Inside the Beltway: Back to normal for White House fundraising

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FDU Poll: 36% of NJ voters approve of Obama, 42% will vote for Booker

photo via facebook

The political landscape in New Jersey is ripe for a historic shift this November. But a shift in New Jersey’s representation in Washington is not likely to happen because the New Jersey Republican Party is wholly unprepared for the opportunity.  The nincompoops who lead the NJGOP gave up on the U.S. Senate race in January.  They gave up on picking up seats in the Congressional Delegation in 2012 when the new congressional map was drawn.

According to a Fairleigh Dickinson Univeristy Public Mind Poll released this morning, President Barack Obama’s approval rating among New Jersey registered voters is a dismal 36%.  49%, including 21% of Democrats and 45% of Independents, disapprove of the President’s job performance.  Senator Cory Booker is 8 points below the magic number of 50% that an incumbent needs to be comfortable in a reelection race.  Those are the kind of numbers any opposition party/candidate would pray for 8 weeks before an election.

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U.S. expands attacks on Islamic State as Iraqi forces move to reclaim villages near Haditha

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Global disgust deepens over Islamic State crisis

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Obama diverts $1 billion in Sandy funds away from New Jersey

Kyrillos and Holzapfel cry foul

Sen. Joe Kyrillos

President Barack Obama announced that he is diverting nearly $1 billion in Hurricane Sandy recovery funds away from New Jersey and New York to fund a nationwide resiliency competition that will ostensibly help the winning communities build infrastructure to deal with the impacts of climate change.

Obama announced the competition last weekend at the University of California Irvine’s commencement, according to The Star Ledger. 

“In some parts of the country, weather-related disasters like droughts and fires and storms and floods are going to get … harsher and they’re going to get costlier,” Obama said during the speech. “That’s why today I’m announcing a new one billion dollar competitive fund to help communities prepare for the impacts of climate change and build more resilient infrastructure across the country.”

State Senators Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth)and Jim Holzapfel (R-Ocean)l condemned the diversion of recovery funds away from their constituents.

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Quinnipiac Poll: New Jersey Voters Approve Of Christie More Than Obama, Menendez or Booker

New Jersey Voters Disapprove of the State Legislature, 36-48%

By Art Gallagher, [email protected]

Governor Chris Christie at Belmar Town Hall. photo by Art Gallagher

A Quinnipiac Poll released this morning indicates that, despite the beating he has been taking in the local and national media since January, Governor Chris Christie has higher approval ratings than President Barack Obama, Senator Bob Menendez and Senator Cory Booker, among New Jersey voters.

Quinnipiac didn’t spin the poll that way in their narrative, but that is what the numbers indicate.  Most of the media coverage about this poll will be negative for Christie. Too many reporters and editors read the spin and not the numbers.

There is bad news for Christie in this poll.  His approval rating has dropped to 49-44% since January when it was 55-38%.

82% of Republicans and 54% of Independents approve of Christie’s job performance. Only 23% of Democrats give the Guv love.

The Governor’s bully rating is higher than ever before. Voters are now evenly split 48-48 on whether he’s a leader or a bully. In January they said he was more of a leader by 54-40 margin.

56% of voters think the Mastro Report, the internal investigation commissioned by the Governor’s Office that exonerated Christie from any involvement in the Bridgegate scandal was a “whitewash.”  Voters are split 46-46 over whether the legislative investigation into Bridgegate lead by Assemblyman John Wisniewski and Senator Loretta Weinberg is a legitimate investigation or a political witch-hunt.

Voters have a net negative impression of the State Legislature that crosses all party lines. Republicans disapprove of legislature 40-45, Democrats 40-43 and Independents 33-53.  The Legislature’s overall approval numbers are negative 36-48.

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Romney was right on Russia

Recorded March 26, 2012

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New Footage from Obama’s Mandela Eulogy

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Bridgegate: What difference does it make?

Some members of New Jersey’s press corps, along with Senator Loretta Weinberg, Assemblyman John Wisniewski and the Democratic National Committee seem think they finally have an issue to thwart Governor Chris Christie’s rising star.   They’re hoping traffic jams in Fort Lee will prevent Christie from becoming President of the United States.

The Star Ledger has an article this morning quoting Democrats and academics saying “the scandal” could hurt Chrisite’s national ambitions.

But questions about the incident have fueled a scandal that even Christie’s masterful team of brand managers can’t make go away.

The Record’s Charles Stile writes that “Christie won’t easily shake GWB flap.”

Stile and The Star Ledger’s reporters have it wrong.  Christie deftly accepted “ultimate responsibility” for the mistakes made in Fort Lee last September, while deflecting blame, at his press conference on the matter on Friday. As NJTV’s Michael Aron said on Reporters Roundtable, the issue is ‘fundamentally over.”   If the ‘Bridgegate’ story gets any ink at all in 2014 and beyond, it will be deep in the back pages.

It’s doubtful that the subpoenas that Wisniewski, as Chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, issued will result in any smoking gun that proves that Christie or anyone in his inner circle other than Port Authority’s Bill Baroni or David Wildstein knew about the George Washington Bridge lane closures that tied up traffic in Fort Lee for a few days is September.  Even if a smoking gun is discovered, as Hillary Clinton would shout, “What difference does it make?”

Now that Christie is a legitimate presidential contender, the front runner in the early polls, it is perfectly appropriate that the press and his opponents attempt to make mountains out of traffic jams and other mole hills as part of the vetting process for a president.  Barack Obama got a pass from the press and his opponents in 2008 and 2012. Look what that got us.

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Obama predicts US will see woman president ‘very soon’

Obama predicts US will see woman president ‘very soon’ (via AFP)

A woman in the White House? President Barack Obama says that will happen “very soon,” according to remarks released Friday. “We have some amazing female [public] servants all across the country and there is no doubt that sometime very soon, we’re going…

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