The pollsters that Governor Chris Chrisite called “crap” last month released the first post Hurricane Sandy independent poll this morning. The results give the governor extremely high marks for his handling of the superstorm which ravaged the Jersey Shore and impacted 66% of all New Jersey residents.
On October 9, Christie reacted to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll that indicated improving approval ratings but soft support for his reelection by calling the Eagleton polls “crap.”
“It’s never good, it’s never accurate. When it’s good for me, it’s not right, when it’s bad for me it’s not right,” Christie said according to PolitickerNJ. He said he would not comment about future Eagleton polls.
But Sandy was a live changing event. Don’t be surprised if Christie has something honest and refreshing to say about today’s polling results when questioned by a reporter.
92% of the respondents said that Christie handled Hurricane Sandy well. 69% said he handled it “very well” and 23% rated him “somewhat well.”
The other 8% are cranky and don’t like fleece. (MMM’s assessment, not a poll result)
81% answered that Christie and President Obama showed the “needed cooperation and bipartisanship” in handling the aftermath of Sandy. 12% said Christie went too far in his praise of the president.
Christie’s ovrerall favorability rating now stands at 65%, 67% with registered voters.
49% of Democrats, 70% of Independents and 89% of Republicans now have a favorable impression of the governor. Only 38% of Democrats report an unfavorable impression of him, down from 68% in early October.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, considered the only Democrat with a chance to defeat Christie in the 2013 general election, has not been active on twitter since the poll was released.
In early December of 2005 I attended the annual holiday gathering of the Monmouth Ocean Development Council. This particular party stands out in my memory of the hundreds of such parties I’ve attended over the years because of the entertainment. A jazz band from New Orleans was touring the country to raise money for the Katrina recovery efforts. Their music was fabulous. Their plea for help is what stuck with me. It was deep, personal and profound. The wreckage seen on television four months earlier was a distant memory for me, until I felt a little of the pain in that band’s plea.
The difference between hearing about and watching news accounts of a devastating hurricance and living through the aftermath of such a catostrophic event is like the difference between watching porn and having sex, though not nearly as fun. It’s not fun at all.
A growing group of Jersey Shore musicians lead by producer Rick Korn and musical director Michael Mancini are raising money and the spirits of Jersey Shore residents with a concert to support the Rebuild The Jersey Shore efforts on Sunday November 25 in Highlands at the Seastreak Ferry terminal, 325 Shore Drive, at 2 p.m.
The Rebuild The Jersey Shore Band And Friends includes members of the Asbury Jukes, Glenn Alexander, Tony Seguso and bass player Tony Tino. The expanding list of artists scheduled to perform in the Hope for Highlands Concert includes Bob Bandiera, Bob Burger, Lisa Bouchelle, Lisa Lowell, Layonne Holmes, and saxophone legend Tommy LaBella.
Admission to the concert is free. Food and beer will be sold by local restaurants and merchants at the “Taste of Highlands” food court, with profits going to Highlands survivors. There is a $10 parking fee at the Seastreak parking lots in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands, which will also go to those impacted by Sandy. Seastreak will provide free ferry service to the concert from Atantic Highlands. There will also be ferry service from New York leaving from E 34th and Pier 11. A $65 fee will include the round trip boat ride, food and the concert. Excess proceeds will go to support Highlands’ Sandy survivors.
The money raised through the concert will be administered by “Hope for Highlands”, a fund set up through the non-profit Highlands Business Partnership under the direction of Mayor Frank Nolan and Councilwoman Rebecca Kane. The Hope for Highlands Fund is designed to go directly to the people and businesses in Highlands that need it most.
“Highlands, like so many devastated small towns up and down the Jersey Shore, was hit extremely hard by Hurricane Sandy”, said Nolan,” This half square mile middle class fishing village, has been devastated with severe damage to over 1200 of its 1500 downtown homes and almost all of its businesses.”
Highlands, the first stop on the Jersey Shore, is known for its spectacular restaurants, Sandy Hook, Historic Twin Lights and its fishing and clamming industry.
“The loss of these homes and businesses has had a ripple effect on the community beyond the norm because many of the residents worked and lived in the town”, said Borough Administrator Tim Hill, “An economically challenged town before the storm, this community is now faced with not only the loss of their homes but many have also lost their jobs.”
The world’s largest commercial baker, Grupo Bimbo (pronounced beem-bo) of Mexico, has an edge in acquiring Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread in the Hostess Brands liquidation, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
There are American companies looking at acquiring the Hostess properties, including Little Debbie baker McKees Foods. But Bimbo has an edge.
By producing Twinkies in Mexico, Bimbo could avoid paying the artificially high sugar prices that Hostess bore due to goverment tariffs that protect the Florida sugar industry. Bimbo also wouldn’t pay union benefits and wages, that the former Hostess employees will no longer be getting now that their employer is closing down. Bimbo could also distribute the products without the inefficient rules, like having different trucks for Twinkies and Wonder Bread, that unions insisted upon with Hostess.
Media cares about Twinkies,not about allegations against Menendez
In case you missed it while the lights were out, the right wing website, The Daily Caller reported allegations that Menendez used the private jet of a campaign contributor to fly to the Dominican Republic for a sex parties on multiple occasions, including a Easter weekend tryst where he didn’t pay his hostesses their agreed fee for a threesome. The left wing website, Gawker followed Daily Caller’s story with a report that Menendez hosts “a different attractive young lady” in his Washington, DC apartment almost every night from 11 p.m. until 3 a.m., keeping his downstairs neighbors up all night with his loud squeaking bed.
Of New Jersey media outlets, only MMM, InTheLobby and Save Jersey, have given Menendez’s bimbo/ethics violation issues any attention, even after state Senator Sam Thompson, as chairman of the Middlesex County GOP, filed an ethics complaint against Menendez. A senior statehouse reporter told MMM that New Jersey’s mainstream media is not covering the Menendez scandal because “nobody cares.” He said its a matter of priorities and that to expect more of this as fewer and fewer people report news and more and more news. The reporter said he didn’t think the lack of coverage was political.
Of course its political. Just as MMM, InTheLobby and Save Jersey paying attention to the issue is political. There is no such thing as an unbiased media. There’s only those who are honest about their biases and those who are pretending not to be biased.
Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies, Wonder Bread, Devil Dogs and Ding Dongs is going out of business.
The company, which is in Chapter 11, asked a federal judge to for permission to liquidate after its labor union went on strike rather than accept the contract concessions the bankruptcy court imposed.
The company had annual sales of $2.5 billion and employed 18,500 people.
Governor Chris Christie said at a press conference this afternoon that utilities will be connected to homes at Fort Monmouth this weekend and that New Jersey residents that were displaced by Hurricane Sandy should be able to start moving into the temporary housing sometime next week.
The governor said that “some type of lottery system” being developed by the Department of Community Affairs will be employed to select residents who will move onto the fort, because the demand of tempory housing is expected to exceed the supply.
The governor went on to explain that officials are assessing the need for housing this week by interviewing people still in shelters and surveying local officials.
Christie called the press conference to announced that he met with the four leaders of the legislature, Senate President Steve Sweeney, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, JR and Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick, who all agreed that the states efforts to recover and rebuild from Sandy will not get bogged down in partisanship.
Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon told MMM that resident selection for temporary housing must comply with FEMA rules and that specifics of when, how and who will be moved into Fort Monmouth is expected to be worked out within a few days.
However, the far left wing website, Gawker, followed Daily Caller’s story with a report from “someone who was unfortunate enough to live in the unit below Menendez’s Washington, DC apartment,” who said “he would bring home a different young, attractive lady almost every night, put on a little jazz, and f**k loudly until 3 a.m.”
