The Complete Idiots Guide to New Jersey

So, another Election Day is done, and the Democrats inched ahead to slightly more power in Trenton.

A loss of two seats in the Assembly [now 48-32]; a net gain of one seat in the Senate [now 23-17]. Senator Leonard Lance gracefully gives up his post to Thomas Kean Jr, who is fresh off a 60-40 victory-romp over Gina Genovese.

Good luck to Kean as we move through 2008 and 2009. My prediction: Kean will give up the Senate minority leadership after 2009 to an older and wiser Repub, with his tail between his legs ---after the Dems deliver the state’s electoral votes for the presidential candidate.

Public Question No. 4: Who would vote against this? Idiots or insane people, perhaps.

But the real issue from Tuesday is why more than 503,395 actually voted to oppose the removal of the words “idiot or insane person” from the standard in the New Jersey Constitution of who may and may not vote. Of course, the interpretive statement explained that

“The phrase ‘idiot or insane person’ is outdated, vague, offensive to many, and may be subject to misinterpretation. This constitutional amendment acknowledges that individuals with cognitive or emotional disabilities may otherwise be capable of making decisions in the voting booth and that their right of self-determination should be respected and protected in this regard.”

As Seinfeld would say, “Who are these people?”

Are they all Three Stooges fanatics, who hit each other with crow bars all the time? Are they all fans of “Jack Ass”? Are these fans the basis of Howard Stern's audience on Sirius satellite radio?

I inquired around Flemington to see who in point of fact voted to keep ‘idiots and insane people’ in the Constitution. I was not disappointed.

Low and behold, I found a current Borough Council member [recently re-elected] who voted to oppose all the public questions.

His reason: ‘They were all set up just to raise our taxes’.

“But how is keeping the words ‘idiots or insane people’ with regard to voting rights 'set up' to raise our taxes?” I inquired.

“Maybe not that one,” he indicated. “But why do we have to be politically correct with everything nowadays? Everyone knows what an idiot is. It’s been that way for years, and now they need to change it?”

Perhaps he also failed to see the irony in his own statement.

Politics As Usual in NJ

The great Dodger/Giants/Cubs manager Leo Durocher once said, "You win some, you lose some. Some get rained out, but you gotta suit up for every one."

That saying is as true for politics as it is for baseball. And I try to suit up for every political race, and always hope for the best. Yesterday had some mixed results.

It was a good day overall for Democrats in the state---picking up a seat here and there, and more control in the Senate. Unfortunately, several key people lost their seats ----including Senator Ellen Karcher. She was a truly well-guided spirit in the Senate, and her clear thinking and progressive viewpoints will be missed. Hope she stays active.

My own Senator, Leonard Lance, won his own seat easily. However, he is too nice a guy for his own party, and they are going to toss him to the side and hire Senator Tom Kean, Jr. as their new Minority Leader. Lance is the better person, but the better person does not always win in politics---especially in New Jersey. Go figure. Picking Kean over Leonard is the Republican’s loss. My prediction: Leonard will step aside in a classy way, and let Kean be the leader. Leonard is class all the way.

I was surprised to see the stem cell research referendum fail. I thought that the subject matter was very important, and would have passed as easily as the open space question. So it goes. This defeat, I fear, will be one of the things New Jerseyeans look back and regret in years to come.

And, constitutionally at least, we no longer can have ‘idiots’ or ‘insane people’ be able to participate in politics in New Jersey. See how that lasts, with the early primary just around the corner on February 5th. The measure passed 707,987 to 476,595 ----just under 60% to 40%. So, 40% of New Jersey voters want to see idiots and insane people mill about here and there. Go figure, again. Maybe, I will post on that issue later on.

And so, I move from the macro to the micro and to my own home town of Flemington. Last year, I lost the Mayor’s race to a candidate who felt comfortable using personal attacks and innuendo as the basis for his race. In this year’s race for Borough Council, the sting was still there enough to shave off enough votes to have me lose by a hair. Again, so it goes. I will continue to focus on getting good candidates elected locally. And that Democrats have been very good at in Flemington. In a town out numbered about 2-1 Rs to Ds, we have the majority on Council now and out polled the Rs for the last three years overall.

My running mate, Linda Mastellone, won giving the Democrats control of the Borough Council for the first time in many years. My advice to them: Use your majority wisely; it is a very fragile thing.

Linda is also the first tenant to be on the Borough Council in many years, and I hope she represents their interests wisely and well. Tenants are in Flemington a diverse group, who are not treated very well by the Borough at times. They need an active, assertive, knowledgeable representative.

So, in baseball as in politics, there’s always next season. And what a season 2008 will be.

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.

Want to know who in politics in New Jersey has been eating their spinach...

... and wields a great deal of political muscle?

This morning at 10:30am on the nose, PoliticsNJ will release The List of “100 Most Powerful People in New Jersey Politics”. Prepare to have their site crash because of all the folks who will log on right at 10:30 on the dot.

The criteria for The List is kept very hush-hush. And The List is probably only important to (a) the folks at PoliticsNJ who actually make up the list, (b) the folks who actually get chosen for the List, (c) those who wish they were on the list, and (d) the folks who get to comment on The List. For the rest of New Jersey’s working class families, it’s a big yawn.

However, since I fit somewhere between between (c) and (d), I am making my predictions about The List --- the night before.

I am sure the folks on The List will include Gov. Jon Corzine [duh], and the former [and possibly future] Acting Governor/Senate President Richard Codey [double 'duh'] ---they certainly deserve it. Also, our two Senators Lautenberg and Menendez wield a great deal of power. Democratic Congressmen Holt, Pallone, and Andrews should find their way somewhere there. And perhaps Loretta Weinberg, Susan Bass Levin, Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman and retired NJ Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah Poritz.

Also, my guess given the state of the Repubs these days nationally, fewer Repubs will be on the list this year statewide. Undoubtedly, Chris Christie [United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey] and Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance will make the list. Where on the list, who knows ---but I predict that Christie will place higher than Lance. Christie is the clear choice [if he so chooses] to challenge Gov. Corzine in 2009, while Sen. Lance will be challenged by Tom Kean, Jr. for the Senate Minority Leadership post. Maybe Jr. will be in the top 100, but he won’t be higher than 50. As far as Mayors go, look for Cory Booker of Newark and Jun Choi of Edison.

There will be a smattering of hired guns here and there in the top 25 ---the usual suspects including Dale Florio, Brad Brewster, Judy Shaw, Hazel Gluck on the Repub side. On the Dem side, certainly Karen Kominsky and Paul Matacera.

There will be some non-governmental players in the top 100, too. In spite of their racist frat-boy antics, Craig Carton and Ray Rossi of 101.5 may be in the top 100. Their show reaches so far and wide, and they have such a powerful drive time listening public, that they wield enormous influence.

It’s a more sure thing than a blackjack bet at any Trump Casino that Juan Melli of BlueJersey.com [named Politician of the Year for 2006 by PoliticsNJ] will be in the top 20, if not the Top 10.

Other non-elected players in the top 100 will be Steven Goldstein of Garden State Equality [who engineered the civil unions in to law, and vows marriage equality to follow within two years]; and Bill Dressel of the NJ State League of Municipalities for his no-nonsense common sense approach advocacy for NJ’s 566 towns.

Who won’t make The List? Well, me, for one. I am fairly certain of that, but who knows.

Also, Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow and Raritan Twp Committeewoman Chris Harcar for their Sunday night fisticuffs. Assemblyman Mike Doherty’s name will be missing--- hard to put someone on The List who does not believe in evolution or global warming or stem cell research.

But the most glaring omission from The List ---and perhaps really the most powerful entity in all of New Jersey --- is the New Jersey voting public. After all, without the voting public, no one on The List would need to be on the Any List at all. And they are no dummies.

Heckuva job, Bloomie!

With Mr. 28% at lower than a 28% approval rating in New Jersey, Republican voters are leaving their party by the score. And this is especially true in the Big Apple, where Repubs are now taking smaller bites.

Across the river and through the tunnel, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that he, too, is leaving the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan to become an ‘independent’. Hell, if Lincoln and Teddy were around today, I am sure that would say good-bye to the GOP, too. If Reagan were around, I am not sure he would ever really know what was going on anyway.

Now, an argument can be made that Bloomberg was a lifelong Democrat, and never embraced the neo-con values of today's Repubs, anyway. However, he did stand shoulder to shoulder with Bush and other Republicans while in office and embraced their support and as well as their good will.

And that makes him the beneficiary of the Repubs in my book.
I guess when you have a couple of billion dollars, you can play fast and loose with your core values.

What does this mean for New Jersey? That Republican days are numbered here and they may very well become 'the third party' they were back in 1856.

Repub core values will be in the back of voters’ minds on Election Day, not helping Repubs in close races. While no doubt property taxes, auto insurance, sprawl, school funding, open space, etc. --- will always be the issues at the heart of every New Jersey voter ----Repub stands on national issues that reflect the core values of the Bush/Cheney regime in DC will be in the back of voters’ minds at the polls in November.

Voters will be lots smarter this year: The Repubs' stand on such issues as abortion, marriage equality, the war in Iraq, torture, spying on Americans, the suspension of habeas corpus, Alberto Gonzalez… [The list is endless!] will help the Democrats pick up seats in the NJ State Legislature.

This is at a time when the Party in power usually loses seats, during the mid-term election.

Two races to watch closely:

Senator Ellen Karcher vs. Assemblywoman Jen Beck in the 12th and Senator Tom Kean, Jr vs. Gina Genovese in the 21st. Both races will be very expensive and provide opportunities for the Democrats to solidify even more strength in the Senate.

Prediction:

Karcher, in a close race, will retain her seat.

Right now, an even money coin toss for Jr. He’s probably focusing too much on his Minority Senate Leadership race against Senator Leonard Lance, and not enough on his race in the 21st. I have met Gina and she is a contender.

"First things first, but not necessarily in that order." Doctor Who

I love walking around on Main Street in Flemington. You run into the most knowledgeable Republican people there:

“Leonard doesn't speak up enough for the Republican Party”, said a local Republican in Hunterdon County of Minority Leader Leonard Lance, ---a local Republican who shall remain nameless. “That’s why he will be challenged for his leadership position in the Senate by Tom Kean, Jr.”

Let’s just say that my Republican source was a former leader of the Hunterdon Republican County Committee, who knows how to come clean when it comes to washing dirty laundry of politics.

So, Jr., fresh off his defeat last year in the US Senate race, and facing a very active opponent in Gina Genovese, former Mayor of Long Hill Township in Morris County is already planning to challenge Senator Leonard Lance to be the Minority Leader in the Senate. My advice to Mr. Kean: Put first things first.

Now, I do admit that the 21st Legislative District, which covers parts of Union, Morris, Somerset and Essex Counties, is a fairly Republican district by and by. And Jr. does have the edge there. But, Gina is no slouch, either.

She is a Democrat, elected in a predominately Republican town. She was one of the first [if not the first] openly gay Mayors in New Jersey. She is very progressive, in a part of New Jersey that is rapidly becoming more and more progressive itself.

She has run a tennis instruction camp for more than a quarter of a century in Morris County, and has lots of name recognition. And she will have much support from the Morris County Democrats [fresh off their great win in the Morris Township special election], the gay and lesbian community in NJ, and volunteers from New Jersey for Democracy. And of course, the New Jersey State Democratic Committee is likely to make her race a priority ---- seeing that her opponent is Kean, Jr.
So, Tom, before you plan to take on Senator Lance, you’ve got to get by Gina first. And, that, ain't gonna be easy.