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Republicans about to take a right turn down a dead end street
From our friends at the Philly Inquirer:
"With the 120-member Legislature wrapping up the state budget last month, the political season is under way. And with every legislative seat up for grabs, Lance becomes one of the state's most important political figures as Republicans try to gain a share of power in Trenton...As the Democrats' power has grown, so have the conservative voices in Lance's own party, which argue that the GOP must run hard to the right to give voters an alternative. That's a tough fit for Lance, who is a fiscal conservative but a moderate on social issues and a favorite of environmentalists."
If the Repubs this year follow the likes of extreme right-wingers Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, Assemblyman Mike Doherty, Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, or Senator Tom Kean, Jr., etc ---- they will find themselves deeper and deeper in a political black hole.
New Jersey voters support stem-cell research.
They are pro-choice and pro-environment.
They oppose the War in Iraq and do not support President Bush.
Someone should buy the right-wing Repubs a clue.
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3 comments:
New Jersey may have all the ingredients to go full stem ahead with embryonic stem cell research, but they haven't as yet. So far they only managed to fund 5 grants for embryonic stem cell research out of 33 grants offered in the last 2 years, not only that they have the church involved in umbilical cord blood cells to counter embryonic stem cell research. Maybe this explains what took the wind out of embryonic stem cell research in NJ. The following statement was made by Dr. Wise Young in 2003 on his CareCure website: "Working with Pro-life groups. I know that this sounds like heresy but given the stalemate that has occurred with the stem cells in the Senate, I am not sure that we will have embryonic stem cells in the near future for clinical applicatoin. While we should not give up opposing legislation that are proposing criminalizing therapeutic cloning, we need to find common ground with Prolife groups so that we can work together on something. I don't believe that they are bad people. By the way, some of our members oppose embryonic stem cells research. So, why don't we work with prolife groups to push for a bill that allocates $300 million of federal funding to study umbilical cord blood stem cells, bone marrow stem cells, adult stem cells from nasal mucosa, and other cells (such as olfactory ensheathing glia). I think that all these cells are acceptable to the prolife groups. If we can get them to help us push such legislation through, I think it will benefit everybody." http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/showpost.php?p=83439&postcount=79
Another important figure in structuring the stem cell institute in New Jersey is Dr. Gary Friedman. He has said that adult stem cells offer more hope than embryonic and that embryonic cells can cause tumors. Why is New Jersey's stem cell institute being organized by those who have voiced opinions against embryonic stem cell research? The original post describes how people in NJ want embryonic stem cell research, if they knew that so far so little has gone to embryonic stem cell research and that the founders of the institute prefer adult stem cells maybe the bond issue would lose support. I think the voters need to know the facts. To me, so far it has been bait and switch.
Why the apathy?
I find it strange that NJ Democrats are bashing republicans and Bush on embryonic stem cell research and yet they hand over decisions to 2 researchers involving the NJ Stem Cell effort that have spoken out against embryonic stem cell research. The record speaks loudly, so far only 5 grants were funded for embryonic stem cell research, but yet they pushed through 28 grants on adult stem cells. There is no good reason why embryonic stem cell research is funded so little in NJ. It is legal here, the voters are for it, there was money available for it, so what went wrong? Are the politicians even aware of how the funds went basically to adult stem cell research in a program that was to be predominantly embryonic stem cell? Or is this just NJ politics as usual?
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