Quinnipiac Poll: 74% approve of Christie. 68% says he deserves reelection

A Quinnipiac poll released this morning shows Governor Chris Christie’s sky high approval ratings are continuing to rise.

79% of New Jersey voters, including 70% of Republicans, approve of the verbal lashing Christie gave to House Speaker John Boehner and the Republican House over the delay in emergency funding for the Hurricane Sandy recovery. Voters approve of the overall job that Christie is doing my a measure of  74%-21%.  94% approve of Christie’s overall response to Hurricane Sandy.

But, if the election was held today, Christie’s down ballot coattails would be weak.  By 48%-39%, New Jersey voters want the Democratic Party to retain control of the State Legislature, despite the Legislature’s weak approval ratings.

Only 40% approve of the job the State Senate is doing.  37% approve of the Assembly’s performance.

30% approve of Senate President Steve Sweeney’s performance, 25% disapprove and 45% don’t know enough to say.  Only 21% approve of Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver’s performance, 18% disapprove and 61% don’t know enough to say.

In the race, or lack thereof, for the Democratic nomination for governor, former Acting Governor Richard Codey would easily win a primary over Senator Barbara Buono, the only declared candidate.  Despite Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal’s strong support, Buono would only receive 10% of primary votes.  Sweeney also gets 10%, but Codey gets 28%.  45% don’t know how they would vote.

Christie easily beats all Democratic challengers, 2-1 or better. Christie gets 35% of the Democratic vote.

In the 2014 race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator, Newark Mayor Cory Booker returns the spanking by beating Senator Frank Lautenberg 51%-30%.  Most voters like the job that Lautenberg is doing, but think he is too old.

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Lautenberg suggests Booker needs a spanking

U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg suggested to the Philadephia Inquirer that Newark Mayor Cory Booker should be spanked for the disrespect he has shown to his elder by trying to push the senator out of office.

Booker has already formed a 2014 campaign committee, prompting anonymous Lautenberg aides to rip the mayor to Politico, accusing him of being “disrespectful.” I asked Lautenberg about that characterization this afternoon.

“I have four children, I love each one of them. I can’t tell you that one of them wasn’t occasionally disrespectful, so I gave them a spanking and everything was OK,” Lautenberg said with a smile in his first public comments since Booker announced he was considering a run for Senate.

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Pallone “all but certain” to seek U.S. Senate seat if Lautenberg retires

In an anonymously sourced reported posted last evening, Roll Call says that Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ6) is “all but certain” to seek the U. S. Senate seat currently held by Frank Lautenberg in 2014 should the 88 year old senator retire.

Despite his over two decades in Congress, Pallone has an uphill battle against Newark Mayor Cory Booker and perhaps Senate President Steve “The Kitten” Sweeney for the Democratic nominationn for Senate.  Booker announced before Christmas that he wouldn’t challenge Governor Christie in this years gubernatorial campaign and that he was exploring a run for Lautenberg’s seat.

In a column posted at InTheLobby Carl Golden, Governors Kean and Whitman’s spokesperson, said that Pallone “is destined to be a bridesmaid once again.”

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Does Pallone have the fortitude to run for U.S. Senate?

Now that Newark Mayor Cory Booker has taken himself out the the gubernatorial race, everyone expects him to run for Frank Lautenberg’s U. S. Senate seat in 2014.    A recent poll indicated that Booker would easily beat Lautenberg in a Democratic primary should the 88 year old senator make another run.

That hasn’t stopped Congressman Frank Pallone from calling Democratic County Chairs to remind them that he is still interested in the Senate seat he has long coveted but never had the guts to fight for.

Pallone best shot at becoming a Senator came and went in 2002 when he declined Governor Jim McGreevey’s offer to replace the disgraced Senator Robert Torricelli on the ballot against Doug Forrester.   McGreevey brought Frank Lautenberg out of retirement and got the State Supreme Court to rewrite New Jersey’s election law so the switch could be made after the statutory deadline.  The polls showing Forrester beating Toricelli scared Pallone off from giving up a easy victory in CD-6 in favor of his dream job in the Senate.

Lautenberg went on to clobber Forrester in 2002 and was elected again in 2008. 

Pallone was passed over for the Senate in 2006 when Governor Jon Corzine chose Bob Menendez to replace him in the Senate.  Menendez won his own term that November and was reelected last month.  He is on the verge of becoming the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Pallone clearly wants to be a Senator, but his history indicates that he doesn’t have the fortitude to risk his cushy lifestyle as a congressman in order to fight for his dream.  I hope he grows a pair and goes for it, because the race to replace him in the 6th Congressional District would be great for blog traffic.

WHO WOULD RUN FOR PALLONE’S CD-6 SEAT IF IT WAS VACANT? 

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The attack on the Middle Class

The duplicity of Bob Menendez and the creation of Middle Class ghettos

During Bob Menendez’s first year in the U.S. Senate, 2006, there was a health care bill before the Senate designed to make insurance premiums more affordable for small businesses.  The bill would have allowed small businesses to join together as larger groups in order to enjoy the economies of scale in their insurance purchases that large corporations enjoy.  Chambers of commerce and other business associations would have been allowed to form groups to decrease the cost of health insurance so that more of the members could afford to insure the health of more of the employees and families.

At the time, I was a leader of the Northern Monmouth Chamber of Commerce and a member of the National Federation of Independent Business.  The company I owned was paying 100% of the insurance premiums of its employees.  Premiums were raising at about 13% per year.  It was getting difficult to continue to provide health insurance.  Potential hires who did not need insurance because their spouse’s employer provided it became the most attractive candidates to employ.  Increasing insurance premiums consumed what would have been raises to loyal employees.

NFIB was lobbying hard for the bill.  It had already passed the Republican House and President Bush had indicated he would sign the bill if it passed in the Senate.  The Republican Senate majority support for the bill but the Democrats were filibustering.  NFIP worked its members to contact their Democratic Senators asking that they stop the filibuster and allow the bill to be voted on.

I wrote Mendendez and Senator Frank Lautenberg asking that they support the bill.   As I expected, they didn’t and the bill never made it to the Senate floor vote. Lautenberg wrote back thanking me for contacting him.  Menendez wrote back telling me why he supported the bill that he voted to defeat.

Menendez’s reelection campaign is just as duplicitous as his letter to me in June of 2006.

The theme of our junior senator’s campaign is The Middle Class Is Under Attack.   He says he’s fighting for the Middle Class and wants to rebuild the economy from the “middle out.”

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Good reading

Why Do They Want to Pick on Ann Romney?

Karin McQuillan, a retired psychotherapist and author who served in the Peace Corps in Senegal, writes at American Thinker that Hillary Rosen’s recent rant that Ann Romey never worked a day he her life is part of the Obama political strategy rooted in the politics of envy.  Worse, she says the strategy is deeply rooted in Obama’s psyche as a result of his upbringing.

I guess that’s a theory that one would expect from a psychotherapist.  McQuillan makes a fascinating case.

A FUNNY GAME OF TABLE TENNIS

Closer to home, our friends at InTheLobby have a hilarious account of how Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni turned the table on U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg during the senator’s hearing this week over the fairness of toll increases and patronage at PA.

Turns out that Lautenberg as a former commissioner of the PA he had a free EZ pass for decades and didn’t pay tolls from 1978 through 2006 when the PA stopped issuing free EZ passes to cronies.

Regarding patronage, a former Lautenberg campaign staffer joined PA in 2002, and U.S. Senator Bob Menendez’s son is an intern at PA now.

West Virginia U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller came to Lautenberg’s defense.  New Jersey Democrats have been silent, just as they were during Lautenberg’s dust up with State Senate President Steve Sweeney and George Norcross over the Rutgers-Rowan merger earlier this month.

The InTheLobby piece quotes The Asbury Park Press and The Star Ledger.

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Front Page News?

The big story in yesterday’s Asbury Park Press was the political spat between southern Jersey lawmakers and U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg over the proposed Rutgers-Rowan merger.  Large photos of State Senate President Sweeney and Lautenberg covered most of the front page.

In case you haven’t been following, Governor Chris Christie has proposed reorganizing Rutgers, Rowan and the University of Medicine and Dentistry.  Rutgers-Camden would become part of Rowan. Rowan would get a medical school associated with George Norcross Univeristy Cooper University Hospital.  Robert Wood Johnson Hospital would become part of a medical school at Rutgers-New Brunswick, and it will be a while before there are more UMDNJ indictments.

MMM hasn’t been following it all that much.  Our young legal eagle friends at Save Jersey don’t like it because they think it will devalue their law degrees if they apply to a firm that doesn’t know the difference between Rutgers-Camden and Rutgers-Newark.  And then there’s the two idiots who don’t like the deal…that former Navy SEAL that ran for Assembly who got into it with Christie at a Town Hall meeting and Lautenberg.

If not for the idiot SEAL and the idiot U. S. Senator nobody from New Jersey who isn’t directly affected by the merger would know about it, except for news junkies like us.

Lautenberg wrote to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan alleging the proposed merger is improper and copied U.S. Attorney General Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder and New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney Paul “New Jersey is not corrupt” Fishman, thereby implying that the merger is criminal. 

Having already used “idiot” and “numb-nuts” with great fanfare, Christie’s team dubbed Lautenberg’s letter as “outrageous,” “uninformed,” and “bizarre.”

None of that was front page newsworthy.  It took Norcross and Sweeney launching  Sweeney’s 2014 campaign for Launtenberg’s job to make the front page of the APP.

Wednesday morning Sweeney emailed a scathing open letter attacking Lautenberg for opposing the merger and for his failure as a U.S. Senator to bring home Washington money for New Jersey’s higher education institutions.  Several other south Jersey lawmakers, including two Republicans, signed with letter with Sweeney. Norcross later sent a statement calling Lautenberg a “great Senator for north Jersey” who has failed southern New Jersey to the same email list.

The Sweeney/Norcross statements are not really about the Rutger-Rowan merger.  The real message is that Lautenberg’s career is coming to an end.  That message has been confirmed by the silence of Democratic leaders who have staid out of this fight.  U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, Assembly Speaker Sheilia Oliver, Democratic State Chairman John Wisniewski, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker have all been silent.  No one is backing up Lautenberg. 

The message to Lautenberg…prepare for retirement… just don’t quit and let Christie appoint your replacement.  The message to Democratic donors…don’t give to Lautenberg’s 2014 reelection campaign.

So, the point of the last 460 words is that The Asbury Park Press made the 2014 race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate front page news yesterday.  That wouldn’t be so bad if there were not a U.S. Senate election between two relatively unknown candidates, U.S. Senator Bob Mendendez and State Senator Joe Kyrillos this year.

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Congressional Voting Ratings

Pallone and Payne, 17 others are tied for #1 most liberal members of congress

Republicans Smith and LoBiondo have higher liberal rankings than conservative rankings

National Journal has released its annual Congressional Voting Ratings and New Jersey has two congressman tied for the #1 most liberal member of congress based upon how they voted throughout 2011.

Frank Pallone, NJ-6, Long Branch, after being ranked the 70th most liberal member of congress in 2009, the 33rd most liberal in 2010, surged to the top of the list to earn a number 1 ranking in 2011.

Donald Payne of Newark, NJ-10, shares the #1 liberal ranking with Pallone and 17 other members throughout the country.  Payne’s liberal ranking was 46 in 2009 and 113 in 2010.

Rush Holt, NJ-12 joins Pallone and Payne among the top 50 liberals, coming in at #43, a drop from his 14th place showing in 2010.  Holt was #1 in 2009.

The most conservative member of New Jersey’s delegation?  That would be Scott Garrett, NJ-5, which is really no surprise.  What is surprising is that Garrett, who is often portrayed in the New Jersey media as a right wing fringe lunatic and the most conservative member of congress, is in the middle of the pack, ranked # 143 on the conservative scale.

NJ-3 freshman Jon Runyan’s #181 conservative ranking makes him the #2 conservative in the New Jersey delegation.

Leonard Lance, NJ-7 is ranked #191 on the conservative list.  Rodney Frelinghuysen, NJ-11 is #206.

Republicans Chris Smith, NJ-4, and Frank LoBiondo, NJ-2, have higher liberal rankings than conservative rankings.  Smith is #195 on the liberal list and #235 on the conservative list.  LoBiondo is #205 on the liberal list and #225 on the conservative list.

In the Senate, Frank Lautenberg is #14 on the liberal list.  Bob Menendez is #31 on the liberal list.

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For Democratic U.S. Senators, it’s not what you know or who you know, it’s who you have sex with.

Character, scholarship, temperament and a demonstrated ability to do the job.  One would hope that those are the most important qualities our U.S. Senators consider when they participate in the vetting of potential federal judges.

Evidently, who potential judges share their beds and bodies with are a more important consideration to New Jersey’s U.S. Senators; Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez.

Two weeks ago we read the news that Lautenberg passed over candidates expected to be nominated for federal judgeships in New Jersey and “out of nowhere” endorsed New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s brother-in-law to sit on New Jersey’s District Court.

Today we read that Menendez is using  senatorial courtesy to block the nomination of U.S. Magistrate Patty Shwartz to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Shwartz has been in a relationship with James Nobile for two decades, according to The New York Times.  Nobile is the head of the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s public corruption unit which investigated Menendez in 2006 while the Hudson County pol was running for his own term as Senator after having been appointed by Governor Jon Corzine.

Menendez was elected despite the news of the investigation.  The investigation has been closed with no charges filed.

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2012 Predictions

Serena DiMaso will be elected Monmouth County Freeholder at the Title 19 convention of the Monmouth GOP Committee on January 14.   Bob Walsh will withdraw during his speech before the convention.

Bill Spadea defeats Donna Simon and John Saccenti at a Title 19 convention of the 16th legislative district to fill the assembly seat vacated by the death of Peter Biondi.  After recounts and law suits, the November special election for the seat is declared a tie between Spadea and Democratic Princeton Committeewoman Sue Nemeth.  Another special election is scheduled for January of 2013.

Joe Oxley will be named Township Administrator and In House Attorney for Wall Township.  The appointment will forward a statewide trend of municipalities hiring either attorneys or engineers as their administrators as a cost saving measure.   Oxley is reelected GOP County Chairman by acclamation.  Senator Jennifer Beck will give the nominating speech.  Christine Hanlon will be Vice Chair.

Middletown will get a new Parks and Recreation Director.  It won’t be Linda Baum or Pam Brightbill.

Jim McGreevey is ordained an Episcopal priest.

Jon Corzine remembers where he put the $1.2 billion.

Senator Joe Kyrillos will be the GOP nominee for U.S. Senator, defeating Anna Little and Joseph Rudy Rullo in the primary. 

Congressman Steve Rothman defeats Congressman Bill Pascrell in the Democratic primary for the 9th Congressional District nomination.  In the only surprise of the primary, former Bergen County GOP Freeholder Anthony Cassano, who had agreed to take one for the team in the 9th, was defeated when the Bergen County Tea Party Group organized a write-in campaign for Anna Little.  Little was on the ballot as a U.S. Senate candidate.  Having lost the Senate nomination to Joe Kyrillos, Little accepts the nomination, asks Kyrillos to host a fundraiser for her, and promises to move into the district if she wins.   She doesn’t.

Maggie Moran defeats Vin Gopal and Frank “LaHornica” LaRocca in a close election for the Monmouth County Democratic Chairmanship.

James Hogan of Long Branch is the GOP nominee for Congress in New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District.  Frank Pallone is reelected by 8%.

Jordan Rickards of North Brunswick  is the GOP nominee for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District.  Rush Holt is reelected by 15%.

On August 28, the second day of the Republican National Convention, the National Weather Service warns that Hurricane Chris is heading towards the Jersey Shore.  Acting Governor Kim Guadagno gets on TV and says, “Get the heck off of the beach please.”

Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee for President of the United States.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will be the Vice Presidential nominee.

President Obama nominates Vice President Joe Biden to be Secretary of State.  Biden submits his resignation as VP effective upon both houses of congress confirming his successor.  President Obama nominates Hillary Clinton as Vice President.   Speaker of the House John Boehner refuses to schedule confirmation hearings for the VP nomination on the constitutional grounds that their is no vacancy in the office.   Obama makes them both recess appointments.  Clinton is nominated for VP at the Democratic National Convention and Secretary of State Biden spends October in China.

Despite losing their home states of Massachusetts and New Jersey, the Romney-Christie ticket wins the electoral college by one vote, 270-269.   The winning vote comes from Maine, one of two states that awards electoral votes by congressional district.  Romney-Christie lose Maine 3-1 but win the election.  Obama-Clinton file suit to challenge Maine’s method of awarding electoral votes.  Romney-Christie counter with a suit in Nebraska, which they won 4 electoral votes to 1, using the same arguments that Obama-Clinton use in Maine.  The U.S. Supreme Court decides both cases for the plaintiffs, 5-4, and determined that in all future presidential elections that electoral votes are awarded on a winner take all basis nationally.  Tea Party leader Dwight Kehoe calls for the impeachment of the Justices who voted affirmatively, claiming that they don’t understand the 10th Amendment.

Robert Menendez defeats Joe Kyrillos for U.S. Senate by 1%.

U. S. Senator Frank Lautenberg resigns.   In one of his last acts as Governor before ascending to the Vice Presidency, Chris Christie appoints Kyrillos to Lautenberg’s Senate seat.

What do you think will happen?

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