Leonard Lance - hit the airwaves tomorrow morning, courtesy of Rep. Chris Van Hollen and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The ads call out some of vulnerable representatives who voted against President Obama's economic recovery plan, which got zero votes from House Republicans but passed anyway - 244 to 188. Credit the House's Democratic majority for that.
Lance's vote - siding with his party in a big, splashy show of unity against more responsible efforts to solve the country's problems - could absolutely have been predicted. And it's a damned shame that the same DCCC didn't see that coming and help Linda Stender drive the point home that Lance was likely to vote with the GOP against forward movement, which he now has. But I digress...
The published text of the ads is rough stuff, calling out the congressmen by name on stations that serve their Districts, and accusing each of prioritizing things DCCC thinks will resonate with voters, over needed components in the economic recovery plan. Choosing to bail out banks but opposing tax breaks for the bulk of American voters. Backing expenditures for new schools in Iraq, but failing to support the plan's spending on schools at home. Benefitting themselves from healthcare at taxpayers' expense, while children go uninsured. The ad targetting Lance and 9 of his colleagues is about job creation:
Did you know Congressman [Leonard Lance] voted against economic recovery to immediately create and save over [insert number here] [New Jersey] jobs? Times are tough, tell [Leonard Lance] to put families before politics.
Host Michael Aron sat down with Congressmen Elect John Adler and Leonard Lance for this week's On the Record. The incoming Congressmen had a discussion about the many issues the face as they head to Congress and what remains as they leave Trenton:
Adler and Lance will join their colleagues to be sworn in this Tuesday, January 6th. If you are planning to attend the festivities, please consider posting some of your pictures and stories.
Post-mortems are a sad duty in any world, in no small way because it means "after death." The death in this case are the hopes of thousands of volunteers, donors and staff to send Linda Stender to Congress to represent New Jersey's 7th Congressional District.
This has been a four year effort for many of us, starting before Linda even decided to run in 2006. It is hard for some of us because we know Linda personally and like her very much, and worked so hard and invested so much in getting her to the finish line.
In 2006 we came within 1.5 percent of the vote against a three term Republican named Mike Ferguson. It was a stunningly unexpected effort that shocked the national party which gave secondary support to the campaign while dumping millions in others where the margin was seven points or more.
In 2008 Linda lost by a little less than nine percent, a stunning defeat in a race where we saw polls putting Stender even or just behind State Senator Leonard Lance in the days before the election. It was made all the more stunning in that 2008 was a better year for Democrats than 2006, yet the Stender campaign fell far behinds its previous result.
How could that happen? Lance didn't run a great campaign. Stender had lots more money. The DCCC dropped over a million dollars into the district, while the NRCC walked away and focused on NJ3. Registration for Democrats jumped dramatically. And then there was that guy running for President who brought Democratic turnout to amazing levels. The environment couldn't have been better.
But she lost anyway.
Because, as near as we can tell, they forgot all the lessons of 2006 that got them close. Instead of building on the energy and volunteers from the previous election they brought in an entirely new team from outside the district, ignored the organizations like Democracy for America that supported Stender in 2006, and blew off local expertise in favor of a cookie-cutter campaign.
Many people projected that Somerset County and the NJ7 would go blue as part of the Obama wave. It didn't happen...not even close. Why? How did the Freeholder and NJ7 campaigns go so wrong? Or is this "As Good As It Gets?"
In Republican Counties (see useful table below the fold to see where your county sits in the rank), I think there has been too much focus on county-wide, Legislative, and Congressional campaigns. These county and regional campaigns just don't seem to be winable...not yet. I feel that the focus should be on municipal success. We need to build strong Democratic Municipal Committees (DMCs). Strong DMCs can do grassroots education to make voters understand the importance of local, county, and congressional government positions. And a strong DMC is vital for building the resumes and experience of candidates at the higher levels. We need to crawl before we can walk.
UPDATE: John McCain concedes. Will Obama make him Secretary of Defense?
UPDATE: Stender concedes in NJ7.
I will be heading over to the Shulman victory party in a bit, and am also live blogging the NJ-3, NJ-5 and NJ-7 results at Daily Kos, but consider this the live results thread.
Polls obviously close at 8PM, and we will post results as we get them in. There are other Blue Jersey front pagers who are at the Adler and Stender camps, so hopefully they will be checking in as well (and feel free to edit this with any info that comes in as well).
I spent the day canvassing in Glen Rock after voting at 7AM, and it was bee-you-tee-ful outside.
How was your day?
OK--so there isn't now is wireless here, and I am plugged in, so the updates may not be as quick as I would like. Other front pagers - please add what you can if you can.
UPDATE: MSNBC calls it for Lautenberg. Let's guess if he wins by more than 20%.
UPDATE (NJ-3): With 58% reporting, Adler has cut into Myers' lead, which is now 53% - 47%. Adler wins, Myers concedes. NJ delegation now 8-5.
UPDATE (NJ-5): It doesn't look good for Dennis. With 89% of Bergen reporting and none from Sussex, Garrett is up by 6% in Bergen and by 10% overall. Race called for Garrett. Dennis now giving concession speech - but it is a helluva speech. I am very proud to have been involved with this campaign and a shout out to Dennis and Jeff Hauser for all they did and stood for.
UPDATE (NJ-7): With 52% 63% in, it is still 52-41%, Lance leading. Word from local campaign offices (not Stender's, but other campaigns) is that things are not looking good.
Promoted by Jason Springer: I voted for Kendy's future today.
My daughter was born on July 2, 2004. I was running for Somerset County Freeholder that year on a ticket with John Kerry and John Edwards for President and the first election after her birth was on November 2, 2004 -- her four month birthday. We took a picture or two to commemorate. The first is her at the polling location in North Plainfield, NJ and the other is Kendy in a Rudy for Freeholder onesie and her beautiful mother Maureen at the staging place for our GOTV effort.
That night we lost. I knew I was going to lose, but I thought John Kerry would be my next President. Instead Bush won, and my daughter had to spend the first four years of her life living under that ... man.
Obama should win with little difficulty in this reliably Democratic state, but two House seats are tossups, and a third is a potential upset. In the 3rd District, GOP Rep. H. James Saxton is retiring after 12 terms, but Democratic challenger John Adler, a state senator from Cherry Hill, has strong party backing and has assembled one of the best field organizations in the country against Chris Myers, a Lockheed Martin executive and Republican mayor of Medford.
The 7th District, also a GOP-created vacancy, had been viewed as friendlier to Republicans, but Democratic state legislator Linda Stender has proven a tough competitor against state Sen. Leonard Lance. Republicans are less worried about, but still distracted by, the 5th District race, featuring Dennis Shulman, a blind rabbi endorsed by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), against GOP Rep. Scott Garrett. Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg is expected to win easily over former congressman Dick Zimmer.
Lets hope that field organization pulls Adler across the finish line in NJ-3 and the Republicans are so distracted by the Shulman campaign in the 5th, they lose both NJ-5 and NJ-7. Best of luck to all of our campaigns.
Use this handy-dandy form to post your winners in the NJ races. Winner gets $7 in monopoly money from the old set in their closest. Mine are after the jump.
So the question is did Chuck Todd forget Dennis Shulman, or is he seeing things the rest of us don't. Maybe he expects that the DCCC gave up on Adler and Stender will lose and we'll see the first blind rabbi in the House.
The Garden State is starting to act like its old self again. Even in a good Republican year, the state leans Democratic and that seems to be the case again. In another year, I could make the case that Republicans would have a shot at knocking off Sen. Frank Lautenberg, but not this year. Down the ballot, the Democrats are trying to pick off two House seats. If they win them both (my guess is they only win one), it'll leave the Republicans with just three of the state's 10 House districts, a real low point for a once proud state Republican Party.
Todd thinks Democrats are only trying to pick off two House seats, when many of us are looking at three. True, we have our concerns and questions about some of the campaigns and the DCCC, but we are all still hopeful that we will pick up all three seats.
There are a lot of people in New Jersey, Democrats in New Jersey, who are invested in all three campaigns. We've donated time, we've donated money, we've donated promotion, we've donated heart.
In short, folks here at Blue Jersey and in New Jersey have fought hard for these races. And folks like Chuck Todd should stop pretending that the national and state parties are "Democrats". "Democrats" is far bigger than the operational structures, and the Democrats are fighting for three seats.
With less than a week to go until Election Day, all of us here at the Linda Stender campaign are excited to kick off our Change Express tour across the 7th District, which will include a very special visit from President Bill Clinton!
Starting October 29th, Linda has been barnstorming a bunch of train stops across the 7th to share her message of change. Due to high gas prices, more people than ever are taking mass transit to get to work, yet many of New Jersey's citizens have lost their jobs due to the recent economic crisis. And, President Clinton is coming to New Jersey to help send Linda Stender to Congress to fight for the change we need. After eight years of failed Bush policies, we need strong Democrats like Barack Obama and Linda Stender in Washington to fight for middle class families.
Linda with Governor Dick Codey and the staff of the Reo Diner in Woodbridge!
Here are some of the next few scheduled stops on the tour!
Tewksbury Candidate Forum Thursday, October 30th
7PM to 8:00PM
Old Turnpike School
171 Old Turnpike Road
Califon
Meet n' greet at Bound Brook Train Stop Friday, October 31st
6:30AM to 7:30AM
Bound Brook
Rally for Change with President Bill Clinton Saturday, November 1st
12:30 PM
Union County College
Commons Area
1033 Springfield Avenue
Cranford
Free tickets are available at the following locations:
Campaign HQ 256 South Ave
Fanwood
Somerset Victory '08 1910 Washington Valley Rd
Martinsville
Hunterdon Dem HQ 155 Main Street
Flemington
Middlesex Dem HQ 231 Bridge St, Bldg F
Metuchen
(Parking space is limited for this event, so we encourage all that plan to attend to please carpool!)
Linda cares passionately about the issues affecting New Jersey's middle class families, and she would love to hear from you. You can either stop by the stations listed above, or you can visit our website to find out where Linda will be next!
With the final week before Election Day ahead of us, Linda needs your help more than ever! We are pulling out all the stops, and we look forward to working with you help get out the vote until you enter the voting booth! You can sign up to volunteer here to make calls and knock on doors until Tuesday, November 4th! Any time you can give will make a huge difference on Election Day.
Today, Linda Stender announced President Bill Clinton will headline a "Rally for Change" for her campaign this Saturday, November 1. The rally will support the entire New Jersey Democratic ticket and her campaign for Congress in New Jersey's 7th District.
WHAT: Rally for Change with Linda Stender and special guest President Bill Clinton
WHERE: Union County College
Commons Area
1033 Springfield Avenue
Cranford
WHEN: 12:30 PM
If you have the opportunity to go, please consider posting about your experiences here at Blue Jersey.
Linda Stender commented on the strategy of her opponent and independent groups to use rhymes and songs against her saying they insult the voters of the 7th Congressional District, but did find a silver lining:
"I'm very popular amongst the third grade set because of the nursery rhyme nature of the campaign that's been run. The kids are always happy to see me, because they know the ads,"
3rd District: The race in this district from the Camden suburbs into rural Burlington County is for an open seat. State Senator John Adler is a thoughtful, moderate Democrat who has helped ban smoking and curb predatory lending. The Republican is Chris Myers, the mayor of Medford Township who has held executive positions at Lockheed Martin. Mr. Myers has a businessman's view of what needs to be done in Washington. Mr. Adler would focus more on the middle class, including tax relief. We endorse John Adler.
5th District: Residents in this stretch from northeast Bergen County to rural northwestern New Jersey are represented by Scott Garrett, one of the most conservative members of Congress. Mr. Garrett supports constitutional amendments to ban abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. He backs President Bush?s tax cuts for the wealthy and limited aid for the poor.
We endorse Dennis Shulman, a Democrat who is a rabbi and psychologist. Mr. Shulman says he would work to mitigate global warming. He would also take an interest in psychological counseling and educational opportunities for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
7th District: In the race for the open seat in this central state region, Republican Leonard Lance and Democrat Linda Stender are both excellent candidates.
Mr. Lance has a fine record in the State Senate, where as Republican leader he won praise from both parties for his fiscal conservatism and his thoughtful views on social issues. Ms. Stender is a progressive Democrat who would make a worthy member of Congress. But Mr. Lance's leadership qualities and his voice of moderation are needed now in Congress and in the Republican Party. We endorse Leonard Lance.
We know very little about what is happening on the ground in our Congressional Races because there are only a few scientific polls of public opinion. The media outlets that deserve praise are Gannett New Jersey, The Press of Atlantic City, and Daily Kos. Not a single local TV station has sponsored a poll in these exciting races, once again demonstrating our sad situation as the unwanted stepchild of New York and Philadelphia. We also have a handful of internal polls from the DCCC and RNCC which should be taken with a grain of salt, because they only release polls that "look good." Also, the polls are typically only 400 likely voters, so the margin of error (MoE) is large.
Incumbent Republican Scott Garrett is below 50%, always a bad sign for someone who should be well known, and challenger Dennis Shulman has gained six points in a month according to today's poll. Can he gain more by election day and pull off the upset? It's definitely possible.
Democrat John Adler has a lead according to the DCCC in the NJ3 open race, but what's striking here is that everyone is way below 50%. The public polls pointed toward Adler being slightly behind, but they're quite old now. Anyone can still win this race.
NJ3: Adler 43 Myers 35 MoE: 5% 10/15-10/16 DCCC
NJ3: Adler 38 Myers 34 MoE 4.9% 10/2-10/3 DCCC
NJ3: Adler 41 Myers 44. MoE: 4.7% 9/30-10/2 Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey
NJ3: Adler 37.1 Myers 38.5 MoE: 5% 9/18-9/20 Zogby for Press of Atlantic City and Stockton College
NJ3: Adler 29 Myers 33 MoE: 5.7% 9/8-9/9 McLaughlin Associates for Myers and RNCC
In the other open seat race, polling shows both Democrat Linda Stender and Republican Leonard Lance way below 50%, so anyone can win. Once again, the Democrats have recent evidence that Stender is ahead, but the older public poll is less encouraging.
Finally, a poll shows that incumbent Republican Frank LoBiondo once again winning big (unless something has happened in the last month.)
NJ2: Kurkowski 26 LoBiondo 62 MoE: 5% 9/18-9/20 Zogby for Press of Atlantic City and Stockton College
My Conclusion: If you have a chance to donate or volunteer for Adler, Shulman, or Stender you can really make a difference. We know that the undecideds will determine the winner of all three races.
I am asking you to take Election Day off from work and come to Somerset County to make this election as painful as possible for the Republican bosses. We can win this county for Barack Obama and put some serious dents in the Republican hold here.
Just last month Somerset's registration advantage moved from the GOP to the Democrats, we have awesome candidates for Freeholder in Doug Singleterry and Cecilia Xie Birge, have four different Congressional races (Pallone, Holt, Wyka and Stender), and candidates running in just about every town. This is an opportunity we haven't seen in a long time, and we need your help to make it happen.
We will be working out of Bridgewater (Martinsville), Hillsborough, Montgomery and maybe one other town but our goal is to reach every single district in the county at least once. We need you to give us a few hours to make this happen.
This is an amazing opportunity to put NJ7 in the Democrats' pocket, elect Democratic Freeholders in Somerset for the first time since 1979, take some of the wind out of Rodney Frelinghuysen, and win control of at least four towns.
We need challengers at the polls, van drivers for our volunteers, people to go door-to-door to our voters reminding them to get to the polls, and others to staff the staging areas. Anyone 16 years or older can volunteer on election day and make a real difference.
If you can give us one, two, three, four or eight hours on election day, please give me a call at (908) 561-6387 or e-mail me at nathanrudy@gmail.com .
If you can't come to Somerset, please be sure to volunteer in your home town or county. The more workers we have the more votes we'll get!
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