Kyrillos calls on U.S. Senator to defend his 20 year record in Washington
Is Bob Menendez planning to dance back into office without defending his record and debating his opponent?
That seems to be his strategy so far. Menendez refused to accept a written challenge to debate from GOP nominee Joe Kyrillos last month. This morning, the Kyrillos campaign announced that Menendez is also ignoring media and academic invitations to debate. Menendez has not responded to then following invitations according to the Kyrillos release:
1. League of Women Voters/WPVI-TV, WABC-TV, and Univision
2. The Record/FIOS 1 News
3. Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show/WNYC Radio and NJPR AM Radio
4. William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey/ NJTV
5. Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey/Jewish Standard News
6. The Uribe Society/Hudson County TV
“One of us will be the next United States Senator from New Jersey,” said Senator Joe Kyrillos. “New Jerseyans need to know our position on the issues before, not after the election. I’m ready to talk about my record of saving New Jersey taxpayers $11.9 billion in new taxes and bringing bipartisan reform to Trenton. I’m proud of my record and it’s time for Senator Menendez to stop running from and defend his.”
MMM left a voice mail for Menendez 2012 Communications Director Paul Brubaker asking if Menendez would be accepting any of these invitations. Brubaker has yet to respond. Nor has he called back, as promised, for comment on the polls that were released last week.
Prior to last month the buzz about Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s future was that he would run for U.S. Senate in 2014, challenging Senator Frank Launtenberg if necessary. Booker opened a federal PAC last year and Lautenberg has been sniping at him ever since.
But in the weeks leading up to the convention Booker met with county chairs to plant the seeds of a gubernatorial run against Governor Chris Christie last year. In Charlotte he went into full campaign mode without making an announcement. In the process he made himself the front runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2013. A Booker candidacy for governor will clear the Democratic field. Without Booker in the race there will be a contentious primary. Senators Dick Codey, Barbara Buono and Steve Sweeney could be contenders. Assemblymen John Wisniewski and Lou Greenwald are acting like candidates. Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage says he will run if Booker doesn’t.
None of the other potential candidates will be able to gain any traction until Booker makes his intentions clear.
As a nod to Booker’s front runner status, Quinnipiac polled a Christie/Booker match up. Christie won the poll by 7%, but Booker’s name was recognised by 60% of those polled. That is an extraordinary high number for a New Jersey politician who has never run a statewide race. Booker has better name recognition than Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. He is as well known and better liked than U.S. Senator Bob Menendez.
Booker told the New Jersey delegation in Charlotte that Christie can be beat and that he is only governor because urban Democrats didn’t come out to vote for Jon Corzine in 2009. The implication is that he can get urban voters out, regardless of the desires of Democratic bosses George Norcross in the south and Joe DiVincenzo in the north who didn’t rev their machines for Corzine in 09.
Yesterday in Ohio, in a town called Seaman, Vice President Joe Biden channeled former President Bill Clinton while campaigning in a diner.
I wonder how those biker dudes would have reacted if the Secret Service hadn’t been there. Then again, maybe they were undercover Secret Service agents.
Biden opened his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention with a effusive expression of his love for his wife, Jill. “I love you,” Biden professed to 20,000 in the convention hall and a national TV audience, “you’re the love of my life and the life of my love.”
FREEHOLD, NJ – It is with profound sadness that Monmouth County announces the untimely passing of William K. “Bill” Heine, the county Director of Public Information.
Bill’s untimely passing was the result of natural causes.
Bill had been employed with Monmouth County as the chief spokesman and department head of the Monmouth County Public Information and Tourism Departments since 2005.
Bill also championed many charitable endeavors to include many food drives for the Monmouth and Ocean Food Bank and the Howell Little League.
Bill was recently honored for winning a nationwide photography contest sponsored by the National Association of County Information Officers for his photograph taken during a 10th anniversary memorial service for 9-11. He was the recipient of many other state and national awards for his work in the county’s public information program.
Prior to his employment with Monmouth County, Bill served as the spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance and State of New Jersey Public Defenders Office. He was also a reporter and editor for the Asbury Park Press from 1980 to 1997.
Bill was a consummate professional and touched many people on both a personal and professional level. Bill’s keen wit, intellect and attention to detail will be sadly missed by everyone who came into contact with Bill. He worked on many projects to recently include formulating a communications strategy for all of county government operations. Bill worked very closely with the five freeholders and the county administrator.
Funeral arrangements have not been confirmed at this time. Information will be posted to the county website when they become available.
Bob Woodward’s new book, “The Price of Politics” may do more to threaten President Obama’s reelection than the anemic jobs reports.
Obama may be a great orator with a clever campaign, but Woodward’s book depicts his White House as dysfunctional and disorganized. The president himself is depicted as aloof and unable to develop the relationships necessary to lead the nation. Congressional leaders of his own party, Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate, have little regard for Obama’s leadership abilities.
The book focuses on the debt ceiling crisis that the nation face during the summer of 2011. A crisis that was so serious that “they wouldn’t tell the world how bad in was at the time,” according to Woodward in a interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that will be aired Monday night.
As I was reading several reviews of the book I was reminded of Governor Chris Christie’s frequent criticism of Obama’s lack of leadership and inability to work across the aisle. It’s worse than Chrisite imagined. Harry Reid asked Obama to leave the room, at a meeting Obama called of congressional leaders at the White House, so that the congressional leaders could hammer out a deal to avert our nation defaulting on its debt that Obama would have no choice but to sign. Earlier in the Obama administration, Nancy Pelosi muted a conference call from Obama while she and Reid were together working on details of the stimulus package so that the president wouldn’t know that he did not have their undivided attention for his pontification. Clint Eastwood was right. The chair is empty and even the national Democratic congressional leaders know it.
The mainstream media’s coverage of the book may be more damaging to Obama’s reelection chances than the content of the book itself.
Reviews in the New York Times and Washington Post read like the reviewers compared notes before publication. They are trying to suppress sales by depicting the book as boring and a rehash of previous reporting. Yet they have enough integrity to report Woodward’s conclusion:
“It is a fact that President Obama was handed a miserable, faltering economy and faced a recalcitrant Republican opposition.
“But presidents work their will — or should work their will — on the important matters of national business. There is occasional discussion in this book about Presidents Reagan and Clinton, what they did or would have done. Open as both are to serious criticism, they nonetheless largely worked their will.
“Obama has not. The mission of stabilizing and improving the economy is incomplete.”
But ABC is giving Woodward prime coverage of the book on Monday night in a intervew with Sawyer during “World News Tonight” and “Nightline.” Woodward will sit down with George Stephanopolous live on “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, September 11, the day the book is release.
Governor Chris Christie will have his first post keynote town hall meeting in Howell on Wednesday September 12, 3PM, at the Southard School Gymnasium, 115 Kent Road.
The doors open at 2:15PM.
Seating is first come first served. The Governor’s office requests that you RSVP here, in order to ensure adequate seating.
Keyport Council President Christian Bolte has withdrawn her bid for a third term on the borough’s council. She will be replaced on the Democratic ticket by Sofia Lamberson, a member of the town’s recreation committee.
Bolte told MMM that she was ambivalent about her reelection bid throughout the spring and summer, oddly enough because the fighting and bickering has stopped among the members of the Keyport governing body.
“The Mayor and Council really gets along well now after years of constant battling,” said Bolte, “Republicans and Democrats are working well together and doing the right things for the borough. We got the waterpark done, we’ve got the unions under control and we’re lowering expenses. Things are going well now after almost six years of fighting. I feel like it is a good time to step down and let someone else contribute.”
Bolte said she first got involved in politics to “protect Keyport from a small selfish group that wanted Keyport to remain the same.” She had long advocated for a park on Keyport’s waterfront over the objections of members of the business community who feared it would hurt the borough’s economy.
“We got it done with over 70% of the funding coming from outside of the borough,” Bolte said referring to the park which she considers the biggest accomplishment of her six year tenure.
Keyport’s council is currently controlled by the Democratic Party, 4-2, with a Republican Mayor, Robert McLeod, who votes in the case of a tie.
Lamerson and incumbent Democrat Kenneth McPeek will face off with Republicans Ken Howe and Amanda Margagliano for control of the Keyport governing body in November.
Is Bob Menendez planning to dance back into office without defending his record and debating his opponent?
