In what constitutes an article by Politico's standards, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's recent tantrum, which some have described as an audition for the VP slot with the seemingly inevitable Republican Presidential nominee (unless one of the other six candidates not named Herman Cain and hopefully named Michele Bachmann have something to say about it), Mitt Romney, about President Barack Obama's so-called failure to lead the so-called supercommittee to reach a deal on our country's budget deficit, was basically reprinted for public consumption, including Christie calling Obama "a bystander in the Oval Office" and asking him "What the hell are we paying you for?". His tirade goes further to say the following:
"In New Jersey, the reason [problems got solved] is because I called people into the room and said we're going to solve this problem and I had people of good will on the other side who said they believed it was their obligation, regardless of party, to get done things like pension and benefit reform," the governor said, adding, "Why the president of the United States refuses to do this is astonishing to me."
As obnoxious as Christie's entire tirade was, what bothered me most about the "article" was his stenographer's unwillingness or inability to compare and contrast the political dynamic here in New Jersey with what is going on in Washington and recognize that both are broken for very different reasons.
In Washington, there is a Republican minority in the Senate that can bring our entire government to a standstill by filibustering everything that comes before them and a majority in the House that passes legislation that is so extreme that there is no chance that it would ever survive a Senate committee much less get a vote in the Senate.
Meanwhile, in Trenton, we have Democratic "leadership" that is bought and paid for by party bosses who have more in common with our state's Republican Governor than our party's rank-and-file. As a result, we have a facade of bipartisanship presented to the general public and the lazy mass media, where the storyline is always that Christie presents an initiative in its purest, right-wing form, the Democratic leadership presents a modicum of resistance, making a little bit of noise in the process, Christie scales his initiative back slightly, and the Democratic leadership claims victory, delivers the votes needed for Christie's initiative to pass, while everyone else votes against it, lamenting its passage, while retaining the "high road" even though most, if not all of them, elected and recently re-elected the leadership that continues to enable Christie on each and every issue, while he crows about all of his "bipartisan" successes.
So who are the real bystanders? To be fair, I think that President Obama failed our country, once again, this summer when he refused to heed former President Bill Clinton's advice and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling on constitutional grounds and let the fight go from there. It was not as if the latest in what seems like an endless string of compromises earned him any more good will with the Republicans in Washington, who continue to block him on everything that he tries to do, than every other compromise before it.
But Obama's willingness to capitulate to Republicans on every issue pales in comparison to what we have seen from the Democrats in Trenton who went so far as to let the Republican minority write the first budget that they would pass without even considering for a moment the possibility of a government shutdown like the one which took place when they could not reach an accord with then-Democratic Governor Jon "MF Global Clusterfuck" Corzine on their first budget. The pen/ben debacle was only the latest in an almost equally long string of capitulations that started before Christie was even sworn in as Governor, when 9 Democrats did not vote for marriage equality legislation that could have passed and been signed into law by Governor Clusterfuck (kudos to Rosi for making it not only acceptable, but cool, to use a word like clusterfuck in political discourse - this is second only to the omnipresence of the phrase "batshit crazy" that people like the aforementioned Congresswoman Bachmann have inspired).
On June 3, 2009, Chris Christie defeated Steve Lonegan in the Republican gubernatorial primary election with 184,085 votes to Lonegan's 140,946 votes. On this same day, Jon Corzine, who ran for re-election virtually unopposed (yes, there were other Democrats on the ballot, but none represented a credible primary challenge) received 154,448 votes.
I think that it is reasonable to argue that most, if not all, of the 150K+ voters who went to the polls on this day to vote for Jon Corzine wanted him to win re-election in November as well. If I am right about this, then I think that it is also reasonable to argue that these voters would have improved the chances of achieving their desired outcome if they had cast their votes for Steve Lonegan and not Jon Corzine.
Regardless of how unpopular Corzine might have been at the time, Christie won in 2009, because he did well with independent voters. I defy anyone to argue that a far-right-wing gadfly like Lonegan would have performed nearly as well with these voters. While it is conceivable that many more independents would have voted for the independent candidate, Chris Daggett in November if Lonegan would have been the GOP nominee, I do not believe that he would have received enough votes to win or tip the election to Lonegan.
So if you accept my premise that 45,000 Democratic votes for Lonegan instead of Corzine in June 2009 would have done more to help Corzine win in November 2009, please continue to below the fold so that we can talk more about what this premise could and should mean for progressive activism in the future.
Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine has ended his neutrality and chosen sides in the ongoing war between various tea party groups and their respective supportive bloggers on the internet.
Now it's gotten to the point where TParty standard bearers like Steve Lonegan are getting hit by stray pies in the escalating political food fight. A real casualty is uberwingnut Mike Doherty, who may have some cracks in his base to take on Joe Kyrillos for US Senate next year. If Doherty has any realistic chance to beat Kyrillos he needs the TNuts totally united behind his candidacy, and right now that'as not happening.
Tonight, the Sierra Club's Jeff Tittel and Americans for Prosperity's Steve Lonegan are debating the merits of New Jersey's (soon to be non-) participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. I'll be there, but I thought I'd post the live stream for those interested who can't make it.
The debate is scheduled for 7p, but if it hasn't quite started yet, you probaby have time to check out a description of the event, and extensive links with background information on RGGI, Click Here. Then, sit back, relax, and enjoy the fireworks:
Remember RGGI? That's the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative - the first real effort nationally to implement a "cap and trade" system in an effort to use market forces to reduce greenhouse gases. By most accounts, the program has been a success, raising hundreds of millions of dollars, while reducing carbon emissions, in ten northeastern states controlled by both democrats and republicans.
It really didn't seem too controversial in the Garden State, until this Spring, when Gov. Christie pulled NJ out of the program, a move most observers called pandering to a right-wing national audience, and which infuriated environmental groups. It got even more controversial when Democratic Sen. Paul Sarlo showed up for a press conference with "Americans for Prosperity" chief, Steve Lonegan, to announce his opposition to RGGI as well. Sarlo was soon followed by Sen. Nick Sacco and Sen. Jeff Van Drew in supporting the Christie move.
This prompted Sen. Barbara Buono (hey, why didn't they poll her against Christie the other day?) to write a post here on Blue Jersey calling out what she saw as a huge mistake, and other democrats in the Senate and Assembly to propose blocking Christie's move. Obviously, divisions within the party had begun, even before all the allegations about "fake democrats" and "Christiecrats" caught fire during the pension and budget battles.
Confused yet? I confess, I could use some education on the subject. So, I'm looking forward to next Wednesday's forum: Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: Asset or Liability for New Jersey?, featuring none other than AFP's Steve Lonegan and the Sierra Club's Jeff Tittel. (Professor Alain L. Sanders, a member of the Political Science Department of St. Peter's College, will moderate the discussion.)
It's next Wednesday, July 27, 2011 from 7 to 9pm at the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, 687 Larch Ave, Teaneck, NJ, presented by Bergen Grassroots (DFA). See some of you there, and maybe just maybe we'll learn a few things - about RGGI, and about where our state is headed.
Right after celebrating and trumpeting their cutting-edge digital hackitude, Americans For Prosperity are now trying to bury some embarrassment caused by the fumblings of their NJ chapter. A blog called epolitics.com first reported on this bit of hilarity:
The New Jersey branch of Americans for Prosperity recently launched a judicial elections initiative, promoted via a press release that also touted the website "NJDisrobed.com" as a source for "information about decisions and implications on the electorate." One minor problem: no one had actually bothered to buy the URL yet, a situation that was quickly "rectified" by a liberal activist, who in turn pointed it at the Sourcewatch entry on Americans for Prosperity. Which of course lovingly details the group's funding by the conservative Koch Brothers and its work on behalf of union-busters and the tobacco industry.
Besides being a true joy to tell you about, this particular screw-up is worse than the oopsie that led to that excellent Jane Corwin parody campaign site a couple of months ago, since at least Corwin's staff had bought her OWN domain. Hey kids! Be sure to click on your link before you put it in a press release. Ah, sweet amateurs - without them, who would keep pros like us in business?
It seems that the gaffe went overlooked for a number of days before AFP realized the mistake and scrubbed the URL from their website, which now simply states that an unnamed website is forthcoming.
Well, it's official. Gov. Chris Christie has pulled the state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), handing a big gift to the right-wing base that gives governors like him the big money, like the kind that powers Americans for Prosperity, which has made dismantling the 10 Northeast state compact one of its prime objectives. That's AFP, whose New Jersey leader Steve Lonegan was Christie's GOP primary opponent for governor, whose Tea Party followers spent most of Christie's first year kvetching he wasn't conservative enough, AFP, front group for oil and coal interests, largely underwritten by the Koch Brothers, billionaires David and Charles. Kinda people rising GOP stars need. Dig it.
WTF sign is Sarlo standing behind?
Sarlo: Inclined to blame Christie alone for all this? Think again. When he became the first Democrat to support AFP's anti-RGGI efforts, Sen. Paul Sarlo gave Christie's decision some Democratic cover. Yes, that's Sarlo behind the sign: I Am AFP!
Christie's had just a craptastic week - sagging poll numbers at home (you know, where it counts), a star-turn robo-call for the GOP loser in hot race NY-26, a Supreme Court ruling that undercuts his whole education zeitgeist. Worse, even reporters who used to be dazzled by him are beginning to report on his excesses, and his whole bluster and bullshit act is beginning to wear (except, apparently in Iowa). I'm sure he wants to get you talking about something else, anything but all that.
Dummies: This is an intelligent governor who nonetheless plays to the dummy chunk of his base by going along with the claim that there's insufficient proof of human-caused global climate change (yay, let's burn fuel and make our pals richer). Rutgers scientists even gave him a quiet science lesson. Sierra Club is apoplectic, roaring out with a 1432-word press release I won't recount here (not posted at their site yet). But it makes a pretty good case that Christie's choosing to make things easier for corporate polluters and the coal industry at the expense of your health. And that it has created (or saved) jobs, cut emissions and is supported by the state's major utilities. Christie's already raided $65 million from RGGI, money meant to support clean energy programs, diverted to the budget deficit.
RGGi is a first-of-its-kind initiative, and threats to it are national enviro news. NRDC just posted this poll that shows New Jerseyans will probably think their governor's headed in the wrong direction - increasingly.
This is almost as good as a Bible thumper getting nabbed with a hooker.
Roh:
Who's the RINO now?
Steve Lonegan, New Jersey's loudest conservative agitator and 2009 GOP gubernatorial primary contender, may have inappropriately collected $2.7 million in matching public campaign funds, an investigation by progressive blogger Steve Lebowitz reveals.
First of all, what's Rick Shaftan, consultant/pollster to far-right candidates like Steve Lonegan, doing trolling at the NJ Against Chris Christie facebook group (43,000 members)? Check it out: (h/t ken bank)
Dude, what's up with the sneering? the name-calling?
Tomorrow's rally is going to be big. That's going to be bad for the conservatives, whose argument depends on pitting New Jerseyans against each other, and getting non-union workers to resent union workers. Wisconsin was evidence of a pendulum swing of ordinary people in defense of fair bargaining. That swing could happen here in Trenton tomorrow noon, even though our governor's spent a year making himself famous for propagandizing public workers. We'll see.
Don't let Shaftan plant the idea that tomorrow's rally will be anything but big, successful and peaceful. Madison was. The city-to-city rallies have been (counter-rallies, small). That's got to be a challenge for the right. They'd like nothing more than trouble to discredit us. That's why we now know from the recording made when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thought he was talking to his benefactor David Koch, that Walker considered infiltrating the peaceful rally with troublemakers, but ditched it because it might not work (not because it was wrong). The call, a prank, showed Walker up as an irresponsible, dangerous fool. In fact, Madison Police Chief Noble Wray had some serious questions for Governor Walker today. Wray:
I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers. Our department works hard dialoging with those who are exercising their First Amendment right, those from both sides of the issue, to make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure they can demonstrate safely.
This is insidious, and in-bred. Koch brothers' money got Walker elected (why he jumped at the call). Chris Christie (out of the state again) backs Walker. The Kochs bankroll Americans for Prosperity (AFP); Steve Lonegan runs it in New Jersey. Shaftan was the strategist for Lonegan's GOP primary campaign against Christie. This is all in the family. It's a family that has a lot to lose if tomorrow's rally is big, successful and peaceful. Let's make it just that.
A few days ago, we ran a purely satirical post claiming that Chris Christie was going to hold a counter-rally tomorrow at the state house, with other GOP electeds who want to turn the clock back on labor's right of collective bargaining.
Some of you took it seriously, and we had to run in and post "snark" warnings on it, just to set the record straight. Now today, we get word that there will be a counter-rally. Joey wasn't seeing into the future; it's not Christie, but the man who sits at Christie's right shoulder, telling him always that he's not right enough. Steve Lonegan, Christie's GOP primary opponent, and now NJ Director of Americans for Prosperity, a "conservative" "activist" group that is stronger in this state than almost anywhere else. I put those two terms in quote marks because AFP is not conservative, it's right-wing, and it's not activist in the way you're used to thinking; AFP is of course a front group, with massive financial backing from the Koch brothers. Same guys who put considerable power behind the election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Same guys slapped an anti-union tv ad up in that state designed to turn support back to the Governor.
Actually, as these state house and capitol building rallies spread all over the country, counter-rallies, where they've been held, have been anemic by comparison. Wonder what tomorrow will bring.
As I read this piece by Paul Mulshine and think about Chris Christie's first year in office, I really have to wonder if "conservative" Republicans like Bret Schundler are truly worse than "moderates" like Chris Christie. Obviously, a conservative like Schundler is much different than a conservative like Steve Lonegan whose positions on a range of issues are so far beyond the pale as to make him completely unelectable in a general election in most states, much less New Jersey.
When I think back to past gubernatorial primary elections, the only tangible difference that separated conservatives and moderates was their position on a woman's right to choose, but considering how unlikely it would be that a legislative majority could be found in Trenton to pass a bill banning abortion that would be signed into law by a Governor Schundlereventually find its way to the Supreme Court, which would have to take the monumental step of overturning Roe v. Wade for the law to actually go into effect, and the hardline stand that our "moderate" Governor has taken on the issue of funding family planning and women's health, I really have to wonder if there is a tangible difference between a Governor Christie and a Governor Schundler on this issue.
News of the Vice-President Governor of Alaska right-wing media darling came via Americans for Prosperity, the national conservative advocacy group which is led in New Jersey by former Governor's candidate Steve Lonegan.
Asbury Park Press is reporting Palin and the rest of the Tea Party Express will be in front of the Toms River Town Hall on Washington Street 8pm Sunday.
Anna Little is now following your tweets on Twitter. A little information about Anna Little: 2380 following. 2306 followers.
Now, while that doesn't seem to me like a really great number of Twitter "followers" for someone running for Congress. However, I really shouldn't talk. I have a mere 277 followers, and I follow 522 people. I don't know what it says about you if you are following twice as many people as are following you--I do feel kind of like a very unpopular high school geek. But, I digress.
Waaaaaay back at the beginning of the summer in June, on New Jersey Primary Day, Anna Little was outspent, out-gunned and out-media-ed by her billionaire primary opponent, Diane Gooch for the right to run against Frank Pallone for Congress in NJ-6. Gooch spent $200,574 on her campaign, more than ten times as much as Little spent, after raising $432,902. Little won the nomination on a literal shoestring budget of $19,503. So it goes.
Little, under her Twitter feed, lists the following bio:
I am a Constitutional Conservative running for Congress to beat Frank Pallone in #NJ6 and resist the progressive agenda. It's time to take our Country back!
Notice that she capitalizes the words 'constitutional' and 'conservative', and "country"---like she owns them. Like they are hers. Like she has had them trademarked and no one else can use them. I'm surprised she doesn't have a little "TM" in a circle next to each word.
However, she fails to capitalize The Words "progressive" or "agenda". Oh, she does properly capitalize the words "Frank" and "Pallone".
Before the primary way back in June, I asked AFP president Steve LonInegan for a prediction--and he correctly predicted that Little would beat Gooch. So, I offered him the following bet--which he took: if Little wins, then I write a check to AFP for $100. However, if Frank Pallone wins, then Steve writes a check for $100 to the ACLU-NJ.
And so, now I will begin to follow Anna Little on Twitter because they tell me that it's only courteous that if someone follows you, you should follow them right back.
My prediction: the ACLU of New Jersey will be $100 richer in November.
You would think that Democrats, having just lost the Governor's race, would be the ones at each other's throats, but it seems things are getting real nasty between the rightwing and extremely rightwing bloggers over at the pro-Christie "Save Jersey" blog and the pro-Lonegan "Conservatives With Attitude" (ie. "Crackpots With Agita").
Now the state's Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of Wingnut Journalism, Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine, has entered the fray with a scathing attack on Christie's cheerleaders over at Save Jersey. It seems what started it all was a blog post on Save Jersey poking fun at Lonegan's vision impairment. It escalated into a war of words and a lot of trash talk between head bloggers Matt Rooney at Save Jersey and Michael Illions at CWA. Illions, a former professional wrestler himself, knows how to put on a good show and with Mulshine in the mix this is really turning into a hardcore no-holds-barred street fight between the two biggest GOP bloggers in the state that would even make WWE CEO and Connecticut GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon turn red with embarrassment.
The bilious blowhard from Bogota issued a statement urging his followers to support GOP Assemblypersons McHose and Carroll in their opposition to Christie's budget.
However, Mike Doherty sold out yesterday after a meeting with Christie, and indications are Carroll might cave-in as well. The only one left standing, it seems, is McHose.
The Governor and members of the GOP keep saying, and the mainstream media keeps repeating that Chris Christie won't sign a budget that raises taxes. But even Steve Lonegan knows that's a bunch of nonsense. Check out this quote about what Governor Christie is really doing:
"The idea that this Governor is cutting taxes and spending is a complete myth. New Jersey taxpayers are facing a massive $2.56B tax hike which is a direct result of this Governor's reckless cuts to state aid. Homeowners across the state are about to get slammed with one of the biggest property tax increases in state history. This Governor's budget is going to do untold damage to New Jersey's already fragile economy. People are going to be hurt."
Ut oh... Steve Lonegan said what Republicans, the press and even some Democrats aren't willing to say: "the emperor has no clothes." Christie can try to talk tough all he wants about campaign pledges and even use his shrill statements to veto taxes on his millionaire friends, but make no mistake - Governor Chris Christie is raising taxes.
Actually no surprise really as two-time GOP US Senate candidate and Libertarian candidate for Governor Murray Sabrin sticks up for Rand Paul. In fact "Maverick Murray", our very own homegrown version of Rand Paul, was endorsed by Paul's father, Congressman Ron Paul, who attended a fundraiser in New Brunswick for Murray's 2008 campaign for US Senate (evidently few people showed up given the amount of money Murray had to spend on his campaign). Murray and Ron Paul have had a close working relationship the last few years with their involvement in GOP and Libertarian politics, and have been bouncing back and forth between the two parties as if they were in a political rubber room.
The real issue though is how many closet Paultards we have in this state. We haven't heard yet from Steve Lonegan, who Ron Paul endorsed for Governor last year (along with Joe The Plumber and Phyllis Schlafly). Also GOP State Senator Mike Doherty supported Ron Paul for President in 2008 and was attacked for it by Marcia Karrow in their primary fight last year. I'm sure there are others in the GOP closet who secretly support Rand Paul. So who else will come out besides Murray Sabrin?
