Is Christie setting Guadagno up for failure?

If Governor Chris Christie was still popular in New Jersey, or Washington, the New Jersey press corps would be pushing a narrative that Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno “is no Chris Christie.”

But Christie is less popular in New Jersey than Anthony Weiner is with Hillary Clinton supporters. Thus the narrative is that Guadagno has been Christie’s second in command and has stood behind him (literally and figuratively) for seven years while New Jersey’s economy has remained stagnant, our credit rating downgraded continuously, and traffic was a mess in Fort Lee for a few days in 2013.

Thus, as Guadagno is running to replace Christie next January, she has to show New Jersey voters that she is no Chris Christie while threading a needle to avoid Christie’s famously vindictive wrath. That’s a difficult endeavor.

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Opinion: The Coming Federalization of NJ Pension and Benefits Crisis

Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff Prediction: Sometime in the foreseeable future, the federal government will step in to address the self-inflicted crisis in state and local government pension and health-benefits funding. The only real question for us in New Jersey is whether it will happen soon enough to save us from ourselves. How and why? Let’s review where we… Read the rest of this entry »

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O’Scanlon: We must decide if addiction is like a bad habit or like cancer

By Declan O’Scanlon

(Editor’s note: This is the original unedited edition of an OpEd published in The Asbury Park Press. “They edited out some good stuff,” O’Scanlon said)

Last month, my brother passed away…..almost exactly 33 years from the day our mother died. He was the same age as my mother when she died, and he died of exactly the same cause – addiction.

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Gorsuch v the type of judge that would wear a pussy hat when presiding over the courtroom …

By Bobbi Bennett

Bobbi Bennett

It seems ridiculous, but if you think about it, this is what we are being asked to choose between. Partisan progressives who refuse to tolerate any ideas outside their own, who can’t even articulate what they believe in any cohesive, consistent manner and riot and commit violent acts at the drop of a … well, hat.

Or, people who have thought deeply and at length about what they believe and advocate, who are aware of not only historical context but also present day reality, who have listened to the opposition and tried to find the wheat among the chaff and address those issues with real solutions rather than mere lip service, who have respect for themselves, the core responsibilities of their office, and are committed to doing what they think is right for all of us in the long term, even if it means the pussy hats will have a temper tantrum and will drag them through the mud, calling them the most offensive of names.

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Guadagno not such a dark horse vs. Murphy | Opinion

By Alan J. Steinberg This has been the week of the entry of Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno into New Jersey’s 2017 gubernatorial race. The conventional wisdom of the state’s political class is that Guadagno will win the Republican nomination and lose by a substantial margin in the general election to the likely Democratic nominee, former Goldman… Read the rest of this entry »

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Shameful fake news: The Asbury Park Press targets local officials with personal problems

By Art Gallagher

On a website promoting his novels, the Senior Regional Content Strategist for The Asbury Park Press says “he gives thanks everyday to New Jersey’s long-line of corrupt officials.”  On another website, the content strategist (Gannett’s 21st century term for “editor”) claims “he has exposed political corruption, insider deals, deadly medical mistakes, bureaucratic bumbling, and wasteful government spending.”

That’s important work.

But lately there must be a shortage of corruption. The Asbury Park Press has taken to publicizing the personal financial problems of municipal officials instead. There has been no evidence reported that those local officials did anything criminal or corrupt while experiencing those financial problems or as a result of them.  In the two recent stories of elected officials’ personal finances, the problems have been going on for years and agreements have been made with the creditors for the successful resolution of the personal issues.

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Golden Days: Monmouth GOP dominated county races

Surrogate Rosemarie Peters, Sheriff Shaun Golden, Congressman Chris Smith, Freeholder Serena DiMaso and Freeholder Tom Arnone celebrate their victories on Election Night

By Art Gallagher

Monmouth County’s Democrat leadership is spinning the shellacking they took last week from Sheriff Shaun Golden, Surrogate Rosemarie Peters, Freeholder Director Tom Arnone and Freeholder Deputy Director Serena DiMaso as a function of President-elect Donald Trump’s performance in the county.

Vin’s spin is laughable on many levels.  Let’s hope he believes it.

The Monmouth GOP swept the county races because, under Golden’s leadership, they campaign the same way the govern.  They work smarter and harder with less money.

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Trump’s election won’t make Christie great again

By Art Gallagher

With the news that President-elect Trump demoted Governor Chris Christie to a secondary role on the Presidential Transition Team, thousands of New Jerseyans breathed a sigh of relief.

The narrative that Christie was demoted because he was stacking the new administration with his own loyalists and had been doing the job with the belief that Trump would lose the election is entirely believable to observers and participants of Christie’s governance of New Jersey.

That Trump quickly and decisively put Vice President-elect Pence in charge of the transition should give comfort to anyone who fears that the Trump Administration will be a reckless frat party.

Yet, New Jerseyans are hopeful that Christie will land and accept a job in the Trump Administration.  The best thing for New Jersey and Christie is for him to get out of Trenton.  The sooner the better.

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Trump’s Internal Polls Were Spot On

By Adam Geller

I want to give a gentle pushback against the narrative that “all the polls were wrong” on the Presidential race. Many of them were wrong. Maybe most of them were. But the internal polls for the campaign were spot on.

You may recall that the pundits laughed when Kellyanne mentioned that we spotted a fairly large hidden Trump vote, or as she called them, “undercover Trump voters.” Our polling always showed these folks in fairly large numbers. And they fell off of their chairs on their bright shiny studio sets when we started actively campaigning in states like Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. But again, the polling provided evidence that there were cracks in that big blue wall. And we listened to the polls, and trusted them.

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Musings of a Values Voter, 2016

It is our character that supports the promise of our future – far more than particular government programs or policies.  – William Bennett

By Tommy DeSeno

There were those of us, the values voters, who stood by stunned when the bar for personal conduct, vulgarity, sexual assault, law and American values was lowered by those who refused to remove Bill Clinton from office in 1998. We were told we were prudish, imposing religious values and should mind our own business by staying out of Clinton’s “private life.” That side won the culture war. My side lost the culture war. They may now reap what they have sown, and what they have sown is an acceptance of Donald Trump. This linguistic monster, whose polyglot range is a very limited dirty to deriding, was created by those who stood with Bill Clinton, who made the coarsening of American discourse official.  They’ll never admit it. The left is married only to the moment with no view of history or legacy.

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