Loretta Weinberg has had it with the Christie administration's delaying tactics.
Weinberg - prime Senate sponsor of legislation to restore $7.5 million in state funding to women's health and family planning programs - has filed 3 Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests with State Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristof, looking for information behind the Christie administration's objections to budget-neutral funding source identified in her bill (S-2139). Weinberg:
If the Treasurer can't bring himself to work with us to identify funding solutions for critical women's health programs, than we'll use the tools at our disposal to access public information and hopefully dispel the myth that our funding source doesn't work.
State funding was cut from the budget by the governor. An alternative revenue-neutral source suggested by the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services (OLS), taps surplus funds in the State Employee Prescription Drug Program. The funding would provide greater access by women and men to basic health services including cancer and high blood pressure screenings, HIV testing, pre- and post-natal care, treatment for sexually-transmitted disease, and contraception. Abortions are off that list; the funding does not cover their payment.
Weinberg's right to get to the bottom of the Christie administration's truculence. If Sidamon-Eristoff has reason to dispute the alternative funding source, he should be able to provide those reasons beyond the vague and unspecific short letter he provided to Weinberg (the Treasurer skipped a request to answer questions publicly before the Senate Health Committee, which Weinberg chairs).
What Weinberg is looking for, if the funding source is faulty as they say it is, is cooperation from the administration to work with her and Asw Linda Stender - the go-to in the Assembly - to replace that funding with a better solution. The OPRA requests, she says, are the administration's opportunity to either produce documentation for their objections or admit Christie's real opposition is driven by "his out of touch, far-right political ideology."
What I want to know is why the New Jersey Democrats could spare 10 lawmakers for a Summit in Atlantic City, to spend one entire day chattering about gambling, horses and tourists. And let Loretta Weinberg and Linda Stender walk into a room by themselves to be ambushed by GOP staffers one-upping them with news that women's health funding just lost all key GOP support.
What about this confuses you Democrats, in terms of priority?
Does nobody in the Democratic Party get the disastrous optics of this? All that Dem firepower all day long to rescue gambling industries that on their best day are fun places to spend leisure money and on their worst are a regressive tax on poor saps we tempt into risking their mortgage money while distracting them with half-dressed women, colored lights and booze? While what's at stake for the women of New Jersey is maintaining access to health care for at least 40,000 women? That is necessity, not leisure. Are you kidding me?
Tell me all you want that the AC Summit was about jobs. Union jobs. Good.
Shut the GOP out of your summit because Christie's Hanson Commission was hand-picked and secretive. Whatev.
Suit up to fight off a Christie takeover AC plan that's GOP incursion on your Democratic-controlled city. If you must.
But you did not look good doing this. You let the conversation in the papers be about your decision to shut out the GOP. No less outrageous than the governor's choices, but way more public, and thus more publicly petty. Particularly when you start trotting out old turf wars North v. South, which was some time after the bugler dressed in a red costume get-up opened the summit like he was blowing the start of some race. Do you feel me here?
Legislating with the Governor from Hell must be demoralizing and frustrating. But it's time to get your act together. And leaving two women legislators hanging in the wind to advocate for the most at-risk members of half your citizenry is not it.
I don't know if the Dems have the legislative strength to overcome this veto, now that Christie pulled the leash on GOP senators Diane Allen, Kip Bateman, Andrew Ciesla, Christopher Connors, Sean Kean & Robert Singer, and stopped them thinking for themselves. Is this override just a sinking ship you don't wanna be on? If so, think again. You want to be Democrats, you're going to have to show up for women, and for people at risk. You're not going to do that, you'll have to call yourself something else.
Because the GOP's dominated by the Christies and the Jay Webbers, for whom Roe v. Wade isn't settled law, it's law they don't feel like recognizing. Access to birth control and the prevention of unplanned pregnancy isn't access to health care for them, it's an excuse to inflict their opinions about morality on the rest of us on women, never risking their own lives. Forget pap smears, breast cancer screenings - that's not even on their radar.
We see you Dems who came out for women. Thank you. But, Democrats, for most of you - Your house is burning, and you left your women inside while you went to the track. Get straight.
The two point people working to override Gov. Christie's veto on women's health care funding say they're not done fighting - and won't give up in the face of some Republicans peeling off to back their party's governor. Loretta Weinberg:
We will continue to appeal to lawmakers of good conscience on both sides of the political divide, because failure on this override would be a catastrophe of epic proportions for health care in NJ.
Yesterday, as Weinberg and Stender were about to start a news conference, Senate GOP staffers came in to distribute a release announcing that 6 of the 7 Republicans who backed the funding when the bill came up in June would now vote against the override (the 7th, Sen. Jennifer Beck, is out of the country). Weinberg & Stender say there's strong-arming going on by GOP leaders ideologically opposed to funding women's health care (scroll for it). And those 6 are their first mission.
Linda Stender:
For our part, this battle's not over until the vote is taken, and legislators are called on to either stand with us, or against uninsured women in NJ.
Both continue to ask Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff's for an explanation of the reasons he opposes their bill, and believe the flip-flops partly traceable to him. They cite a letter he released yesterday citing unspecific and vague actuarial concerns for the State employee prescription drug program - more than 1 month after the legislature voted.
That's relevant because the suggestion of how to generate funding - using surplus funds in the prescription drug program - was actually suggested by the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services. And the Treasurer's 3-paragraph letter never addressed that, or much else. (Actually, failure to fund would cost us money).
As promised earlier, here is the video of Senator Loretta Weinberg and Linda Stender at their news conference this morning, talking about the "tough uphill battle" for bi-partisan support in the legislature to override Gov. Christie's veto of $7.5 million funding for women's health care at family planning centers.
There's some levity at the governor's expense. Then, the serious businesss, calling out the Republican governor wrapping his own ideology inside a hypocritical, and faked, excuse that New Jersey can't afford not to cut tens of thousands of New Jersey women loose, and exercising party discipline at the expense of good policy.
Late this morning, Loretta Weinberg and Linda Stender stepped up to a microphone and launched an effort to generate enough support from responsible legislators of conscience - of both parties - to override the veto of Governor Chris Christie. A letter from them both (posted after the jump) went to every legislator in both houses today.
We should have video later today - I'll post when I get it. There was apparently a little satire prologue.
As this effort gets off the ground, Chris Christie is pulling in GOP senators who previously supported restoring the state's funding to women's health care centers. A simple, cold demonstration of party unity. Six senators - Diane Allen (a particular disappointment), Christopher "Kip" Bateman, Andrew Ciesla, Christopher Connors, Sean Kean and Robert Singer - all now say they would reverse their yes votes in an override because state Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff convinced them that the money Democrats had earmarked to pay for the restoration would put the state's prescription drug program in a $5.6 million deficit. And by the way, the Treasurer, who skipped a request to appear in public before the Senate Health Committee has never told the legislators why he differs with the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services, who suggested the $7.5 could be generated by taking surplus cash from the state employee prescription account.
At stake is the health of more than 136,000 Jersey Girls - the number served last year by family planning centers whose funding is now in doubt. Many of those women have had nowhere else to go.
Also at stake, the number of abortions NJ's likely to see next year if Christie's veto holds. The legislators cite research from the Guttmacher Institute demonstrating that without family planning funding to support contraceptives, NJ will actually see an increase in abortions due to an explosion in unplanned pregnancies. Legislators who claim the pro-life mantle should think hard. Last year, these centers helped prevent 40,000 pregnancies, 19,000 abortions.
At stake, too, is access to services that include not only birth control and routine gynecological exams but also prenatal care, screenings for high blood pressure, anemia, diabetes, sexually transmitted infections, and breast and cervical cancer, and critical education & outreach to people who need it.
Money's also at stake, but it's not Christie says. By providing publicly-funded contraceptive services, NJ saved $156M in state & federal Medicaid dollars in 2008, the legislators say, money NJ would have had to spend on pre- and post-natal care, delivery and infant care. NJ would save an estimated $4 for every $1 spent, by allocating $7.5 million, or 1/10th of 1% of the total budget. Weinberg and Stender also said they would require the state to apply for 90% match in federal dollars - funding we are eligible for right now - which would save an additional $90M over the next 5 years. Weinberg/Stender letter after the jump.
Chris Christie's double standard never ceases to amaze! But it's more than past time that we all take on his "double speak" each time he does it! For instance and I paraphrase slightly: "Why would I put more money into a broke pension system?" Of course, why ask the obvious: "Why is it broke?" Has he contributed to the severe pension problems by skipping state pension payments in this year's budget? Even Governor Jon Corzine, whom he trashes at every opportunity, managed to pony up a portion of the state's contribution. By the way, public employees have continued to pay their own share each and every year.
Now to the budget.
Need $7.5 million for family planning centers? Oh, not a priority, according to the Gov. We can't possibly find that.
Need $65 million to close a gaping budget hole when it was realized that doing away with the Sunday closing laws in Bergen County would make a very serious political problem for Republicans in Bergen? Oh, that was easy. Just say "We'll improve tax collections".....and poof, we found $65 million in anticipated revenue.
Need $5 million to buy Senator Doherty's vote for the budget? Just change another line item.
Gee, a political problem when the Christie budget increased the co-pay for the prescription program for low income seniors. Oh that was easy too, let's get dollars from the national democratic health care reform money coming to our state. You know, the same program his party has been bad mouthing.The one Republicans worked hard to defeat.
Maybe removing more than 900 folks from receiving life saving drugs is not such a great idea. Got caught short on that one when Senator Joe Vitale and the Governor's Advisory Commission on Aids brought it to light. Find the dollars by just saying we'll get better discounts from the pharmaceutical industry and then criticize the Senator "for playing politics" when he wrote to restore these much needed funds. That was really a smooth one Governor! Well maybe those same pharmaceutical companies can increase the discount in the employee prescription program for the family planning centers.
Tax credits (or even bail outs .... Xanadu?) for private business are good ideas if we can keep jobs in New Jersey. No big argument here. So let's do it to keep Honeywell in Morris County. Oh the TV and movie industry? Gee who cares if Law & Order moved from North Bergen to New York to film their series. Who cares if that part of North Jersey lost jobs and all the small business around who serviced such endeavors? Governor, tell us the difference between the two.
Ok. You all have the idea. We should headline these in Blue Jersey each and every time he does it. Did I miss any? Send them in.
Now back to Family Planning Centers. Every major newspaper in the state has endorsed the restoration of these funds. Organizations like Catholics for Choice, Women's Political Caucus, Women Advocating for Good Government (WAGG) and The League of Women Voters have already supported this effort and are lining up their membership. I expect to hear soon from the National Council of Jewish Women. The Legislative Black Caucus has also joined the chorus. We cannot let folks get away with claiming this is a budget problem! It is not. The Governor knows it, the Treasurer probably knows it which is why he was afraid to be questioned in public and certainly the Commissioner of Health & Senior Services knows it. And don't keep repeating that the Federally Qualified Health Centers can take the new patients. They can't. They've said so themselves and their financial reports back them up. And again, don't repeat that the CEED program can take all comers for mammograms and pap smears. Maybe they can, but where do these women go to get the doctor prescriptions they need to access these services. Stop the myth spinning. Women's health is too important to continue this cynical endeavor to placate the right wing of the Governor's party!
The women (and many of the good men) in our state will not let any legislator stand up with a straight face and try to claim this is all about the budget, or that poor women will have access to health care without this funding.
Assemblywoman Stender and I have not yet talked to our legislative leadership to work out the timing of a legislative override. It has to originate in the Senate, since that's where the bill originated. We'll let you know as soon as we have an agreed upon schedule. In the meantime, keep letters and emails coming to the legislature. We absolutely need your help on this one. Get your family, neighbors, and friends to join the growing chorus. This is the time for all blue (and even red) New Jerseyans to join together and start with the Senate - your own Senator or any other you know.
.....to talk about Family Planning Centers, their funding and women's access to health care. Assemblywoman Linda Stender and I met with Governor Christie and Lt Governor Guadagno for an hour this afternoon. It was a seemingly amiable and respectful exchange. Mr. Christie was interested in the statistics we gave him outlining the number and kinds of services provided at these centers. He did say that the Treasurer questioned the funding source we have in the bill, so we supplied him with the OLS analysis which confirmed our figures. No promises were made, but he did say we would have an answer sooner, rather than later. Both Assemblywoman Stender and I assured him that we would prefer taking this issue off his plate while giving back to uninsured women this important access for themselves and their families. However, though we thanked him for his courtesy during the meeting, we also made it clear that this is not an issue which can be easily dismissed. Women's access to health care is a priority and will continue to be!This funding must berestored.
Almost a dozen Democratic Assemblywomen stormed Chris Christie's office today to talk to him about restoring the $7.5 million for family planning his budget removed. Brava, to them. A bill restoring the funds passed both houses last week, but Christie is mum on whether he'll sign it into law. This is not the first time they've tried to get the governor's attention.
He wasn't there. Two of his aides met the women at the door, requesting they call in advance if they want to see him. Christie was at a private residence in Somerset County talking about his property tax cap plans at an event. Asw Valerie Huttle is one of the bill's sponsors:
We were dismissed, in my opinion, as we walked into the governor's office without any real sense of a schedule or 'I'm going to take care of this.'
The assemblywomen - joined by Asm John Burzichelli - made no appointment. But Linda Stender, another sponsor, said she tried Friday to make an appointment with (pro-choice) LG Kim Guadagno. Her call was never returned.
They're right to wonder. Christie has not distanced himself from on-the-record statements made by his GOP State Chair, Asm Jay Webber, that the $7.5 million in family planning funds simply funnels money to abortion providers. The bill specifically prohibits those funds paying for abortions, but anti-abortion activists, like Webber, complain 29 of the 58 clinics affected are run by Planned Parenthood.
The reality? More than 136,000 New Jerseyans are served in the family planning centers whose budgets are being slashed. They get screenings for breast and cervical cancer and for high blood pressure, for anemia and diabetes, for HIV/AIDS and for sexually transmitted infections. Many of their patients are uninsured; the clinics are their primary care. This includes women who get their birth control care there, and say they may have to go off birth control if they lose the clinic.
Know what you get if you have sexually-active people with no access to contraception? You get more abortions. Somebody tell Jay Webber. Somebody tell Chris Christie.
This past Thursday was a busy day for many of us, but if one just read the mainstream press, you might not have realized it.
It was Women's Healthcare Week, and many of our women legislators decided to mark the occasion by protesting Governor Christie's wiping out all the dollars ($7.5million) in the Family Planning budget. As has been noted before, this money is earmarked for uninsured or underinsured men and women who get HIV testing, cervical cancer screening, family planning information and general reproductive health care through these centers. Joined by Assemblywomen Valerie Huttle, Linda Stender, Linda Greenstein, Elise Evans, Cleopatra Tucker, Pam Lampitt, Annette Quijano, Mila Jasey, Joan Voss, and Connie Wagner, we held a well attended press conference, that is except the press! Though, NJN did stop in for a brief moment or two. Apporximately 50 pink shirt supporters joined us bringing along hundreds of signed post cards protesting these cuts! The cards were delivered to the Governor's office. Do you think he'll read them? In my remarks, I suggested some cuts to other programs withinthe budget to transfer much needed funds to this program. Let's see if the Governor will look at these re-ordering of priorities, and we'll know if this budget cut is a matter of dollars or a matter of philosophy!
My next stop was the Senate State Government Committee meeting to speak for my bill giving the Governor veto power over the minutes of the Passaic Valley Sewer Authority and the North District Water Commission. These were the only two commissions we could find which were State appointments with no governor veto power. I reminded the committee, that I started on this road several years ago and first coined the description "shadow governments" to describe these authorities. In 2007 when Assembly colleagues Gordon Johnson, Valerie Huttle and I first took a look at the PVSA, we found that over a six year period, they spent more than $13 million on legal fees, and more than $3 million on consultants. Included in the consultant fees was $100,00 for a well connected flak to produce a children's coloring book called, "Messy Marvin". Makes Brian Christiansen look like one of the pikers of the hangers on at the PVSA. It's all so outrageous!
And as outrageous, is it took several years to get this bill posted in committee. Since Governor Christie has rightly made an issue of these "shadow governments" which spend millions of our tax dollars and user fees with very little accountability, this bill should pass both houses before the summer break.
Next was the Judiciary Committee meeting where we approved the nominations of Lori Grifa as the Commissioner of Community Affairs and Harold Wirths as the Commissioner of Labor & Workforce Development. Acting Commissioner Wirths was closely questioned about his lack of experience (he has been a Republican county Freeholder) in the area of labor relations. I was concerned with his continuing in his Freeholder position while serving as an "acting commissioner". Asked OLS for an opinion on the subject, and they said it was important to get an Ethics Board ruling. It was claimed that such a ruling had been forthcoming last February which gave him permission as long he turned down his Freeholder salary. I still believe this could be a court challenge, but since he was resigning both his elected position and his service on a bank board with his confirmation, it became moot. Both nominees now move to the full Senate for a vote.
We all know we have a reduced statehouse press corps., and they were covering the Millionaire's Tax hearing and the Lesniak theater action for the voucher bill held on the statehouse lawn. Curious juxtaposition! Several hundred religious and private school students were brought to Trenton to support the Lesniak/Kean bill. I didn't hear anyone from the Governor's office refer to them as "Drug Mules" or denounce them as youngsters who had no idea why they were there. Don't get me wrong - I think it was great that these young people got to see their government in action! They probably learned more that day than they would in classrooms. I do, however, think the Governor's "double standard" is quite evident! Students who support Christie's initiatives can get the day off from school, but those students who disagree with his cuts to public schools deserve to be derided and insulted.
The prior Monday, I had the great pleasure of joining Senator Ray Lesniak for our book signing at Kean College for "What's Love Got to Do With it", about the fight for Marriage Equality in the New Jersey State Senate. It's a beautiful book with wonderful pictures and contains many of the words which were shared on January 7, 2010. There were more than 100 people who turned out for this event at the new Kean Human Rights Institute. My thanks to Ray for including me in this adventure. Yes I know: Lesniak & Weinberg - definitely an odd couple - but fun nevertheless!
So all this while the very much smaller group of print media folks were elsewhere. And how about Channel 12? Do they ever really cover New Jersey News live? Seems every time I turn them on they are doing the "Weather on the Ones" or the "Pet Doctor". We need to keep NJN. They are the only statewide New Jersey television news. I've written to the administration to try and find out if anyone has actually worked on a plan to transition NJN into a private company. And what happens to their state owned assets? Lots of unanswered questions here, but we must work to preserve this NJ television news.
Talk about grandstanding. If you listen to Republicans, many of the nominations from the Governor during lame duck were completely unexpected, came out of nowhere and are cause for uproar. Take for example Ed McBride, the Governor's former chief of staff to a judgeship in Burlington County who the GOP says was a complete surprise and pushed them over the line. The reality is far from that and indicates grandstanding to score political points. Call it the surprise they had advance notice of:
So, let's go back. On November 12, Christie and Corzine met face to face for the first time since the election. They were joined by the ArchBishop of Newark, because the meeting took place after the blue mass. There, they discussed transition and according to Corzine some appointments the Governor was hoping to make in the coming weeks before leaving office.
Was there an actual agreement? hard to say. But if there was at least a gentlemen's agreement, at some point it deteriorated. Perhaps it was the sheer number of nominations and appointments Corzine asked for: 180. The Christie people feel that this is an attempt to jam through unpopular appointments at the 11th hour. Or perhaps it was the nomination of Chief of Staff Ed McBride to a judgeship. Here is where this gets tricky. The Corzine camp says it was made clear as early that Newark meeting that McBride was one of the appointments he'd like to make. They think for Christie's people to object now is disingenuous.
Separately, Blue Jersey has also been told that the Governor conveyed his intention to nominate McBride in that very first meeting. Not only did Christie and his team know, but sources in the Governor's Office confirm to BlueJersey that Christie's senior staff was directly informed of Corzine Chief of Staff Ed McBride's judicial nomination several days before the nomination was dropped. In addition, we're also told that McBride personally reached out to each member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, both Demcorat and Republican, days before the nomination was filed.
Whether or not the Governor should have made appointments before lame duck is a separate issue from whether the Republicans are just trying to score political points and run out the clock before he can make the appointments and nominations. And even though two wrongs don't make a right, the 257 lame duck nominations the GOP approved when Don DiFrancesco left office in 2001 shows that they know how the game has been played and only have born again opposition to it because of how Corzine is now leading the way. To act like they didn't know is beyond disingenuous. This is the surprise they all knew about in advance. Doesn't that mean it's not really a surprise at all?
Linda Stender has recorded a PSA encouraging women to learn more about heart disease:
The PSA coincides with "American Heart Month" and the American Heart Association's "Go Red for Women" campaign, which seeks to raise women's awareness of cardiovascular disease - the number one killer of women in America.
About 450,000 women die annually from heart disease and stroke, including nearly 14,000 in New Jersey. Although heart disease is normally associated with men, it is also the No. 1 killer of women over the age of 20, according to the heart association.
"My immediate plan is to seek another term to the legislature, and I have great support from the state chair, my county chair, and I've got very good working relationships with my delegation members," she said. "There's a lot of important work to be done, we're in a tough time in our economy and state and I'll be looking forward to taking on those challenges."
"I have a long personal friendship and admiration of Senator Lance and it had nothing to do with Assemblywoman Stender," said Lesniak. "If she wants to run for re-election she has my support."
I wasn't really that surprised by Lesniak's comments in support of Lance because Legislators are notorious for their glowing praise of each other, but apparently others were. I'm sure some people who were hoping for a shot at the Stender Assembly seat won't be to thrilled about her decision as they will have to wait a little longer. Stender also spoke about her most recent Congressional effort:
Today, Stender sought to dispel the notion that her campaign failed in large part because of internal divisions and pressure from outside groups to take on out-of-state staff and focus on less pertinent issues like birth control.
"That stuff is nonsense. It's concocting drama in the aftermath," said Stender, referring to contentions that EMILY's List officials had pressured her to put Washington, DC-based staffers in control of the campaign.
While Stender acknowledged that there was tension between her Garden State staffers and those brought in from Washington, she did not consider it a decisive factor. She pointed out that her narrow loss last year was often blamed on the fact that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) offered too little help, too late.
"Last year the post-mortem was that I lost because I didn't have help from DC. This year I did and the post-mortem is that's the reason I lost," she said.
Post-mortems are a sad duty in any world, in no small way because it means "after death." The death in this case are the hopes of thousands of volunteers, donors and staff to send Linda Stender to Congress to represent New Jersey's 7th Congressional District.
This has been a four year effort for many of us, starting before Linda even decided to run in 2006. It is hard for some of us because we know Linda personally and like her very much, and worked so hard and invested so much in getting her to the finish line.
In 2006 we came within 1.5 percent of the vote against a three term Republican named Mike Ferguson. It was a stunningly unexpected effort that shocked the national party which gave secondary support to the campaign while dumping millions in others where the margin was seven points or more.
In 2008 Linda lost by a little less than nine percent, a stunning defeat in a race where we saw polls putting Stender even or just behind State Senator Leonard Lance in the days before the election. It was made all the more stunning in that 2008 was a better year for Democrats than 2006, yet the Stender campaign fell far behinds its previous result.
How could that happen? Lance didn't run a great campaign. Stender had lots more money. The DCCC dropped over a million dollars into the district, while the NRCC walked away and focused on NJ3. Registration for Democrats jumped dramatically. And then there was that guy running for President who brought Democratic turnout to amazing levels. The environment couldn't have been better.
But she lost anyway.
Because, as near as we can tell, they forgot all the lessons of 2006 that got them close. Instead of building on the energy and volunteers from the previous election they brought in an entirely new team from outside the district, ignored the organizations like Democracy for America that supported Stender in 2006, and blew off local expertise in favor of a cookie-cutter campaign.
The Star-Ledger's Gabriel Gluck says that Leonard Lance owes a thank you - wait for it - to Kate Whitman's well-financed primary challenge.
There is a small bit of truth there - Lance may have built a bit of name-recognition in the primary. It didn't help him with fund-raising - the most salient indication of whether or not a candidate has the support of his or her district. If anything, it showed him that he could win an under-funded district-wide race.
Ingrid Reed of the Eagleton Institute has another explanation, though:
"We had less people going to the polls and you had 20,000 more people registered," Reed said. On Tuesday, 279,000 people voted in the district, which covers parts of Union, Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon counties, compared with 280,000 in 1984.
So how do you explain registering an additional 20,000 voters and then not getting them to the polls? With Obama at the top of the ticket and Lautenberg's steady presence a silent endorsement, Stender just didn't energize people at all. She didn't turn people against Lance and she didn't make people want her as their Representative. In short, she failed.
Stender is a Spender. Or maybe not. I don't know where she spent her money, time, or creative energy.
It certainly doesn't seem like she did it in the 2008 campaign. And what advantages she had!
Money. Fame. More Ds than Rs in the 7th. An idiot R president with an approval rating just a bit higher than his IQ. The Obama NJ blue wave. But she had three distinct disadvantages: 1-The DCCC ran her campaign. 2- Abby Curran as a campaign manager and 3- She ran against Leonard Lance.
A campaign that was run on New Jersey turf, needs to be run by New Jersey rules. And this campaign was most definitely not. It seemed to be run by the politico-techno hack crew of the DCCC. And they did a poor job.
The 2006 campaign seemed to be run like the Rush Holt campaigns of 1998 and 2000---fun, creative, energetic,---with a seemingly endless crew of Democratic volunteers willing to cut a vein for Linda Stender. Stender reached out everywhere to every county in the district. She even kicked ass in the very Republican western section of New Jersey in Hunterdon County. Rosie Efthim and the DFA crew gave Linda a substantial higher bump in 2006, from mediocre Brozak campaign of 2004. Nathan Rudy and his DumpMike.com crew did wonders for her, too in Union and Somerset. Back then, Stender reached out to progressives, regular Dems, Republicans and all over the 7th. People looked forward having her come to town.
But the 2008 campaign, seemed lackluster, boring, unresponsive and too out of touch. For example, some DCCC politico-techno hack cut the ad accusing Lance of being part of the Whitman pension bond scheme. Bad judgment to treat Lance like any other Republican. He is not. If you're in New Jersey, you know not to do that. But, if you're a hack D staffer from out of state, you just run it by the DCCC Playbook. And like Paul Mulshine pointed out, that lie did not play well. And when you have a campaign manager that neither returns calls nor seeks out the counsel of central NJ's finest Democratic activists and elected folks, your campaign is gonna miss a big piece of the volunteer pie.
Stender could have beaten Lance. Tough, but winnable. Had she kept to the same campaign strategy from '06, she would have had a better chance. For all the independence Lance shows in the Seabnte in NJ in his largely Republican district, he won't have the same freedom and opportunity in DC as part of the extreme R minority party in Congress. And his first vote will be for a man as Speaker of The House who voted with Bush more than 95% of the time. That's what she should have spent her time telling people. But she didn't. Instead, she spent all her time trying to tag Lance as a spender, a right-wing ideologue, and out of touch with the district.
She will not get a chance to run for Conrgess again. Now, she can spend her time in Trenton. Maybe Stender is a spendthrift.
Obama should win with little difficulty in this reliably Democratic state, but two House seats are tossups, and a third is a potential upset. In the 3rd District, GOP Rep. H. James Saxton is retiring after 12 terms, but Democratic challenger John Adler, a state senator from Cherry Hill, has strong party backing and has assembled one of the best field organizations in the country against Chris Myers, a Lockheed Martin executive and Republican mayor of Medford.
The 7th District, also a GOP-created vacancy, had been viewed as friendlier to Republicans, but Democratic state legislator Linda Stender has proven a tough competitor against state Sen. Leonard Lance. Republicans are less worried about, but still distracted by, the 5th District race, featuring Dennis Shulman, a blind rabbi endorsed by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), against GOP Rep. Scott Garrett. Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg is expected to win easily over former congressman Dick Zimmer.
Lets hope that field organization pulls Adler across the finish line in NJ-3 and the Republicans are so distracted by the Shulman campaign in the 5th, they lose both NJ-5 and NJ-7. Best of luck to all of our campaigns.
With less than a week to go until Election Day, all of us here at the Linda Stender campaign are excited to kick off our Change Express tour across the 7th District, which will include a very special visit from President Bill Clinton!
Starting October 29th, Linda has been barnstorming a bunch of train stops across the 7th to share her message of change. Due to high gas prices, more people than ever are taking mass transit to get to work, yet many of New Jersey's citizens have lost their jobs due to the recent economic crisis. And, President Clinton is coming to New Jersey to help send Linda Stender to Congress to fight for the change we need. After eight years of failed Bush policies, we need strong Democrats like Barack Obama and Linda Stender in Washington to fight for middle class families.
Linda with Governor Dick Codey and the staff of the Reo Diner in Woodbridge!
Here are some of the next few scheduled stops on the tour!
Tewksbury Candidate Forum Thursday, October 30th
7PM to 8:00PM
Old Turnpike School
171 Old Turnpike Road
Califon
Meet n' greet at Bound Brook Train Stop Friday, October 31st
6:30AM to 7:30AM
Bound Brook
Rally for Change with President Bill Clinton Saturday, November 1st
12:30 PM
Union County College
Commons Area
1033 Springfield Avenue
Cranford
Free tickets are available at the following locations:
Campaign HQ 256 South Ave
Fanwood
Somerset Victory '08 1910 Washington Valley Rd
Martinsville
Hunterdon Dem HQ 155 Main Street
Flemington
Middlesex Dem HQ 231 Bridge St, Bldg F
Metuchen
(Parking space is limited for this event, so we encourage all that plan to attend to please carpool!)
Linda cares passionately about the issues affecting New Jersey's middle class families, and she would love to hear from you. You can either stop by the stations listed above, or you can visit our website to find out where Linda will be next!
With the final week before Election Day ahead of us, Linda needs your help more than ever! We are pulling out all the stops, and we look forward to working with you help get out the vote until you enter the voting booth! You can sign up to volunteer here to make calls and knock on doors until Tuesday, November 4th! Any time you can give will make a huge difference on Election Day.
