I speculated a while back that the Jon Corzine scandal could eventually be the undoing of Barack Obama. Turns out that Crooked Jon may wind up being the downfall of the Clinton clan as well.
Even as Jon Corzine’s MF Global was collapsing, a firm that includes former President Bill Clinton in a senior post was raking in huge fees for public-relations and financial advice from the ill-fated brokerage…
The New Jersey State Assembly passed a resolution yesterday, 76-3, urging the United States Department of Agriculture and any other relevant federal agencies to fund efforts to reduce or eliminate the brown marmoated stink bug population.
Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce, Assemblyman Jay Webber, the former NJ GOP chairman, and newly sworn in Assemblyman Jack Ciatrelli, all Republicans, were the three legislators voting no.
Tom Weisert, Webber’s spokesman, said that the Assemblyman usually votes against these non-binding resolutions that tell other jurisdictions how they should spend taxpayers’ money. “It’s not that Jay favors stink bugs,” said Weisert, “besides, there are a lot more important issues that the Assembly should be addressing.”
Jon Huntsman increased his name recognition 8000% by turning down the invitation to attend the Newmax ION TV presidential debate to be moderated by Donald Trump.
Huntsman, the former Utah governor and President Obama’s former ambassador to China, is now best known for saying he “won’t kiss his ring or any part of his anatomy,” about Trump while explaining why he won’t attend the debate.
Texas congressman Ron Paul joined Huntsman in turning down The Donald’s invitation, saying through a spokesman that a debate hosted by a reality TV star is beneath the dignity of the presidency.
Trump called Huntsman and Paul joke candidates.
All of the remaining GOP candidates for president have accepted the invitation, even though Trump has not ruled out running for president as an Independent himself. Trump said he’s leaning toward endorsing a GOP candidate and that he might do so shortly after the debate.
The Trump debate will take place in Des Moines Iowa on December 27, one week before the Iowa caucus and two weeks before the New Hampshire primary.
Governor Chris Christie will be named one of the Top American Leaders of 2011 by The Washington Post and Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership tomorrow morning at Ford’s Theater in Washington.
The other honorees are Jared Cohen of Google Ideas, Michael Kaiser, president of The Kennedy Center of Performing Arts, Sheila Bair, former Chair of the FDIC, Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Prize winner and professor of chemistry and physics at the California Institute of Technology, and Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist.
The Washington Post’s profile of Christie is here.
The event, which will be webcast here at 9AM, will consist of an awards ceremony followed by a discussion moderated by David Gergen, Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, Mary Jordan, editor of Washington Post Live, and Steven Pearlstein, columnist for The Washington Post’s On Leadership website.
Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman will not be joining Governor Chris Christie on the campaign trail for Mitt Romney.
Whitman is a director of Americans Elect 2012, a PAC that converted into an educational group so that it would not have to disclose its donors. The group wants Americans to nominate a “centrist” Independent presidential candidate via Internet voting. They are working to secure ballot positions in all 50 states. So far they’re on the ballots in Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, and Utah. There are reports that they’ve submitted petitions in California and Hawaii.
Despite their success in collecting signatures to get on ballots, there is a lot of controversy about the group that will likely hamstring their efforts going forward. There is a clause in their by laws that allows the group’s directors to disqualify “America’s” candidate. They’ve got a rule restricting how their nominee selects his/her vice presidential candidate. The group says it doesn’t support or oppose any particular candidate at this point, but Whitman has been promoting Jon Huntsman as a third party candidate and Mark McKinnon, another director of the group, said Mitt Romney doesn’t have the cojones to be president.
Sounds more like a three ring circus than a third party. Besides, the Republicans look as though they are going to nominate a centrist in either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.
As an aside, how long will it be before a highly paid national pundit writes a column about what it means about America that the three front runners for president have weird first names?
Even without the other controversies surrounding Americans Elect 2012, Whitman joining their board should be a sign of that the group is doomed to fail. Her legacy as New Jersey’s Governor and as Administrator of the EPA under President George W. Bush is beyond embarrassing.
The messes that Governor Christie is cleaning up now….the broke pension system, broke transportation trust fund, broke unemployment insurance fund, Abbot and COAH, were all started or made worse by Whitman and her appointees. Shortly after 9-11, EPA Administrator Whitman declared the air at Ground Zero safe to breathe, thereby sending clean up workers to slow deaths and long term disabilities.
Despite Americans Elect’s foibles, a third party presidential candidate might be a good news for those who want President Obama to be a one termer.
In modern times, i.e., during the lifetimes of anyone likely to vote in 2012, there have been only two elected incumbent presidents denied a second term by the voters; Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Both had significant third party challengers during their reelection bids. John Anderson, a Republican Congressman from Illinois ran against Carter and Ronald Reagan. Reagan won. Ross Perot, the populist Texas billionaire ran against Bush and Bill Clinton. Clinton won.
The bad news, from a historical perspective, is that Carter and Bush 41 also faced significant primary challenges prior to being renominated. Carter was challenged for the Democratic nomination in 1980 by Teddy Kennedy. Bush was challenged for the 1992 GOP nomination by Pat Buchanan.
Reagan’s primary challenge against Gerald Ford in 1976, preceding Carter’s election, may indicate that an incumbent’s problems within their own party may be more of a detriment to reelection than a third party challenge. Unfortunately, there is no Democrat seriously challenging Obama.
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz says New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is “clearly eyeing” a third party run for president. A Bloomberg run might be America’s best hope of defeating Obama next year. The Mayor has the resources to make a credible run and a nanny state record to appeal to enough dissatisfied Democrats and left leaning Independents.
Manalapan Deputy Mayor Ryan Green told MMM that he is a candidate to fill Assemblyman-elect Rob Clifton’s Freeholder seat when the Monmouth County Republican Committee holds its election on January 14th.
“I’m throwing my hat into the ring and we’ll see what happens,” said Green, “I think I have a lot I can contribute on the county level.” He said he was running on his record as an elected official in Manalapan since 2005, on both the school board and the township committee. ” We haven’t raised taxes in Manalapan over the last two years, a fact that I am very proud of.”
Green said his Freeholder candidacy won’t impact the incoming Manalapan Township Committee’s plan to elect him Mayor in January. “I’m not counting my chickens before they’re hatched. Manalapan’s reorganization is before the Title 19 convention. I have a great deal of respect for all of my opponents in the Freeholder race.”
Title 19 is the New Jersey statute that governs elections. It requires that vacancies for Freeholder be filled via a county committee election.
Green was encouraged by the positive feedback he received at a recent meeting of the Western Monmouth Republican Chairmen. However, the only chairman’s endorsement he is counting on is that of Manalapan’s Steve McEnry.
Wall Township Mayor Anne Marie Conte will not be a candidate for Freeholder when the Monmouth County Republican Committee meets on January 14 to elect a successor to Assemblyman-elect Rob Clifton, according to Monmouth Republican Affiliated Club President and Wayne’s World Reporter Wayne Pomanowski.
Pomanowski said that Conte called him to asked that her photo and bio be removed from the Affiliated’s website. Reportedly Conte was stung by criticism from Wall Township residents, including an OpEd piece by 2010 Monmouth Democratic Sheriff candidate Eric Brophy published on the Wall Patch, that she was seeking higher office so soon after being reelected to the Township Committee.
Conte was not available for comment.
Pomanowski also said that Manalapan Deputy Mayor Ryan Green is definitely a candidate and that Hazlet Mayor Scott Aagre is close to entering the race. Green’s bio and photo are on the Affiliated site.
MMM is contacting those listed to inquire if they have endorsed Little for Senate. Their answers will appear on this post next to their names as they are received.
Anna Little, the former Mayor of Highlands, former Freeholder and the 2010 GOP nominee in the 6th Congressional district is one step closer to challenging Monmouth County State Senator Joe Kyrillos for the GOP 2012 U.S. Senate nomination.
Little told Politickernj that she would be filing with the FEC today to open a campaign account for her U.S. Senate bid.
Atlantic Highlands Municipal Chairwoman Jane Frotten has resigned as Little’s campaign treasurer. Atlantic Highlands Mayor Fred Rast has resigned as president of Anna’s Army Foundation, “a non-profit educational foundation created in the image of Anna Little and her campaign for Congress in the 6th Congressional District of NJ.”
Until recently, the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Robert Menendez was seen as battle between Kyrillos and fellow State Senator Michael Doherty. Kyrillos has a Senate Exploritory Committee. Doherty has been traveling the state touting his Fair School Funding plan. MMM has learned from very reliable sources that Doherty is leaning against entering the Senate primary. If Doherty does stay out of the race, a head to head match up between Kyrillos and Little could be in the making.
Little should take a reality check and reconsider before her dreams of a political future are irreparably shattered.
Little made a name for herself with the stunning upset victory over Diane Gooch in the primary for the 6th congressional district nomination in 2010. Little’s margin of victory was 84 votes out of roughly 14,000 cast.
What Little has failed to realize, and she stops talking to anyone who tells her the truth, is that she didn’t win that primary so much as Gooch lost it.
Not that her victory was an accident. The strategy of the Little primary campaign was to sneak up from behind. I know because I, then still a close confidant of Little, helped design the strategy. None of the “experts” took Little’s challenge of the county party lines and the uber funded Gooch seriously going into the primary. That was the key to victory. Build a ground game to bring out new voters and count on the fact that the “experts” don’t see the Tea Party wave coming. Even the Tea Parties were shocked by the depth of the 2010 tsunami. David Corsi’s inexplicable primary victory over Scott Sipprelle in the Monmouth County portion of the 12th congressional district proves that the party establishment was caught with their pants around their ankles.
They won’t be caught off guard again.
The Gooch campaign’s primary strategy was to ignore Little and run against incumbent Congressman Frank Pallone. It was a good strategy for a conventional time. Conventional times ended in 2010 before the establishment realized it.
It wasn’t until the final weekend of the 2010 primary campaign when Little managed to get onto TV, that the Gooch campaign realized that they might have a problem. They tried legal maneuvers, that failed, to get Little’s ads pulled. It was too late to respond. Little had successfully used the “surprise them” and “get the last word” strategies that we had successfully used in Highlands campaigns many times.
The problem with a “don’t let them see you coming” playbook is that it only works once.
A key political operative with close ties to both Gooch and Kyrillos has been keeping a close eye on Little since she declared her rematch with Pallone on election night 2010.
“She won’t get a free ride next time,” said the operative on the condition of anonymity, “we had a thick opposition research file on her in 2010 but didn’t use it because we weren’t taking her seriously and didn’t want to hurt her needlessly. The file has gotten a lot thicker in the last year.”
With their discharge from Anna’s Army, Frotten and Rast join the growing brigade of Monmouth County politicos who will no longer go to battle for Little.
Roughly a year ago, this blog compared Little to Jon Corzine over a policy position she took in one of her final acts as the mayor of Highlands. Unfortunately, it is becoming apparent that Little also shares a personality trait with the former governor. She surrounds herself with people who tell her what she wants to hear and burns bridges with those who tell her what she needs to hear.
Little had a bright political future ahead of her on election night in 2010. Then she started talking.
She declared her rematch with Pallone, announced the formation of Anna’s Army and challenged Gooch, who had funded independent anti-Pallone ads, to a rematch. She failed to thank her supporters, Tea Party and establishment, who were caught off guard by her lack of humility.
She’s on the verge of crossing a line from which there will be no return. She should reconsider and start mending fences. Many of her old friends are forgiving.
