9/17/09 - Bock bock bock
According to PolitickerNJ, Governor Jon Corzine will not debate Chris Christie on NJ 101.5.
It is clear that Corzine will not (because he cannot) defend his abysmal record as Governor. From raiding the Clean Energy Fund to keep the lights on to shutting down the casino industry in the middle of Fourth of July weekend, this Governor has been a disaster.
What an insult to the people of New Jersey that he doesn't have the guts to debate his opponent to defend himself.
8/24/09 - Double-standard
You have to just laugh when reading about Jon Corzine attacking Chris Christie on a small loan to a friend of his that was publicly recorded and out in the open.
I used to think Corzine was living in an ivory tower. But apparently its a glass house.
Bob Ingle from Gannett does a great job reminding everyone about Corzine's lending habit.
Bottom line is this: Corzine can't talk about jobs or the economy because his record on both stink. So he needs to distract voters. But what he doesn't understand is that voters are so angry at him right now that nothing will distract them.
7/25/09 - Corzine's LG choice says he thinks everything's fine
Well Jon Corzine has selected his Lieutenant Governor running mate: Senator Loretta Weinberg; a 14-year veteran of inside Trenton politics.
What affect does Corzine’s choice have on the gubernatorial race?
None.
He will still lose because New Jerseyans recognize that his administration has been a disaster on every level.
Corzine just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand from his perch in his high-rise luxury apartment in Hoboken (where his celebrated mayor was arrested on Thursday for corruption charges) that New Jersey wants change, not the status quo. The Weinberg pick says to New Jersey that Corzine thinks everything is okey dokey and we don’t need real change.
Weinberg has served in the legislature for 15 years. She has voted for one Democratic budget after another, leading to the financial chaos our state now finds itself --- with an $8 billion structural deficit, hundreds of tax increases, and no genuine effort to curb spending.
I love this choice.
In this year’s governor’s race, we have one ticket of Christie/Guadagno --- a retired US Attorney and former deputy US Attorney --- who represent wholesale change in Trenton. And then we have Corzine/Weinberg --- who want to take this state on the same perilous path toward financial disaster.
7/3/09 - Cap and trade
In the last week, there has been a lot of criticism by my conservative friends about Congressman Frank LoBiondo’s vote in favor of so-called “cap and trade” legislation. The Congressman was one of eight Republicans to support the measure.
This has led national pundits and local constituents to call for the Congressman’s ouster and tell him that this single vote has cost him their vote at the polls next year.
This is a mistake and such a mindset ignores the entire LoBiondo record which is decidedly right-of-center.
Consider this: the American Conservative Union has given Congressman LoBiondo a 67% rating. And Citizens Against Government Waste gave LoBiondo a 59% lifetime rating --- the second highest in New Jersey’s Republican delegation.
So when you look at the Congressman’s entire record on matters of taxes, wasteful spending and national defense, he is a solid conservative and this one vote doesn’t change that.
Remember also that the Congressman voted against the last two Democratic budgets in Washington and strongly opposed the President’s wasteful, multi-billion dollar boondoggle stimulus package.
I wish my conservative friends would have publicly thanked Congressman LoBiondo for his opposition to Obama’s stimulus bill last winter as strongly as they now chastise him for his vote in favor of cap and trade. How quickly we forget.
Now let’s move to the substance of LoBiondo’s vote.
First, let’s start with the premise that the emission of greenhouse gasses are a problem that must be reduced in order to slow the progress of global warming.
If you’re a conservative who doesn’t agree with that premise, you’re at odds with our party’s own platform. Last year I served on the Republican Platform Committee. The document we approved was hailed by conservative icons like Gary Bauer, Phyllis Schaffley and David Keene as one of the most conservative platforms in the history of our party.
It’s such a conservative document that certain folks aligned with Mayor Steve Lonegan have recently called for the adoption of the platform by our Republican State Committee in New Jersey.
In the Environmental Protection section of the platform, it is clearly stated: “As part of a global climate change strategy, Republicans support technology-driven, market-based solutions that will decrease emissions, reduce excess greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, increase energy efficiency, mitigate the impact of climate change where it occurs, and maximize any ancillary benefits climate change might offer for the economy.”
Consequently, even if you don’t agree that the emission of carbon into the atmosphere is a problem, our party has established as a principle that we should strive to reduce emissions and greenhouse gasses.
I readily concede that the cap and trade legislation approved by Congress is too heavy on mandates and too light on providing economic incentives to encourage utility companies to reduce their emissions.
But I think its equally important to actually listen to the Congressman’s justification for his vote, instead of talking over him because of ideological opposition to this legislation.
LoBiondo has said that the bill is far from perfect. He said that he supported the legislation only after it was amended to include additional funding for nuclear power, which annoyed many liberals who ultimately voted against the bill. (And our platform states: “[n]uclear energy is the most reliable zero-carbon emissions source of energy that we have.”) Finally, the Congressman has made the valid point that this bill will not hurt New Jersey like it will other parts of the country. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has concluded that energy customers in New Jersey will benefit from this legislation to the tune of $104 million. See chart here.
Even if you don’t buy those arguments and you agree with the national leadership of our party, if you’re a conservative, does that mean this one vote by the Congressman means he’s not a conservative anymore?
Of course not.
Alan Steinberg, a former EPA official and pretty conservative fellow who opposed the cap and trade bill recently wrote on PolitickerNJ: “I proudly state that Frank LoBiondo is a friend of mine. While I am disappointed in his vote on [cap and trade], the Congressman from Cumberland County has been very loyal to the Republican Party over the past two decades and voted on legislation over 80 percent of the time consistent with party positions, both as a state Assemblyman and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He has been a superb Representative for his South Jersey constituents, and he has earned the continued trust and loyalty from New Jersey Republicans of all ideological stripes.”
Too often we as a party focus on our differences instead of the issues that unite us. That’s a mistake. Political parties are big and represent a variety of views. If we continue to have a purity test for our Republican officials on every issue that comes down the pike, we’re going to appeal to a smaller and smaller group of voters in the general electorate. We are the conservative party and Frank LoBiondo’s record is consistent with and part of it.
Important issues like health care reform, national security and tax policy lie ahead and I am confident that Congressman LoBiondo will again come down on the right side of these issues as he has for the past 15 years.
5/31/09 - Christie is the cure to Whelan & McGettigan
Just when we thought the Callaway machine was dead, it appears to have been resurrected in the Atlantic City mayoral election.
McGettigan has rejected some of messengered absentee ballots cast by voters whose signatures don't match or aren't found in the registration book.
That's easy.
The hard part is McGettigan getting out of his office to investigate whether those other voters are "sick or confined" to their home on election day as the statute requires.
McGettigan's association with the Callaways is very long. The Callaways actively worked in McGettigan’s behalf in helping him to secure the Democratic Party’s endorsement for the county clerk’s position he now holds by arranging transportation for Democratic County Committee members from Atlantic City to cast votes for McGettigan.
McGettigan is quoted in the Press of Atlantic City saying that his office doesn’t "expect many more messenger applications to come in." This raises the question: How would he know how many more ballots the Callaways would be turning in?
McGettigan has an opportunity to show that the Callaway organization has no influence over his actions by standing up to them and getting his office onto the streets of Atlantic City to bring this corruption of our election system to an end.
While the messengered absentee ballot system is now being abused, the Democratic majority in the state legislature is making matters worse.
Both houses of the legislature recently voted to liberalize our election laws with the "Vote by Mail Act", making it easier for political machines to manipulate elections in the future. Senator James Whelan’s amendment to this legislation to limit a messenger to 10 absentee ballots total is a charade that will only force these organizations to grow their list of messengers. It won’t fix the problem.
Governor Jon Corzine should veto the "Vote by Mail Act" that is now sitting on his desk because it will make the situation we are currently witnessing in the Atlantic City mayor’s race even worse in future elections.
Since I fear Governor Corzine will cater to groups like ACORN in his liberal base on this issue, I can only look forward to the election of Chris Christie as our next governor to tackle voter reform in a meaningful way so we can have fair elections in New Jersey once again.
As U.S. Attorney, Christie was the only official who stood up to Craig Callaway and put him behind bars. He is the only candidate for governor who has the credibility and experience to tackle this issue.
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