Two New Jersey residents, a Republican from Monmouth County and a Democrat from Ocean County, have filed an objection to Barack Obama’s name being placed on the New Jersey Democratic primary ballot and the general election ballot for the office of President of the United States, according to a story first reported on Conservative News and Views.
Nicholas Purpura, the Republican, and Theodore Moran, the Democrat are represented by Attorney Mario Appuzzo of Jamesburg. They filed their objection to Obama’s candidacy with the New Jersey Division of Elections on April 5. A copy of the objection can be downloaded here.
There is a plenary hearing is scheduled before an Administrative Judge at the Office of Administrative Law in Mercerville on Tuesday April 10, 10am, according to Appuzzo.
The Objection to Obama’s nominating petition is that he has not provided competent and sufficient evidence to the New Jersey Secretary of State showing his identity and that he was born in the United States, and that even if he were born in the United States, he is not and cannot be an Article II “natural born Citizen” because he was not born to two U.S. citizen parents. The Objection therefore demands that the Secretary of State not permit Obama’s name to be printed on the primary and general election ballot.
MMM received this image in an email this morning under the heading, “Can this be true?”
In a phone call, Holly from Dr. Flynn’s office confirmed the authenticity of the ad. She said that since it was published on February 5 she has fielded several calls daily from throughout the country. Only 2 calls have been negative.
Published reports peg the cost of the Obama Hawaii vacation at $4 million dollars. The First Lady went to Hawaii before the President. Her flight alone cost at least $100,000.
The problem with that is that is that the bill hasn’t been written yet. Obama launched his reelection campaign in earnest Thursday night in an address to a joint session of congress that proposed a 1/2 trillion in spending. He said it would be paid for, but didn’t say how.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, hardly a Tea Party radical “determined to dismantle government and its vital programs piece by piece” said he would have to see the bill before deciding whether to vote for or against it.
I never would have thought that I’d be writing that Kucinich exhibits more sanity than my hometown newspaper.
A Quinnipiac poll released this morning indicates that Governor Chris Christie’s approval numbers have rebounded since their June 21 poll. Today New Jersey narrowly approves of the Governor’s performance, 47%-46%. In June Christies’s approval rating was upside down, 44%-47%.
“By a 50-35 percent margin, New Jersey voters like Gov. Christie as a person,” said the Quinnipiac release.
As opposed to what? An alien? A pet? A superhero? Christie did not have to provide a copy of his birth certificate to earn that popularity.
Obama in trouble
President Obama’s approval ratings have taken a huge 10 point negative swing in New Jersey since the June 21 Quinnipiac poll.
In June New Jersey voters approved of the President’s performance, 50-46 percent. Today New Jersey voters disapprove of how the President is doing his job by 52-44 percent. These are Obama’s worst numbers ever in New Jersey.
Unless Obama’s New Jersey numbers improve, Senator Robert Menendez’s reelection prospects are in jeopardy. Menendez’s numbers have been anemic and are declining. In June only 45% of NJ voters approved of Menendez vs 38% who disapproved. Today 39% approve vs 42% who disapprove. Only 41% say Menendez deserves to be reelected vs 43% say he does not. Yet, by a 45-39 percent margin voters say they would back him over an unnamed Republican. Republicans need to nominate a named candidate.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver should thank the Lord that their positions are not subject to a statewide ballot.
Sweeney’s numbers are 23% approve to 40% disapprove. He has suffered a 10 point drop since June.
Oliver fares better only because 54% of New Jersey voters don’t know who she is. 21% of voters approve of the Speaker’s performance and 25% disapprove. Oliver has suffered a 6 point drop since June.
Gender Gap
Men approve of Christie 58-36 percent while woman disapprove of him 55-37 percent.
Women approve of Obama 51-44 percent. Men disapprove 60-37 percent.
MMM accepts responsibility for the gender gap. According to the web tracking site alexa.com, MMM’s audience is overwhelmingly men with children and graduate degrees. We need a female writer or two.
It’s not the economy. It’s not foreign policy. It’s not the failure of Washington to function. It’s not the loss of respect for America and the strength of America. It’s not the failure to improve the educational system. It’s not unemployment or the downgrading of our debt. Obama’s greatest failure transcends the Presidency. His greatest failure is an affront to the fundament of our society.Lessons often come not from a single event, but from a juxtaposition of events. The riots in London, and the flash mobs in Philadelphia come during a week when Obama has blamed Congress, the system, the Tea Party, the Arab Spring and, in what is surely to become a historical reference for excuses, the Japanese Tsunami, for his inability to get a handle on the economy and unemployment.
The lesson here is not about a President blaming others for his failures. That surely is not unique. The lesson here relates to an historically squandered opportunity. Obama’s rise to the Presidency is a compelling story. Abandoned by his father at an extremely young age, he was raised by his mother and, in his words, white racist grandmother. So many young people and adults have used such a background as an excuse for failure. But Obama did not use it as an excuse. He strengthened himself by this adversity rising to the very top in spite of ample opportunity to blame his others for any inability to succeed. Psychiatrists’ couches are filled with adults bemoaning their fate and blaming their parents for their own failures. So many young people rely on the ability to blame one or both parents or their neighborhoods for justification for their failure. Obama’s rise to the Presidency against overwhelming odds is the quintessential American story. He would have been a beacon to those who have a choice between overcoming obstacles to succeed, and using the obstacles as a convenient excuse for failure. The rioters in London blame others for their financial circumstance. The flash mobs in Philadelphia blame others for their feelings of disenfranchisement. And Obama blames the Tsunami, as if G-d himself wanted not only to assure Obama’s failure, but to do it in a clandestine manner, on the other side of the globe.
By overcoming the harshest of circumstances, Obama earned the opportunity to tell the young people of America, the minorities in America, the urban disenfranchised in America that there is no obstacle that could not be overcome. He didn’t blame his father or his grandmother or anyone else. He rose above his circumstances. He reached the ultimate pinnacle of his journey with a campaign motto that was, after all, “Yes, we can.” That in the three years of his Presidency this motto has evolved into “everyone and everything is conspiring to prevent me from succeeding” is Obama’s greatest failure.
A Monmouth University/Gannett poll released this morning indicates that 54% of New Jersey residents approve of President Obama’s job performance while 37% disapprove. 52% of registered voters approve of the President while 39% disapprove.
The poll of 802 adult resident was taken between August 3 and August 8. Polling Director Patrick Murray notes that survey was taken after S & P downgraded the nations debt but before the stock market’s steep losses on Monday.
Congressional Republicans registered a dismal 19% approve to 62% disapprove on how the debt ceiling was handled. Congressional Democrats fared better 27% approve to 52% approve.
Since Governor Christie took office, The Star Ledger’s Editorial Page Editor Tom Moran has been constantly critical of Christie’s style. It was Moran’s question about the Governor’s “confrontational tone” at a May 2010 press conference that lead to a “honest and refreshing” Christie becoming a YouTube phenomena and now a national media star.
Peggy Noonan is an extraordinary wordsmith. As President Reagan’s speechwriter she helped the Gipper change the world. As a columnists, Noonan brings clarity to complex political events with eloquent prose and illustrious alliteration.
In her October 2008 book, Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now, a pre-election call to America to support the next President after the stresses and divisions of the Bush years, Noonan wrote:
“What we need most right now, at this moment, is a kind of patriotic grace – a grace that takes the long view, apprehends the moment we’re in, comes up with ways of dealing with it, and eschews the politically cheap and manipulative. That admits affection and respect. That encourages them. That acknowledges that the small things that divide us are not worthy of the moment; that agrees that the things that can be done to ease the stresses we feel as a nation should be encouraged, while those that encourage our cohesion as a nation should be supported.”
and
“We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom.
What a difference three years makes. Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal Noonan wrote of President Obama:
So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.
What has changed in three years is that we have gotten to know Barack Obama. We didn’t know who he was when we elected him President. We still know very little about the man before he became a U.S. Senator. Those who question his youth, his college years at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard, and his associations in Chicago are labeled as racist by the leftist media elite. Had the media done its job and vetted Obama in 2008, Hillary Clinton would probably be President. Rather, the media anointed Obama and protected him from those who had the incentive to vet him, like the Clintons, or the audacity to do so, which John McCain did not, by playing the race card.
We have learned more about Michele Bachmann in the month that she has been a Presidential candidate than we know about the pre-U.S. Senate Barack Obama.
In 2008, America assumed Obama was a leader. He looked like one and acted like one. Those who didn’t assume he was as leader hoped he was. The Hope that Obama evoked for many was that he was up to the job.
Since his inauguration we’ve learned that he is not a leader and he is not up to the job.
He didn’t lead on ObamaCare. He left that up to Frank Pallone and Nancy Pelosi,who still don’t know all that is in that bill 16 months after they passed it.
He’s not leading now as Congress “works” through the weekend to come up with a debt ceiling deal to prevent a default or downgrade of the full faith and credit of the United States of America. If Obama was a leader, the situation in Washington would never have gotten to where it is today.
What is happening in Washington is not about our country’s finances. It is not about taxes or spending. If it was, an agreement would have been made weeks ago. What is happening in Washington is entirely about Barack Obama and his desire to get elected to another term before America wakes up to who he is.
As Noonan wrote:
The fact is, he’s good at dismantling. He’s good at critiquing. He’s good at not being the last guy, the one you didn’t like. But he’s not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he’s not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.
And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn’t serious, he was only shrewd—and shrewdness wasn’t enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security checks—until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.
When I first read the last two sentences of Noonan’s piece my head snapped. I was shocked that such a dignified writer would end a brilliantly written and insightful piece (which in addition to Obama, accurately described the Republican vs Tea Party relationship) so colloquially.
But if there was a better way to say it, Noonan would have. Once again Peggy Noonan has nailed it. She has articulated the obvious truth of our situation before anyone else crystallized it.
We may have needed Patriotic Grace in 2008. We didn’t get it because we did not elected a graceful leader.
What we need now is leadership. We’re not likely to get it this week or this year. We can Hope for 2012.
