American Conservative Union, the folks who put on the CPAC conventions and who have since 1971 been rating the conservatism of members of Congress have rated the conservatism of New Jersey’s state legislators.
ACU tracked the votes on 11 pieces of legislation for Assembly members and 9 votes in the Senate. Those who voted the way ACU favored 100% of the time were declared “Defenders of Liberty.” Those who voted with ACU on 80% or more of the bills earned the designation “ACU Conservative.”
Those legsilators who never voted the way ACU favored, most of the Democrats, earned the designation “True Liberals of the Garden State.”
Some of the results in the Monmouth County delegation, Districts 11, 12, 13 and 30, are surprising. At least they are to me.
If you asked me to predict who among the Monmouth County delegation would have earned a 100% conservative, “Defender of Liberty” designation I would have guessed only 11th District Assemblywoman Caroline Cassagrande. I would have guessed wrong. Cassagrande didn’t even make the 80% “ACU Conservative” cut. She voted the ACU way 8 of 11 times for a 73% rating. The 3 votes Cassagrande cast that did not meet ACU approval were for 1) for legislation that requires businesses to post notices that employees have the right to be free from gender inequality, 2) for legislation that would ban treating waste water from fracking and 3) a bill that provided tax credits for electric car charging stations.
The State Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee toured the damaged areas of Union Beach and Highlands today before convening their scheduled hearing at the Henry Hudson Regional High School in Highlands.
State Senator Joe Kyrillos, who represents the Bayshore in Trenton, issued the following statement following the hearing:
Touring the damage today in Union Beach and Highlands gave my colleagues in the Senate a good visual of the destruction this storm wrought on our district and Monmouth County as a whole. However, the testimony from members of the community who are putting their lives back together best illustrated the anguish and exhaustion our friends and neighbors are going through. I thank members of the Committee for coming out to the Bayshore today.
They also got to see the best New Jerseyans have to offer: neighbors helping neighbors, residents rebuilding with dedication and courage, and the generosity of charities such as the Robin Hood Foundation that announced today their contribution of hundreds of thousands of dollars to relief efforts in Sea Bright, Highlands, Keansburg, and Union Beach.
As FEMA continues to assess the damage and make plans to compensate victims and help them rebuild, I encourage them to remember words of the residents who came to Highlands to testify. The perception that the New Jersey shoreline is only for wealthy vacationers who live elsewhere is a false one. This area is full of hard-working, middle class families whose homes have been in their families for generations and will have a difficult time rebuilding what they’ve lost even with flood insurance. It is incumbent upon us to work together and ensure they are able to rebuild their homes to the condition in which they existed prior to the storm, or help them find a new home elsewhere if rebuilding in certain areas is too dangerous. Only then will their lives truly be made whole after this unique event.
Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon said that the tour and the hearing dispelled any notion that some legislators have heard from their consitituients that FEMA and the State are bailing out exclusively well to do and second home owners on the shore who should have known better than the build near the water.
“This one was different,” said O’Scanlon, “properties were never touched by previous major storms and hurricanes were destroyed this time. Hard working familes whose homes have been passed down four generations lost everything. Every town is different and it is appropriate that the Committee came and meet the people of the Bayshore.”
Highlands Mayor Frank L. Nolan gave FEMA a “D” when asked to grade the federal agency by Senator Jeff Van Drew. “Do you say B?” ask Van Drew. “D, as in not good,” responded Nolan.
Nolan gave the FEMA personnel on the ground an A+, saying his issues are with the agency’s bueracracy and red tape.
Nolan also announced that the Rainbow Foundation has pledged $200,ooo for Highlands recovery.
Councilwoman-elect Tara Ryan asked the committee to keep up the pressure on the National Park Service to open Sandy Hook by this summer, citing the park’s importance to the Northern Monmouth economy.
Governor Chris Christie’s choice of running mate for his 2013 reelection campaign will have little to do with Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno’s performance during the first Christie term. By all accounts Guadagno has done her job well. She’s been a good soldier, loyal and obedient surrogate and fine ambassador to the business community.
The hint of scandal that NJ Watchdog has been pushing about Guadagno during her days as Monmouth County Sheriff will have little impact on her status on the ticket. Just like U.S. Senator Robert Menendez’s prostitution scandal, nobody in the media cares about the story Mark Lagerkvitz has been pushing for over two years about Gaudagno arranging for Mickey Donovan being able to collect a police pension while acting as her law enforcement chief in Monmouth. If Trenton Democrats were going to make an issue of Guadagno’s role in Donovan’s double dipping, there probably would already have been hearings in the Senate or Assembly into the matter already.
The imminent decision about Kim Guadagno’s future is all about 2016 and 2017 politics. It has little to do with the 2013 gubernatorial election.
There has been quiet speculation that Guadagno would not be the second term LG for months. A story was floated over the summer that she would become New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney if Mitt Romney was elected president.
If Christie runs for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination he will become a part time governor sometime in 2015. If he becomes the front runner for the nomination he could resign early 2016. Whether he resigns or not, New Jersey would need an acting governor who is really in charge. As often as Guadagno has been acting governor over the past three years, no one believes she was really in charge. If Christie runs for president in 2016, his lt. governor will be running for governor in 2017 as an incumbent, effectively.
Christie probably hasn’t made a decision about 2016. Yet, he undoubtably wants to keep his options open and to leave New Jersey is strong hands should he decide to run.
If Guadagno is the LG candidate in 2013, that would be a signal that Christie believes that she is ready to be governor and ready to lead the NJ Republican Party.
Bergen Record columnist Charles Stile posted a column yesterday speculating about possible Guadango replacements. Stile named Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan and six state senators as possible future acting governors; Joe Kyrillos, Tom Kean, JR, Jennifer Beck, Diane Allen, Dawn Marie Addiego and Kevin O’Toole.
Christie chose Guadagno over Donovan, Allen and Beck in 2009. He’s not likely to choose any of them as his running mate in 2013. Choosing Kyrillos would create a context for Joe’s lackluster campaign against Menendez for U.S. Senate this year. Other than Kean, son of the former governor and the 2006 U.S. Senate nominee, none of the other mentions significant statewide name recognition. Kryillos just spent a year and $5 million building statewide name recognition.
By popular demand (from Matt Rooney and a Democratic operative who doesn’t want people to know he/she talks to me) your favorite blogger is shifting his focus away from the Sandy Aftermath and back to politics on this election eve.
Rooney said, “Let’s hear your projection, Gallagher.” My response: “The power will be off at my house for the rest of the week.”
Kyrillos spends the day focus on supporting victims of Hurricane Sandy
US Senator Bob Menendez’s campaign manager told PolitickerNJ that his boss didn’t pay for sex while on a trip to the Dominican Republic last spring and that the story first reported by The Daily Caller is a product of the “right wing smear machine.”
The Menendez camp is blaming the Kyrillos camp for planting the story:
“It is disgusting that on a day when New Jerseyans are focused on responding to one of the worst disasters to ever hit the state, Joe Kyrillos and the right wing smear machine are peddling lies about Bob Menendez,” Soliman said. “Let’s be clear: the accusations Kyrillos and his friends in the right wing media are peddling are absolutely false. This unsubstantiated, untrue attack is a new low, and we hope that Kyrillos will pull his campaign out of the gutter and join us and other leaders in helping get this state back on its feet. Bob Menendez is going to continue to focus on helping New Jersey recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy and will not be distracted by desperate smears from a flailing campaign in the final days before an election.”
Democrats are furious with Kyrillos for responding to The Daily Caller’s article by asking Menendez to release his schedule and travel documents, and for even trying to win the election in the face of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation.
“Kyrillos’s career is over,” a angry Democratic operative said on the condition of anonymity, “Obama and Christie did the right thing, and he’s (Kyrillos) talking about prostitutes. While his legislative district is in shambles from the storm, he’s off campaigning in Bergen and Ocean Counties. Even my Republican friends are disgusted with him.”
Kyrillos visted with residents and local officials in Middlesex, Bergen and Passaic counties today. He stopped at the Peterpank Diner in Sayreville, the Police Athletic Leaue in Wayne where hot meals were served to those without power, and the Christian Health Care Center in Wyckoff.
“This infamous storm has caused more destruction and devastation among our residents than anything I’ve witnessed or care to see again,” Kyrillos said.“This process of physical and emotional mending will certainly be arduous. But as my meetings continue, I’m starting to notice a sense of ‘Jersey strong’ resilience coming out of residents and community leaders, saying we will get through this. We will rebuild and be stronger from it.”
Kyrillos calls on Menendez to release his travel records
A prominent reporter with one of New Jersey’s largest media outlets told MMM that The Daily Caller’s story about US Senator Bob Menendez covorting with prositutes in the Dominican Republic and paying them $400 less than agreed is “extremely thin, our resources are spread thin.” The reporter said that it will be the editors’ judgement about what to do with the story.
The Daily Caller story included video of the women who charged Menendez paid them less than agreed for sex, and referred to aircraft records of a Menendez donor’s private airplane landing at Teterboro Airport, a short drive from Menendez’s Hudson County home, and flying to the Dominican Republic during the time last spring when the incident is alleged to have occurred.
State Senator Joe Kyrillos’s campaign spokeswoman called on the incumbent to release his schedule and travel documents for the time of the alleged incident.
“Like the recent Secret Service sex scandal in Colombia, the allegations reported today are deeply disturbing and raise serious questions,” said Kyrillos Campaign Communications Director Meaghan Cronin. “Senator Menendez must do the right thing and help settle this matter by immediately releasing his schedule and travel documents from the time the alleged incidents occurred. The people of New Jersey deserve answers today.”
Do you approve the “Building Our Future Bond Act?” This bond act authorizes the state to issue bonds in the aggregate principal amount of $750 million to provide matching grants to New Jeresy’s colleges and universities. Money from the grants will be used to build, equip and expand higher education facilities for the purpose of increasing academic capacity.
We thought we were rid of him in 2009. We sent him back to Wall Street where he destroyed the company that hired him as CEO and he destroyed the businesses and savings of thousands of investors when $1.2 billion of their money went missing. He testified before a congressional committee that he simply does not know where the money is. MF’ing Jon Corzine.
Yet the ghost of Jon Corzine in on the ballot twice this November. Once, if Joe Kyrillos has his way, in the form of Bob Menendez, the man Corzine made a Senator.
Perhaps more dangerous to our fiscal health than Bob Menendez is the insidious alliance of trough swillers who are hoping New Jersey voters don’t notice that ballot question #1 is Corzine Economics and Governance.
Imagine this is a personal expenditure. It is. If not for you, for your children or grandchildren.
Imagine your income has been down for a few years and its lower that what you expected it would be so far this year. Your credit rating has been downgraded. Your savings have been depleted and you don’t know that you’re going to be able to make ends meet at the end of the year. Not that hard to imagine. Many New Jerseyans are living through that nightmare. Our state government is going through exactly that.
Then imagine that a group of politicians, unions, business groups, colleges, gas and electric companies, water companies, insurance companies…pretty much everyone who supported Corzine’s plan to sell or lease our highways and his plan to borrow $450 million to fund stem cell research comes along and asks you to guarantee a $750 million loan to build, equip and expand facilities on college campuses.
Again, not hard to imagine because its happening. The group is called Building our Future: Yes on #1. Its list of donors smells like #2 if you’re concerned our New Jersey’s fiscal health and your own.
As of October 10 the group’s donors had kicked in $900,000 to persuade you to vote for their largess, according to The Star Ledger.
Most of Building our Future’s donors have a financial stake in the passage of referendum, which could create dozens of large construction projects on college campuses across the state.
The group’s first donors include: PSE&G ($200,000), New Jersey Carpenter Contractor Network ($100,000), New Jersey Resources ($100,000), Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters PAC ($100,000), New Jersey State Electrical Workers ($100,000) and the American Federal of Teachers New Jersey ($10,000).
William Paterson University was the first higher education institution to donate to the cause, with a $33,000 check, according to the ELEC filing. University officials said the money came from private donations to the William Paterson Foundation, the school’s nonprofit fund raising arm.
This group knows how to raise money. $900,000 since they were formed in August. They also know how to spend it. Save money? Not so much. Their web site cost over $18,000.
The Corzine connections to the group run deep.
Maggie Moran was the first chairperson of the group, according to their ELEC reports. Moran was Corzine’s Chief of Staff when he served in the U.S. Senate. She was his Deputy Chief of Staff while he was governor. Laura Matos was the group’s first treasurer. Matos served in the governor’s office for Jim McGreevey, Dick Cody and Corzine. Moran and Matos are now partners at M Public Affairs, Inc. Building our Future: Yes on #1 shares office space with M Public Affairs in Lake Como. Building our Future: Yes on #1 and M Public Affairs have the same phone number. Of the $188,000 Building our Future: Yes on #1 spent through October 9, $55,000, including the $18K web site, was paid to M Public Affairs.
The new chairman of Building our Future is union leader William T. Mullen. The new treasurer is John Duthie who is also the treasurer of the NJ State Laborers PAC and the Laborer’s International Union of North America.
The Corzine connections run deep.
We couldn’t afford Jon Corzine when he was governor and we can’t afford his borrow and overspend policies now.
“My baseball career spanned almost five decades—from 1925 to 1973, count them—and in all that time I never had a boss call me upstairs so that he could congratulate me for losing like a gentleman. “How you play the game” is for college boys. When you’re playing for money, winning is the only thing that matters. Show me a good loser in professional sports, and I’ll show you an idiot. Show me a sportsman, and I’ll show you a player I’m looking to trade to Oakland so that he can discuss his salary with that other great sportsman, Charley Finley.”
If Joe Kyrillos overcomes the double digit lead that several polls give Bob Menendez in the U.S. Senate race over the next two weeks without going negative, he not only will be making political history, he will have transcended human nature and rewritten the “how to win an election as a challenger” campaign books.
As much as people complain about negative political ads, they are the only ads that work for a challenger or candidate behind in the polls.
Vice President George H.W. Bush’s “Willie Horton” ad against Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign is probably the most memorable political ad of all time. It is arguably the most negative…and effective…as it propelled Bush to overcome a 17% deficit in the national polls and win the White House.
Kyrillos’ campaign has been complaining that the mainstream NJ media has not been covering the campaign enough. That changed this weekend as The Star Ledger/NJ.com featured Monmouth County’s senior state senator and the U.S. Senate campaign three times in the last two days. NJTV’s Reporters Roundtablededicated a third of this weekend’s show to the Senate race.
If Joe K’s objective was to introduce himself to New Jersey as the nice guy that he truly is, his campaign is working. If he’s out to beat Menendez, it does not appear to be working. The predicate of the campaign was if Obama wins New Jersey by less that 10%, Kyrillos could beat Menendez. Yet, based upon recent polls, Menendez is outperforming Obama in New Jersey. Put another way, Kyrillos is under-performing Romney in New Jersey.
Even the jabs Kyrillos threw at Menendez in their three debates were nice. His press releases leave the harsh quotes to his campaign manager. His TV ads are nice.
If nice gets voters’ attention and overcomes a double digit deficit in the current New Jersey race, it will be a first.
