Governor Chris Christie is not the only Jersey Guy who announced yesterday that he is not running for president. On the Real Jersey Guys Radio Show with former Senator Dick LaRossa and Art Gallagher yesterday afternoon, Scott Sipprelle, last years GOP nominee for Congress in the 12th Congressional District, said he’s not running either.
Following suit, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin told Mark Levin that she’s also not running.
If you missed the show with Sipprelle, here’s a recording:
Trenton, NJ – Governor Chris Christie today announced that the historic, bipartisan pension reforms he signed into law on June 28, 2011 will save New Jersey’s property taxpayers and local governments $267 million in Fiscal Year 2012. Today’s announcement includes $224 million in local taxpayer savings in the Police and Fireman’s Retirement Systems (PFRS), in addition to previously released savings estimates of $43 million in the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS), for a total savings of $267 million across municipalities, school districts and counties this year.
“This $267 million in savings is the direct result of our bipartisan efforts to take on the biggest challenges facing our state and deliver sustainable, long-term property tax relief to New Jersey’s families and job creators. Because we took action, New Jersey taxpayers are now seeing that real results will ease strained local budgets and bring costs under control at the local level,” said Governor Christie. “These savings are critical to getting our economy moving again and creating jobs, while also protecting the core local government services New Jerseyans expect and deserve.”
This historic pension and benefits reform law provides more than $120 billion of savings on state and local government pension payments over the next 30 years. Due to the Governor’s commitment to reverse two decades of irresponsible neglect of the pension system, New Jersey’s taxpayers will now realize substantial savings over the next three decades.
The Governor’s comprehensive set of reforms means critical savings for state and local governments and real property tax relief for New Jerseyans.
·$79 Billion in State Contribution Savings: Over the next 30 years, the state pension contribution will be $148 billion, a projected savings of nearly $80 billion. Without reform, the state was projected to contribute $227 billion over the same period.
·$43 Billion in Local Government Contribution Savings: Over the next 30 years, local government pension contributions will be $70 billion, a projected savings of nearly $43 billion. Without reform, local governments were projected to contribute $113 billion over the same period.
“These initial savings are just a first installment of benefits that taxpayers will realize under the Governor’s landmark pension and benefit reform law,” said Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff. “New Jersey communities, from the biggest to the smallest, will see savings as result of these reforms.”
The $267 million represents local government savings from the projected costs of pension contributions in PFRS and PERS had Governor Christie’s pension reforms not become law. The statewide, year over year savings in pension costs experienced by local governments between fiscal year 2011 and fiscal year 2012 is approximately $84 million.
In seven five weeks New Jersey voters will have the opportunity to elect an entirely new state legislature.
Patrick Murray’s Monmouth University/Neptune Nudniks poll conducted in August indicates that New Jersey voters disapprove of their legislature by a 48%-35% margin. Democrats disapprove by 45%-38%. Independents, the majority, disapprove by a whopping 50%-28%. Surprisingly, Republicans approve of the legislature by a 45%-41% margin. Public workers disapprove by 55%-26%.
Based solely on those poll results, one might expect that we’d be in the middle of a spirited campaign with Democrats and public workers rallying to throw the Republicans out of office. Obviously that is not the case. Democrats control the legislature that their base and Independents disapprove of strongly.
Due to Dr. Alan Rosenthal’s decision that New Jersey voters are better off being continuously represented by legislators they don’t know, there are only a handful of competitive legislative races. The Democrats will continue to control the legislature for the next two years. Probably the next ten years.
Part 3
Now that Governor Christie has put an end to the presidential speculation and passionately reitierated his commitment to fixing our broken state, one might think that an election with every seat in the legislature up for grabs coming up in five weeks would be an opportunity for Christie to foward his fixes by picking up support in the legislature. Christie’s poll numbers are surging in New Jersey. An FDU poll last week indicated that 54% of New Jersey voters approve of the job he is doing. FDU also indicated that 47% of New Jersey voters disapprove of President Obama’s performance, down from dramatically from a May poll after Bin Laden was killed that indicated 56% of New Jerseyans approved of Obama.
Yet Christie apparently doesn’t see an opportunity. During the Q&A of his press conference yesterday the Governor said that he doesn’t see the upcoming legislative election as a referendum on his performance “given the map.” Once again the conventional wisdom is that the only vote that really mattered in this legislative election, and the next four, was the vote that Dr. Alan Rosenthal cast as the tie breaking member of the Legislative Reapportionment Commission adapting the Democratic gerrymandered map that assured “continuity of representation.”
Now that Christie is focused only on New Jersey maybe he will launched an unexpected campaign to defy conventional wisdom and the Rosenthal/Democratic map. During his fund raising trip last week the New Jersey GOP was one of the beneficiaries of his efforts. Christie has moved the electorate in unexpected ways previously. During the 2010 school board elections he called for New Jersey to defeat school budgets in towns where teachers would not agree to contribute to their healthcare. Could that be done in a legislative general election against a gerrymandered map? Its wishful thinking on my part. I would love to see him try it but would be more surprised if he did than if he didn’t.
12th Legislative District
Like the 11th and 13th districts, the 12th has more registered Democratic voters than Republicans, according to Labels and Lists. The district is compromised of the northern part of Burlington County (6,448 registered voters), Old Bridge in MiddlesexCounty (34,626 registered voters) Western Monmouth County (43,861 registered voters) and the Ocean County towns of Jackson and Plumsted (36,656 registered voters).
Despite a voter registration edge for the Democrats, 29,702 to 27,482 Republicans and 64,407 Independents, the district is considered among the safest of Republican districts. On the September 14 Real Jersey Guys Radio Show political strategist Chris Kniesler called the district “deep red.”
The Republicans expected to cruise to victory on November 8th are Assemblyman Sam Thompson, Old Bridge in the old 13th district ,who is running for Senate, Assemblyman Rondal Dancer, Plumsted of the old 30th district, and Monmouth County Freeholder Director Rob Clifton, Matawan, running for Assembly.
I honestly didn’t know that names of the Democratic Assembly candidates before reading The Asbury ParkPress’s write up on the district. They are Catherine Tinney Rome and William Spedding. The Asbury Park Press didn’t say where they are from.
The Democratic Senate candidate is Robert Brown of Old Bridge. Politikernj describes Brown as a “veteran loser.” He ran against Thompson for Assembly in the old 13th in 2007 and in 2009. In 07 his running mate was Middletown’s Patricia Walsh. In 09 he ran with Middletown’s Jim Grenefage.
While Brown doesn’t stand a chance against Thompson, he is providing some comic entertainment to the campaign. He has forsaken his liberal Democratic bonafides and is attempting to run to the right of Thompson. He has a Republicans for Brown website and has attempted to use twitter to bait this website and Save Jersey into supporting his candidacy.
Brown wants the campaign to be about Thompson’s state pension. He contends Thompson, 76 years old, is “double-dipping” because he is collecting his legislative salary and the pension he receives as a result of working for state health department for 22 years and the NJ Turnpike Authority for 3 years. Brown says he will give up his $14K per year police disablity pension if elected to the Senate where he would earn a $49K salary. He says Thompson should give up his $49K pension. Thompson says he won’t.
Brown collects a disablity pension as the result of an 1981 incident where he was shot in his hand and shoulder. He killed the perp who shot him. Brown recovered from his wounds and went back to work with the Old Bridge Police Department for five years when he requested a disability pension due to lingering physical and psychological disabilities. He finally retired from the Old Bridge PD in 1988, seven years after the shooting, and litigated his pension for another 11 years before prevailing in the NJ Superior Court Appellate Division.
In response to Brown’s numerous tweets trying to bait me into his nonsense, I tweeted back that he must not have recovered from his psychological disablities because he is crazy if he thinks I am going to help him get elected. I have no doubt that if Brown were a Senator he would recover his Democratic roots and do whatever Steve Sweeney told him to do.
While Brown wants the election to be about Thompson’s pension and his own heroism which he has been trying to parlay into a political career for years, The Asbury Park Press decided the campaign is about the horse racing industry.
In reality, unless something very unexpected happens, the 12th district race is a campaign about nothing as the Republicans will win a low turnout election easily with no credible opposition.
For months, I’ve been adamant about the fact that I would not run for President. My language was clear, and direct, no matter how many times I was asked the question. For me, the answer was never anything but no. My job here in New Jersey is my passion. I’ve always meant it when I’ve said I felt like the luckiest guy in the world to have this job. I’m doing a job that I love in the state I grew up in on behalf of some of the toughest and greatest people in this country.
It wasn’t until recently that I paused to really reflect on my decision. When you have serious people from across the spectrum, not to mention from all across the country, passionately calling on you to do something as consequential as running for President of the United States, I felt an obligation to earnestly consider their advice. Together with Mary Pat and our children I believe I had an obligation to seriously consider what people were asking me to do. I will always be grateful for their confidence in me.
Over the last few weeks I’ve thought long and hard about this decision. I’ve explored the options. I’ve listened to so many people and considered whether this was something that I needed to take on. But in the end what I’ve always felt was the right decision remains the right decision today. Now is not my time. I have a commitment to New Jersey that I simply will not abandon. That’s the promise I made to the people of this state when I took office twenty months ago, to fix a broken New Jersey, and when I look at what we’ve accomplished so far, I’m proud, but I know we’re not nearly done.
I’ve made this commitment to my state first and foremost. The people sent me to Trenton to get a job done, and I’m just not prepared to walk away. I know not everyone agrees with my decision, but my loyalty to this state is what it is.
Abraham Lincoln said, “I’d like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives; I’d like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.”
That’s how I feel in my heart about New Jersey. I’m proud of this state and its people, and I know there’s still much more we need to do together to insure the future we want for all of our children. So this is not the time to leave unfinished business for me. The stakes are too high and the consequences are too real. So New Jersey, whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me.
Let me say this. I’m grateful, I’m grateful to the many people both in New Jersey and around the country who have spoken to me over these last weeks and months. I’m grateful for their confidence in me. I’m grateful for the faith that they place in me. It’s been unbelievably humbling and inspiring. I can only hope that I’m able to live up to this confidence and to make it count doing the job I need to do here at home.
New York Republican State Chairman Ed Cox, son-in-law of the late President Richard M. Nixon, told Ben Smith at Politico that Governor Chris Christie should run a “modern front porch campaign” for president:
As Chris Christie weighs the obvious appetite for his candidacy against the tremendous logistical impediments and political risks, a prominent Christie admirer is offering a path forward: A campaign run largely from New Jersey, its television campaign waged by an independent Super PAC.
New York Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox, an old Republican hand who is formally neutral, outlined the suggestion in an interview today.
“He just can not desert his job in New Jersey. He’s a recently-elected governor with a Democratic legislature on which he’s trying hard to impose fiscal discipline,” Cox said. “That’s the success on which his campaign rests.”
“The only way I can see him doing it,” he said, is a “modern front-porch campaign,” consisting of large-scale policy addresses like his speech at the Reagan Library last week, of participation in debates, and of a basic ground organization — but none of the immersive early-state retail campaigning that’s widely seen as a necessity.
“The air game would be [Home Depot founder] Ken Langone and others doing a completely independent committee,” he said.
Cox suggested Christie make a “Christie-like” declaration: “I’m governor of New Jersey, I’ve got a job to do here. If financial supporters want to go out and do an independent Super PAC, they can do it. I will register to run for president. But my duties as governor come first.”
Cox said his post prevents him from endorsing a candidate, but said Christie “should get into the race. His views are views that should be heard.”
An intriguing idea, even if it hasn’t worked since 1920 when Warren Harding did it.
I know, mentioning Nixon and Harding in the same post is not exactly showing my Republican love. Still, it is an intriguing idea.
Christie continuing to do his job as Governor full time while campaigning for president part time would not be all that different a schedule than he has kept for much of this year.
The worst case scenairo for Christie in a presidential campaign is that the loses the nomination race and also loses his standing with the voters of New Jersey. Should he start campaigning for president full time now, spending most of his time out of state and ultimately lose the nomination, he might come back to governing New Jersey full time with approval ratings in the 30’s and an New Jersey electorate that resents him for abandoning his post before the job was done.
But, if he spends the next several months primarily in New Jersey forwarding his reform agenda, education reform in particular, his New Jersey agenda becomes part of the national conversation. Instead of witnessing him live on the stump, voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida will be witnessing him on the job via television and youtube.
Television and youtube is why Christie is tied with Obama in the polls now.
If it doesn’t work, Christie is no worse for the wear in New Jersey because he kept doing the job we elected him to. He’s still a front runner for 2016 or 2020 nationally because he wasn’t “really running.”
If it does work and he wins the GOP nomination, he was drafted, not just by the party elite elders and the big money donors, but drafted by the rank and file Republican voters.
We probably won’t know Christie’s decision tomorrow. He has no public schedule.
Lt. Governor Kim Guadango will be making company visits in Ocean County tomorrow. Gaspari Nutrition will receive Guadagno at 1:30, KOMO Machine at 3:00. Both companies are in Lakewood.
Governor Christie’s public schedule for Monday has just been released. His only public appearance scheduled is the swearing in ceremony of Judge Donna Gallucio in Passaic County.
On Friday, Gannet’s Bob Jordan told me that the Statehouse Press Corps was preparing for Monday to be “the biggest day since McGreevey resigned.” That will have to wait.
Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno will be visiting SGS North America Inc and American Fittings Corporation, both of Bergen County, tomorrow afternoon.
Trenton, NJ – Today, Governor Chris Christie released the following statement regarding the settlement between the State of New Jersey and the Federal Transportation Administration:
“I am pleased to announce that we have negotiated a good-faith settlement with the Federal Transportation Administration that puts the interests of New Jersey taxpayers first by substantially reducing the federal government’s original demand. The 5-year payment schedule on a $95 million settlement – which contains not one additional dollar of New Jersey taxpayer money – would be offset by more than $100 million in insurance premium refunds. This represents a fraction of the federal government’s initial claim and won’t cost New Jerseyans any additional money, which would otherwise go to infrastructure improvements. I want to thank U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and his staff for their good-faith efforts in working with us and putting the interest of New Jersey taxpayers ahead of politics. I also want to thank New Jersey Transit and Executive Director Jim Weinstein for their commitment to working toward this settlement.”
New Jersey Democrats are suddenly taking an interest in the 13th legislative district according to a normally reliable source familiar with the state wide campaign.
Word is that U.S. Senator Bob Menendezis feeling a bit vulnerable with his weak showing in the FDU poll released this morning and with the possibility that Governor Chris Christie could be the Presidential candidate next year when needs Obama coattails to get reelected. He wants the Monmouth Democrats to rough up Senator Joe Kyrillos and make him spend some money.
Assembly Majority Leader Joe Cryan want to take a run at Declan O’Scanlon, if not to beat him this time, to at least weaken him for a future contest against Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornick. Cryan will be in the district raising money twice in the next two weeks.
Unless I’ve been fed misinformation, which usually doesn’t start until the last two weeks of the campaign, expect 2 or 3 negative mailers on behalf of the 13th district Democrats.
Beyond the question of “will he or won’t he?” a number of possibilities also hang in our polarized American air. One of those is the possibility that Governor Christie may be able to swiftly pick up the pieces of Rick Perry’s shattered opportunity to secure the youth vote. That elusive demographic is arguably what pushed President Obama over the river and through the woods and into the White House. Christie is now positioned to lure the kids to his side.
Before Rick Perry collapsed onto himself, he stumbled into the most brilliant vie for the affection of Generation: Everybody Gets a Trophy that the Republican party had ever seen. While it’s common wisdom that young people will always vote their conscience (more specifically, who they deem to be on the right side [the Left side] of the social issues track), it is rarely noted that conscience is precisely what a large percentage of 18-25ers lack. Being of the crop of ’93, I would know.
Weeks prior to deserting his straight-talking, straight-shooting persona, Perry was on the path to kid-fueled victory with quips like “anybody that’s for the status quo with Social Security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids, and it’s not right.” Message: “they’re screwing you, and I’m here to make it stop. I understand you.”
While hope and change is good and fine, “I’m going to make sure you get what’s rightfully yours” is even better. Money talks, and Mr. Christie is anything but soft spoken.
With it’s distrust of authority and ever-decreasing supply of patience for our current United State of Affairs, I sense parallels between the Tea Party and the youth that have rested largely ignored. The spirit that fuels a young person’s stomp in the face of perceived unfairness is the spirit that drives revolt against an institution.
Spooked by the National stage, Perry lost his identity and promise in a few stuttered moments. This is unlikely to happen to Governor Christie, who is undeniably – regardless of what I think of him – a skilled, political force of nature. He possesses the power to harness the energy bubbling beneath the streets to blow Obama’s White House down.
Olivia Nuzzi is a student from Middletown and an intern for the District 11 Democratic campaign. Her opinions are her own and not those of MoreMonmouthMusings or the District 11 Democratic campaign. MMM welcomes her fair and biased contributions.
