Happy New Year MMM readers! 2014 has been a great year so far!
Here’s what we expect in the year ahead.
Senator Cory Booker will narrowly defeat Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick in the U.S. Senate election. Bramnick will be the instant front runner for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in the 2016 special election.
Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik will be a speaker at numerous Democratic Clubs throughout New Jersey and will establish himself as a major fundraiser for Democratic candidates on the municipal and county levels. Hornik will proclaim that the only thing he is running for is reelection as Marlboro’s mayor in 2015.
The 11 incumbent New Jersey Congressmen running for reelection will win. The Republican nominee in the third congressional district seat currently held by Congressman Jon Runyon, who is not seeking a third term, will be elected. Tommy DeSeno will write a column complaining about gerrymandered districts.
Senate President Steve Sweeney will keep picking on Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr.
Governor Chris Christie will have more public appearances in Iowa, South Carolina, Texas and Florida, combined, than he will have Town Hall Meetings in New Jersey.
Anna Little will seek the Republican nomination for Congress in the 6th district, hoping for a third shot at Congressman Frank Pallone. Little will lose at the Monmouth and Middlesex nominating conventions and wage a primary. The Bayshore Tea Party Group will sit out the 6th district primary, citing their commitment to Dr. Alieta Eck’s campaign in the 12th district. Eck will be unopposed for the 12th district nomination to take on Congressman Rush Holt.
Congressman Frank J. Pallone, Jr. Since losing the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate to Cory Booker in a special primary, New Jersey’s longest serving Democratic Member of Congress has gone off the rails with bizarre rants is defense of ObamaCare. As the healthcare plan proves to be increasingly unworkable and unpopular, Pallone’s credibility will tank.
Pallone’s once formidable campaign war chest of roughly $4 million is down to $1.2 million after the special primary, as of the September 30th FEC reports. That $1.2 million is not as high as it might seem, as the congressman historically burns through about $1 million per year in “campaign” expenses during years when he doesn’t have to face the voters. Given that his seat is considered “safe,” he’ll have a tough time competing for campaign dollars with candidates who are in districts considered “competitive.”
There is a talk of an Asian-American from Middlesex County who is willing to spend $1 million of his own money to unseat Pallone. It will take a guy like that to exploit Pallone’s obvious vulnerability.
Tom Kean Jr. Kean overplayed the best hand dealt to New Jersey Republicans since Jim Florio’s toilet paper tax, Chris Christie’s overwhelming popularity, and lost. He picked a fight with Senate President Steve Sweeney and thought he knew better than Christie’s strategists how the Republican legislative campaign should be waged. His only winning option was to defeat Sweeney’s reelection bid and pick up at least another two state Senate seats. He failed on all counts, not winning even one Senate seat.
After Frank “Monkey Court” Pallone (D-NJ06) embarrassed himself twice on video in recent weeks, Cory Booker’s vanquished primary opponent came back to television for more punishment, this time at the hands of none other than… Piers Morgan?
Anna Little wants round three against Frank Pallone.
In an email this morning to past and present supporters, the 2010 and 2012 GOP nominee for New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District seat in the House of Representatives, Little sang a familiar refrain:
I’m Anna Little and I want to work for YOU in Washington
“IT’S NOT TRUE,” Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ, Monmouth and Middlesex) shouted at Fox News’s Megyn Kelly last night while arguing that President Obama has kept his promise, “If you like your healthcare, you can keep it, period, I guarantee it.”
The bobble-heading Pallone apparently was unaware that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius had testified before a House hearing he was present for, that ObamaCare requires that any insurance policy premium that goes up by $5 or more, is ineligible to be “grandfathered.” Pallone changed his demeanor, but stuck to his talking points and kept bobble-heading, after a clearly exasperated Kelly confronted Pallone with a video clip of Sibelius’s testimony.
Pallone insisted that insurance companies were canceling “lousy” policies because no one would buy them. “But 15 million people did buy them,” Kelly retorted as Pallone bobbled.
This was the second time in a week that Pallone lost his composure and motor functions publicly. On October 24 Pallone bobbled and shouted “I will not yield to this monkey court or whatever this thing is, DO WHAT YOU WANT,” during a House ObamaCare hearing.
An angry and animated Congressman Frank Pallone slammed his Republican colleagues on the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning for holding a “Monkey Court” designed to discourage enrollment in ObamaCare.
Pallone, after a bobble head soliloquy, angrily refused to yield to “this Monkey Court.” “Do what ever you want”, Pallone shouted, “I’M NOT YIEDLING!”
For a better quality video of Pallone’s outburst, click here.
Congressman Frank Pallone held a press conference at the EPA’s Edison Lab on Monday, ostensibly to highlight how the “Republican” government shutdown is negatively impacted the middle class and is putting the environment at risk.
“It is now day 14 of the reckless Republican government shutdown that was orchestrated by extreme factions of the GOP to drive their agenda and drive us all into a national crisis. Shutting down the government hurts our economy and threatens middle-class jobs as shown right here at the Edison EPA Lab, where 100 furloughed workers have been forced to stop their work on New Jersey’s Superfund sites, among other critical environmental programs”
“I’m outraged that the GOP shutdown is putting the health and safety of New Jerseyans at risk. This is no way to run the government”
If Steve Lonegan manages to pull off an upset today and defeat Cory Booker in the Special U.S. Senate election to replace the late Frank Lautenberg, Pallone is a very likely candidate to challenge Lonegan for a full senate term next year.
For those moderate Republicans planning to write in someone besides Lonegan or to sit out the election, vote for Lonegan if only to open up the NJ CD 6 Congressional seat next year.
A vote for Lonegan sends Booker to Hollywood, after he finishes his term as Newark’s mayor, and makes Pallone a lobbyist.
Reports out of Long Branch are that Frank Pallone was shocked and dismayed that he lost his first election ever last night.
The story is that it took him two hours after the Associated Press called the primary for Cory Booker to show up at McLoone’s Pier House because he was holed up in his office, unable to compose himself. It was only after he heard the media was leaving that he was able to pull himself together and join his own party while Senate nominee Cory Booker was delivering his victory speech on live TV from Newark.
But the big story, and what Pallone should really be upset about, is not that he lost a primary few thought he could win, but that he is now exposed as vulnerable for reelection in the 6th Congressional District. Pallone performed poorly in his Middlesex and Monmouth base.Numbers and graphics from Politico.
