Posted on 09/04/2017 3:58:57 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff
RUTHERFORD – The gubernatorial campaigns had their own challenges at the annual Street Fair here, unofficially the bellwether kickoff of the New Jersey general election season. Democrat Phil Murphy had to present just enough organic-looking authenticity to avoid projecting the clanking, bug-squashing arrogance of a passionless imperial army; while Republican Kim Guadagno needed to play up underdog passion without too nobly resembling the Spartan Army of Leonidas that got crushed by Xerxes.
InsiderNJ tried to ply the “it’s over” narrative among Democrats, and they didn’t – for the most part – take the bait.
“I think it’s fair to say we have the momentum,” Bergen Freeholder Tracy Zur said, hardly engaging in Floyd “Pretty Boy” Floyd beat-down talk with two months and three days to go before Election Day, as her candidate, Murphy, rides a 3-1 fundraising advantage, a completely submerged lame duck Governor Chris Christie limping to the finish line of his two-term tenure, and poll numbers that make Murphy a strong favorite.
(Excerpt) Read more at insidernj.com ...
Once bitten, twice shy. Remember how Hillary had a 98% chance to win the election back on November 7?
they polled nationwide for Hillary as if total votes mattered.. 98% certainty she would get the most votes. And she did.
Doubt NJ is being polled wrong.
NJ is Deep Blue. Murphy will win.
Occasionally they do elect a RINO but that’s about it.
It’s hard to hold a seat when the outgoing incumbent is less popular than raw sewage.
VA is where the action is. Rats trying to fan Black turnout and liberal suburbanites with Nazi BS.
Commie Red.
And now I hear Stay Puft wants to appoint himself to the Senate seat if Menendez gets indicted and convicted. If he does have the seat come open between now and early January, he should appoint a Republican with an approval rating that ain’t in the single digits. I’d appoint Scott Garrett just to watch leftist heads explode.
If he appoints himself it must be cause he wants to set a record for getting your a$$ kicked in a NJ Senate race.
I’m surprised but the biggest margin ever was 1984, Bill Bradley beat Montclair Mayor Mary Mochary by 29 points (cause she quit campaigning due to husband’s illness? Ugh). RINO Clifford Case over rat Rep. Paul Krebs in ‘72 comes in a close 2nd at 28 points.
I forgot that Fat Boy has already gotten to appoint a Senator.
And he chose his nobody crony who didn’t even run in the special election. What a friggin maroon.
If he gets a 2nd oppo and eff it up as well, I will personally liposuction him, releasing enough cheese whiz to end world hunger for a generation.
The “presumption” was that the seat already “belonged” to Cory Booker. Well, more to the point, had the seat not come open with the Lousycorpse’s death, Booker was looking at running against Stay Puft for Governor in 2013, and Tubbo didn’t want that (since Booker stood a good chance of beating him). He had the Attorney General Chiesa keep the seat warm for Booker and that was that (hell, Tubbo might as well have gifted the seat to Booker outright, it was such a joke).
I was recalling the mess for the earlier battle for that same seat back in 1982. Harrison Williams was forced out due to corruption (Abscam) in April, before the primary which was in June. New Governor Tom Kean (inaugurated in Jan ‘82) had a dilemma. He could appoint one of the two Republicans running in the primary and give them a leg up (both in the primary and general) or he could go with a seat warmer who wouldn’t (well, couldn’t, since it was too late) run in November. So he went with Nicholas Brady, a banker and non-pol (later to be Daddy Bush’s Treasury Secretary) who wouldn’t run.
Meanwhile, the Dems had a battle royale with 10 candidates running. 4 of them only got more than 10%. Pulling up in 4th was Barbara Boggs Sigmund (Hale and Lindy Boggs’ daughter and Cokie Roberts’s older sister), who was battling cancer (she had to have her eye removed) and would be dead within a decade. The top 3 candidates almost pulled to a tie, with two being ex-Congressmen, Andrew Maguire (a Watergate Baby who lost to Red RINO Marge Roukema in ‘80) and Joe LeFante (who had been an ex-Assembly Speaker who barely won the House seat in 1976 in a heavy Dem district and then just didn’t bother to run a second time, with Gov. Brendan Byrne throwing him some state job as a consolation for allowing a stronger Dem to run against him. LeFante would later endorse President Reagan in 1984). However, Frank Lautenberg, then the Port Authority Commissioner, edged out Maguire 26-23% (with no runoff).
Getting back to the GOP side, there were just two candidates. For the Conservatives was Jeff Bell, who had upset the Socialist RINO Clifford Case in the 1978 Senate primary (but would unfortunately go on to lose against Bill Bradley, perhaps one of the most overrated Senators of the past 50 years who was worshipped by the media as Mr. Moderate Intellectual. He was a dumb jock who hardly ever veered from voting the far-left line). For the Establishment center-left was pipe-smoking Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick. The race was relatively close, but enough establishment support went to Fenwick and she beat Bell by a 54-46% margin (revenge of the Caseites ?).
Had Harrison Williams stayed in office until after the June primaries, that would’ve given Gov. Kean a way to boost Fenwick by appointing her outright (which might’ve helped). Instead, it gave “youngster” Lautenberg (then 58) time to viciously attack the patrician Fenwick as being so elderly as to have one foot in the grave (she was 72, which is practically a youngster for Senators today), and winning by just 3% (the New Jersey Democrat “landslide”). As we now know, a creaky and creepy Lautencorpse was back running for the seat at nearly 85 and died just short of 90. The GOP should’ve gone extra-hardball against a phony who was 13 years older than the “too old to serve” Fenwick in 2008.
The other irony was Jeff Bell, the 34-year old candidate in 1978 and again in 1982 was the all but ignored opponent of Cory Booker in 2014, by now almost as old as Millie Fenwick was in 1982.
Left out an interesting tidbit. When Peter Frelinghuysen (of one of the old patrician families of NJ) retired in 1974, this was the seat that Fenwick ran for. Her opponent that she narrowly beat in the GOP primary ? None other than Tom Kean. She did manage to keep the seat in the GOP column that horrible year even as the NJ Democrats wiped away the Republicans’ 7 seats down to 3. I’d be curious if Kean harbored any ill feelings towards Fenwick (despite hailing from the same wing of the GOP) that might’ve kept him from helping her (if he could have) in 1982.
Of course, we also know Kean was notoriously bad with trying to bait the state and national party with claims of wanting to run for the Senate (or having the race cleared for him) well up until around 2000 only to hang them both out to dry when he consistently refused to run against Lautenberg or Bradley (he should’ve done so in 1988 coming off his Governorship against the former). Just another one of these arrogant RINO Governors who thought the Senate beneath them and content to let the Democrats run the show.
Houses in So. NH are pricey. A real obstacle in my escape plan. Zillow.com
Munster IN look like good place to buy a house
My half-uncle moved to I think St. John, a bit south of Munster.
My mom is thinking about Vegas baby.
Where are your NFL picks?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.