Contested statewide Democratic primary elections do not happen very often here in New Jersey. Since I started paying close attention to New Jersey politics in 1997, there have only been four seriously contested statewide Democratic primary elections. In 1997, then-Woodbridge Mayor Jim McGreevey defeated Congressman Rob Andrews and Morris County Prosecutor Michael Murphy for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. In 2000, Jon Corzine bought more votes than his senatorial opponent, former Governor Jim Florio, was able to earn. In February 2008, Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama in the Presidential primary election. In June of that year, Andrews lost his second statewide primary election when he challenged the incumbent U.S. Senator, Frank Lautenberg.
It appears as if we will have a hotly contested Democratic gubernatorial primary election in 2013. The most likely candidates at the moment are State Senators Barbara Buono, Dick Codey, and Steve Sweeney. It is possible that other candidates could come out of the woodwork over the next year or so, but for the sake of this discussion, the names are less important than the questions that the current political dynamic in the state, which has Democratic Party bosses, including but not limited to Steve Adubato and George Norcross, closely aligned with Republican Governor Chris Christie, raises about how serious these bosses are about defeating Christie.
These bosses and their acolytes in the State legislature have enabled Christie to get more of his agenda passed than our last Democratic Governor, Corzine, and have never even come close to a government shutdown like the one which occurred as a result of the conflict between Corzine and then-Assembly Speaker, Joe Roberts, a Norcross minion, over whether the state sales tax should be increased, and if so, how the additional revenue should be spent. So it stands to reason that Adubato, Norcross et al would probably prefer to have one of their own (Steve Sweeney being the most likely candidate, but Assemblyman Louis Greenwald is another possibility) as Governor than Christie, but in lieu of that, it would not be safe to assume that they would prefer someone else, like Buono or Codey, over Christie.
The Courier-Post's opinion editor Mike Daniels ran a recent Sunday feature citing folks, "who closely follow state politics to give us their take -- who they think might vie for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, and what advice they would give the candidates."
I am excited to hear how'd you'd answer. Meantime, here was my take:
"My short list includes Sweeney, Buono and Booker at this point. If the election were tomorrow I think a Sweeney/Buono ticket seems most plausable, given the state's machine-driven dynamics which don't favor Booker at the moment. A Rob Andrews/Loretta Weinberg ticket is my fantasy pick."
My recommendations for the Democrats who throw their hat in against Christie: (below)
Many members of the BlueJersey community have had a hard time forgiving Congressman Rob Andrews for his vote to authorize war in Iraq. In this video he discusses how that mistake drives him to ask the toughest questions about what's going on in Libya.
I arrived at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden in plenty of time to cover the annual meeting of the Greater Camden Partnership. The event staff showed me to the large ballroom with auditorium seating for the over 400 movers and shakers who would be attending. I set up my video camera on the left side of the room, against what I thought was a wall, near the podium.
Shortly after that, one of the aquarium staff walked by and pressed a button. The "wall" behind me turned out to be a heavy curtain, and it started to rise. Behind the curtain, I was face-to-face with a 500 pound shark along with dozens of other sea creatures in a 550,000 gallon aquarium. All that was separating me from the sharks and a watery deluge was a pane of glass.
"It's hard to take them seriously until they look at the other two-thirds of the budget."
--Congressman Rob Andrews (D-Haddon Heights) on the Republican ruse to tinker with the deficit.
I'll spare you the boring background since it's so well-established that when the new GOP House majority starts prattling about fiscal (anything) they are totally full of shit.
That said, this article from today's BurlCo Times shows that at least one NJ Congressman is perfectly comfortable busting their balls for it.
Bob Menendez: Banking (chairs the Housing, Transportation, and Community Development subcommittee); Energy and Natural Resources; Finance; Foreign Relations (chairs the International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection subcommittee)
Frank Lautenberg: Appropriations (chairs the Homeland Security subcommittee); Commerce, Science and Transportation (chairs the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security subcommittee); and Environment and Public Works (chairs the Superfund, Toxics, and Environmental Health, Chair subcommittee)
Soft statements by two members of the NJ Democratic congressional delegation - Rep. Rob Andrews & Rep. Steve Rothman - have been picked up for use in a press release from Gov. Christie's front office trumpeting Bipartisan Support For Governor Chris Christie's Challenge To Federal Transit Administration. And in fact, the congressmen's presence in the release (2 among a dozen people quoted) is the only reason Christie can claim that bi-partisanship in his release. Yes, their statements were lifted (and attributed) from quotes they gave to newspapers. My question is: Why, if you're Andrews or Rothman, utter such neutralizing statements at all? Where's the outrage? Where's the rectitude? The proper response to Christie's attempt to weasel out of New Jersey paying back the $271 million we owe the federal government now is disgust at NJ trying to cheat the nation's taxpayers, is resentment and conflict of interest questions that he'll do it at $485/hour with politically connected out-of-state firm Patton Boggs that's also repping the Republicans in the coming redistricting, is at least some anger that this governor is making pound-foolish decisions that are costing more money while his team builds him a legacy crafted to make it look like he's saving us money.
Responsibility is an easy thing to recommend to others, but taking responsibility sometimes requires sacrifice and resolve. Personal responsibility is an easy thing to preach; taking personal responsibility for your actions and those you make for the people you govern is harder, and it's something Gov. Christie has not shown an inclination to do. Responsibility is more than smackdowns, legacy-building and dominating a room. It's the harder stuff of grownups.
Gov. Christie pulled the plug on a massive infrastructural project, ARC Tunnel, more than a decade in development, billions invested, an agreement meant to span over the arc of whoever was governor, between New Jersey, New York, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, and the workers and people of the region.
Fine. It's done. Governor had his reasons, which I don't agree with at all. But he's governor. He's the decider. But what goes along with a decision of this magnitude is consequences. The governor knew going into this decision what those consequences were, and chief among them was the responsibility to pay back the federal government for resources it laid out on our say-so, on our promise we were committed. We might get out of this - via skillful lawyering, and settlement of a bad debt - but the fact is, if we do it will be good but it won't be right. We owe the nation's taxpayers their outlay back. We owe. Congressmen Andrews and Rothman could have done better talking to the press, they unwittingly allowed the Governor's front office to pull quotes that legitimately give the press the impression key Democrats stand behind Christie, his tunnel bungle, and his efforts to slide away from the consequences.
Entire press release - with Rothman and Andrews quotes prominent placed near the top, of course by Christie's front office - after the jump.
At the exact instant I sat reading about Congressman Albio Sires calling for Nancy Pelosi's ouster as Dem leader in the next Congress, my Blackberry lit up with a press release from Congressman Rob Andrews who's still got Speaker Pelosi's back. Andrews:
"I am strongly supporting Nancy Pelosi for Democratic Leader. As Speaker, she has proven to be a strong leader in tumultuous times. She is a consensus builder who listens to and respects all sides. While she has the skills necessary to find common ground for the American people, I am confident that under her leadership we will never abandon our principles. We will build on our record of landmark healthcare reform, a reduction in taxes for 95 percent of the American people and a strong financial reform bill.
In the 112th Congress, we need strong leadership to continue these efforts to improve our country and revitalize our economy. I believe Speaker Pelosi is the right person to continue to lead our party and, therefore, support her run for Minority Leader."
I am torn about Pelosi and in the end I'm not change-averse on this one. It's an open thread, BlueJersey. What's your take?
Rob Andrews (D) leads Dale Glading (R) 63.4% to 21.9%.
Frank LoBiondo (R) leads Gary Stein (D) 57.3% to 20.0%
Note that there are demographic numbers (party, age, race, education) included in the PDFs and you can see the district-level favoriability of the Representatives, President Obama and Governor Christie. Obama is over 50% (if barely) in all three districts. "Christie's decision to promote Atlantic City" does well in all districts but best in NJ2, which (gasp) includes Atlantic City. In other results, I trust no one is surprised that voters think "jobs and economy" is the top issue.
Now for the big race: Adler (37.1%) trails Runyan (40.3%), the first time I have seen that result. These seem like low percentages so late in the election, but note the 4.1% margin of error is larger than the difference. Runyan is at 48% favorable so any Adler attack ads have not been effective enough. Zogby says more Republicans than Democrats will vote in this race.
DeStefano (Tea Party) still draws in 4.9%. Almost half (37%) of those voters would switch to Runyan if "they learned the New Jersey Tea Party endorsed Jon Runyan and not Peter DeStefano." Half (48%) would switch if told ("they learned that the Democrats recruited DeStefano in order to hurt Runyan's chances for election." I'd like to hear more from the 4 DeStafano voters who would then switch to Adler! Small number statistics to be sure but you can see why those Democratic operatives wanted DeStafeno on the ballot and Republicans want to play up the story as much as possible. The poll was taken 10/18 to 10/22 so there's a real possibility the DeStefano voters have learned the story since the poll was taken.
If LGBT rights matter to you, you might wanna check out this website to see how your Congressman stacks up in the fight for gay rights.
I am in NJ's 3rd Congressional district where freshman Congressman John Adler turns in an impressive score of 92%. Looks like Adler gets an A in this class.
There's a Facebook group called "NJ Against Chris Christie" which has over 38,000 members. Some of the discourse there is childish, using epithets and taunts. Yet, there's also a considerable amount of rational discussion about the governor's performance, his cronyism, and his overly simplistic solutions to complex problems. Often, it is pointed out that New Jersey election law allows a recall petition to be initiated one year following a gubernatorial election, and there's lots of talk about doing so.
As I explained in an earlier post, this is a bad idea. (find out why below the fold)
I really wish the Democrats would have pushed the frame of healthcare as a cut to the tax everyone pays with coverage for those that get treatment without. People who have healthcare don't necessarily care about people who don't as we've seen throughout this debate. But they definitely care about paying less for the healthcare they have and cutting the uninsured tax which is built into everyone's premiums would be a great start. Rob Andrews alludes to the issue at the end of a recent interview with Salon:
The political issue is not simply the uninsured. It's how the cost of the uninsured affects those with insurance. The 95 percent of voters or whatever it is who have health insurance are paying much higher premiums because they are already paying for the uninsured in their premiums, their taxes. So this is really all about how to reduce the premiums of insured people.
CUTTING THE UNINSURED TAX. I don't understand why we always cede the tax cut frame. The question is what taxes do you cut and for whom. Whether they know or not, those Americans with insurance are already paying for those without it in a hidden tax. The cold hearted are short-sighted.
The ongoing saga of the Delaware River dredging project will continue this week as there will be a press conference tomorrow and further movement later in the week:
With a Delaware River deepening project set to start next week, some of the project's top critics -- including Gov. Chris Christie -- have scheduled a press conference on Gloucester County's waterfront on Monday.
Christie and U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, D-Haddon Heights, are among officials expected at the 12:15 p.m. event at Red Bank Battlefield in National Park.
The players: President Obama, Vice-President Obama, and members of the House & Senate from both parties, including Rep. Rob Andrews, who chairs the House Education and Labor subcommittee on health.
The Location: Blair House, across the street from the White House, significantly at the President's end of the national Mall.
Interesting analysis of what the President's after today, from Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic.
Donor information for all the speakers is at Sunlight Foundation (info changes depending on who's at the microphone - turn off the sound at their site, if you're listening to our stream here).
Meeting started 10am, but I just grabbed the feed. Click the arrow to go LIVE.
Andrews, chairman of a health subcommittee of the Education and Labor Committee, is not a fan of the excise tax that's included in the Senate version of the bill and in President Obama's plan he outlined yesterday.
Information about the meeting, and the President's proposal, is at WhiteHouse.gov. The discussion might be interesting and I will try to watch it live Thursday 10AM. It will be streamed online.
As a practical matter, here are the possibilities Democrats face that don't involve completely craven surrender, and you should keep them in mind as the pundits and politicians talk:
A. Pass a comprehensive bill through the House (217 votes) and Senate (51 votes, but 60 to beat the filibuster first), whether starting over or by modifying the existing bills after conference committee.
B. The House passes last December's Senate bill with 217 votes. Not one word could be changed.
C. Pass health reforms that are budget-related through reconciliation, meaning 51 Senate votes (no filibuster) plus 217 House votes.
D. The House and Senate pass a series of smaller bills, each with 217 + 60/51 votes and lots of time used up in the Senate.
Option A seems highly unlikely, since 2009 was already wasted looking for Snowe's vote and a Democrat vote was lost, so we're into Options B+C. Pass the Senate bill (B), and "fix" it (excise tax, cough, cough) via reconciliation (C.) Some elements of Option D may also happen, for example, we're supposed to see a House vote on repealing the health insurance industry's anti-trust exemption.
Congressman Rob Andrews appeared On the Record with Greta Van Susteren last night on Fox to talk about what's next in the healthcare debate.
Andrews seemed to take the election result in Massachusetts as a statement on the healthcare bill, but it does seem like there were additional factors at play including the fact they already have healthcare in Massachusetts.
The Congressman said he thought there were going to be changes in the bill. He specifically called out "the Nebraska provision" saying it should go and he can't support a bill that includes it. He also called out the "Louisiana purchase" as something else that should come out of the bill.
He also talked about the poor job that has been done in explaining what is actually in the bill. He says if they do a better job of explaining, they can find that consensus point, but you have to wonder how all of a sudden they will turn things around and better explain the benefits of the bill.
3rd district GOP Assembly candidate Lee Lucas, whose "survival of the fittest" letters to local newspapers made him controversial in Republican circles to begin with, and whose alleged use of a racial slur to a neighbor during a dispute, quoted in a 2006 police report, made him persona-non-grata and forced party leaders to publicly renounce him, said in a phone interview that he plans to run for office again, starting with seeking the party's nomination against U.S. Rep. Andrews in 2010.
"I'm running for congress, running for assembly. I'm running for something every year. I'll never stop," said Lucas, who denied the police report's quote of his racial slur but said that it did not hurt his candidacy.
I'm sure there are Democrats who wish he never stops running either.
President Obama took a trip to Capitol Hill on Saturday afternoon before the healthcare vote to rally hesitant House democrats to support the bill and according to Congressman Andrews, it worked:
Many in the room credited Obama with swaying the last of the fence sitters. "A few members that were leaning no told me afterward that they'd been moved to vote yes," Representative Rob Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat, told reporters after the meeting.
With how close the vote was, they needed every pep talk they could get. If those few that were leaning no remained in opposition, we would have had a completely different story. The President may want to pencil in time to motivate and hold hands when the reconciled bill comes back to the House eventually.
Congressman Andrews, Senator Sweeney and the head of the Postal Workers Union held a press conference late last week to call for more information into the proposed closure of the Swedesboro Priority Mail facility that employs nearly 600 employees. They said that the USPS alleges that the closure is necessary for cost-savings purposes, but that they don't give a specific, detailed breakdown of the findings and that the Postal Service is withholding information from the public:
In a letter sent today to Postmaster General John E. Potter, Congressman Andrews insisted that the United States Postal Service fulfill its duty to provide detailed information justifying their decision to close a Swedesboro Priority Mail facility. Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), the Postal Service must disclose any information relating to cost savings that result from closing a logistics facility like the Philadelphia Logistics & Distribution Center (L&DC). Furthermore, Congressman Andrews indicated that the USPS is obligated under its collective bargaining agreement to publically disclose information that directly relates to the "wages, hours or working conditions" of Union employees. Yet, to date, the Postal Service has provided only baseless claims that the closure will save money, failing to provide the required factual basis for their conclusions.
Here's what the Congressman had to say:
"The hundreds of displaced workers deserve a clear and detailed explanation behind the post office's decision to close the plant. Simply asserting that our economic crisis is the reason behind the cutbacks is not enough," said Congressman Andrews. "If the Postal Service has a legitimate reason to close the facility, they should prove it. We are saying prove it and if the USPS is confident in their rationale then what's the harm?"
And Senator Sweeney took his turn:
"The arrogance of the Postal Service to close the facility without even notifying the public at the outset of their plan is just unacceptable," said Senator Sweeney. "The Postal Service is supposed to be accountable to the public, so we challenge them to show us that their math is correct and that this plan will actually save money."
It remains to be seen whether they can get the information they are seeking.
Let me preface this conversation by stating that I supported Senator Frank Lautenberg's re-election campaign during both the primary and general elections last year, but...
1) ...after seeing him speak in public numerous times at a dramatically reduced level of performance than in the past...
...and...
2) ...after last week's gubernatorial election results...
...and...
3) ...assuming that the aspiring Governors that are currently serving in the State Senate and State Assembly are not going to be willing to rescind the power that the Governor currently has to fill vacated U.S. Senate seats, I think that Democratic Party leaders, electeds, and rank-and-file members should reach out en masse to Senator Frank Lautenberg and ask him to resign his seat.
