Gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie is expected to pick Jay Webber, a freshman Republican Assemblyman from Morris County, as the new GOP State Chairman. Webber, a strong conservative, would replace Tom Wilson as head of the state party organization.
Webber's selection, which must be ratified by a vote of the Republican State Committee, will likely please conservatives who made up most of Steven Lonegan's 42% in Tuesday's primary election.
So is this Chris "the Moderate" Christie picking the Conservative to lead his party? It's going to be fun watching him do this conservative/moderate two step. Take note, his first big decisions and he leans right. His next decision will be his choice for running mate.
As I've said before, I'm fascinated by the RNC resolution renaming the Democratic Party the Democrat Socialist Party. Given that the Republicans have a major role in our government, I'm really happy that it looks like the voices of reason are modifying to a less ridiculous form. Still, this video of RNC members by American News Project is well worth watching. New Jersey's Tom Wilson (He's at 2:05) comes off fairly well, calling the resolution "more trouble than it's worth" and talking about "they" not "we." (Ironically, he'll be out next month.)
Who's your favorite? The one who thinks Democrats are Nazis? The one who thinks Obama is going beyond European Socialism?
The New Jersey Republican State Committee is facing severe financial difficulties and has not paid several staffers in recent weeks, according to several sources familiar with the state party organization. GOP State Chairman Thomas Wilson, who is expected to be replaced when his term expires in June, is among those who have not received a paycheck. There are unconfirmed reports that at least two Republican staffers are preparing to leave because they have not been paid.
So the party of fiscal responsibility has little cash and lotsa debt. They aren't even paying the boss himself now. And why does the GOP state chair get paid in the first place, has he earned a performance bonus along the lines of those at the financial companies? We know it's not a retention bonus because both Christie and Lonegan have said they would replace Tom Wilson as state chair.
It's amazing that while the GOP can't even balance their own checkbook, they're trying to sell to the voters the notion that they can balance the budget.
The Republican gubernatorial primary in New Jersey is turning into a food fight between RINOs and wingnuts as frontrunner Chris Christie widens his lead over megalomaniacal challenger Steve Lonegan, whose mouthpiece is veteran political operative Rick Shaftan. The latter recently threatened a primary challenge to Assembly Republican Leader Alex DeCroce who has endorsed Chris Christie. This elicited a response from Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson, who wrote a letter to Lonegan defending DeCroce and asking the anti-establishment Republican to distance himself from Shaftan who said that DeCrcoce was "happy to be a big fish in a small pond"
Lonegan said in response to Wilson's request, "I don't care what Tom Wilson says or thinks. Tom Wilson and Alex DeCroce are the duo that is responsible for the failure of the Republican Party to stand up for Republican principles and values, and they have done nothing but overseen the demise of the party. It's time for both of them to go."
I'd guess that Wilson and DeCroce would rather be big fish in a small pond than roadkill like Lonegan on June 2.
Tom Wilson's best chance at keeping his job may be for Brian Levine to win the Republican nomination for Governor. Sources close to the two leading candidates, Christopher Christie and Steven Lonegan, say that Wilson is a goner with no hope of holding on as GOP State Chairman after the June primary. Another candidate, Richard Merkt, called for Wilson's ouster last year. By tradition, the winner of the gubernatorial primary gets to pick the new state party chairman.
If Wally is right, you'll have to catch him while you can. He'll probably be the one still fishing for emails while his party tries to take power despite him.
The Supreme Court today declined to hear arguments seeking to overturn an appeals court ruling to have Governor Corzine release email communications with Carla Katz. They rejected the Republicans efforts saying the e-mails should not be made public. Governor Corzine had this reaction:
I am glad this is all over. I think we had a political fishing trip by folks that has gone on far too long.
Wilson said that now that the Governor's executive privilege point is made, there's no reason he should not release the emails.
Give it up already. With all the difficulties facing the state now, he's focused on gaining the content of two year old communications. Since it seems he will continue to focus on emails, does this mean he won't be helping Chris Christie develop an actual budget?
Corzine said he knows the public doesn't like some of the things he does. People call. People write.
"They even send me e-mails," he said pausing for a small laugh as the crowd waited for a Carla Katz line. "I'd love to show them to you, but you know what my lawyer said."
Somewhere, Tom Wilson isn't laughing.
Updated by Jason: This was a very close runner up and could have even been the winner:
He said Senate President Dick Codey, who fills in as governor when he's out of state, gave him a suitcase for Christmas. Corzine said he brought it with him to Washington, and would love to fill it with $4 billion in cash from the federal government before he goes home, a reference to the scale of the budget gap he faces.
"I thought at first it was a bad idea to bring a suitcase full of cash back to New Jersey. Then I remembered the lawman who would be most concerned with it decided to skip the train," Corzine said.
The New Jersey Republican State Committee has virtually no money and is at risk of not making payroll, according to a GOP County Chairman who will be attending a meeting of party leaders tonight where the party's financial woes will be discussed.
"A person I once considered a friend made meritless claims regarding what he believed to be a promise to help him secure private sector employment," Corzine said in response to questions from The Star-Ledger. "He hired a lawyer and threatened to file a lawsuit against me personally to force an accommodation. To avoid a prolonged and costly court battle, and on the advice of my lawyers, a financial settlement of his legal claims was negotiated and agreed to."
If the goal is to avoid prolonging costly battles, then why not release the Carla Katz emails from 2006? It's disappointing because there is no doubt we will hear about these situations in the upcoming re-election campaign from the Governor's opponents.
"If our party publicly expressed satisfaction with New Jersey and National Republican results in Tuesday's election, all they were doing was reinforcing rank and file Republican cynicism for our party's leadership," he said. "Once again Republicans find themselves with no message, no money and no direction going into next year's gubernatorial election. To say our Republicans 'Ship of State' was run aground by our captain, would imply that it had a direction. That simply was not so."
He may want to talk to his State Chairman Tom Wilson, who thought election night was like New Year's because once the clock struck midnight they were all ready for the 2009 elections. Wilson must not have many fun New Year's celebrations if he enjoyed Tuesday night.
Today comes yet another story with Carla Katz talking about those emails once again, saying some of them involved union negotiations. Cue Tom Wilson screaming while he neglects to mention his own VP email situation.
If Governor Corzine would have just released the emails originally, I can't imagine it would have been near the issue it is today and that we would even be thinking about it with everything else that has gone on in the state.
We are still talking about a 2006 contract negotiation as we near the end of 2008 and one of the principals involved no longer even holds her position. I'm just saying.
For a few weeks we've been wondering (here and here) when Tom Wilson would criticize Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for refusing to turn over e-mails that were subpoenaed given that he has attacked NJ Governor Jon Corzine for the same actions.
?Ms. Katz, who reportedly received more than $6 million from Jon Corzine, who exchanged backchannel secret emails with Jon Corzine discussing the terms of a state worker contract under negotiation, who was removed by her national union leadership for using union member dues to support her personal agenda, who embodies the very essence of the old boy network, is really in no position to take pot shots at Governor Palin,? he said.
Well, media, Tom Wilson has opened the gate to asking about e-mails here by invoking the Corzine/Katz e-mails in a statement about Sarah Palin. Anyone going to actually ask him about it, or does the GOP chair get a free pass on his hypocrisy?
But more intriguing than any email correspondence contained in the four boxes was what was not released: about 1100 emails. Palin's office provided McLeod with a 78-page list (PDF) cataloging the emails it was withholding. Many of them had been written by Palin or sent to her. Palin's office claimed most of the undisclosed emails were exempt from release because they were covered by the "executive" or "deliberative process" privileges that protect communications between Palin and her aides about policy matters. But the subject lines of some of the withheld emails suggest they were not related to policy matters. Several refer to one of Palin's political foes, others to a well-known Alaskan journalist. Moreover, some of the withhold emails were CC'ed to Todd Palin, the governor's husband. Todd Palin-a.k.a. the First Dude-holds no official state position (though he has been a close and influential adviser for Governor Palin). The fact that Palin and her aides shared these emails with a citizen outside the government undercuts the claim that they must be protected under executive privilege. McLeod asks, "What is Sarah Palin hiding?"
I'll anxiously await the condemnation from Tom Wilson and the NJ GOP, because we know how they feel about emails that have been shared with a citizen outside the government. For a refresher, lets take a peak at just one comment from Mr. Wilson:
It's time for Jon Corzine to end his stonewalling and start practicing the transparency he preaches. He should stop cloaking himself in a shroud of secrecy and give people the chance to review his backchannel communications with Katz so they can decide for themselves if Katz inappropriately influences his actions.
I have no doubt that Tom Wilson will call on Palin to stop cloaking herself in the shroud of secrecy and to let the people decide for themselves if anyone inappropriately influenced her actions. And if you believe that, I have a bridge to nowhere you may be interested in.
Denial, apparently, is the river upon whose banks the NJ GOP has set up shop.
"The phoenix is rising," said state Republican chairman Tom Wilson. "Right now, I would suggest that people in New Jersey are not embracing Democratic ideas. They're rejecting the Democrats and their policies."
Nutjob Fever is apparently spreading, too:
"There is an absolute feeling that our party has an extraordinary amount of energy right now, in New Jersey specifically," state Sen. Bill Baroni (R-Mercer), the chairman of McCain's campaign in the Garden State and the delegation leader. "We feel very good. The big question in politics is who's got the momentum. We do. There's an old line: would you rather be us or them? Well, I'd rather be us."
Reality tells a different story. Two years ago, New Jersey Democrats had 260,066 more voters registered than the NJ GOP. Now that advantage has grown to 652,210.
Let me put that into context for you. While Republicans were out registering people, Democrats matched them in new registrations - and then went out and registered as many new Democrats as the total population of Passaic and Salem Counties (as of the last census). In fact, only three New Jersey counties have populations greater than 652,210 - Bergen, Essex, and Middlesex.
And it gets no better if they are specifically talking about the McCain campaign. As of August 13, McCain was trailing by ten points in New Jersey - and new voters are always under represented in polling. By way of comparison, Tom Kean, Jr was slightly ahead of Sen. Robert Menendez around this time in 2006. Forrester was down by only four points in 2005. And Forrester was actually four points ahead of Robert Torricelli in 2002.
It doesn't matter how you interpret the story - tripping on drugs, blown-up on the launch, or a space-case that never belonged on earth, Major Tom Wilson is plumb OUT OF THIS WORLD if he believes the tripe he's busy serving up.
Apparently the Democrats pointed out the difference in the racial makeup of those in attendance between the Democratic and Republican conventions prompting this beauty from Tom Wilson:
"When you have a quota system, it guarantees the result you saw in Denver," Wilson shot back. "Look, you have one million Republicans in New Jersey, and 52 New Jerseyans sitting on the floor, representing them. These 52 people are there day in and day out doing the hardcore party activism.
"Our hardcore party activists are predominantly middle class, white New Jersey," Wilson added.
That's right, because there's no one from NJ in the middle class who isn't white. Welcome to your NJ GOP, where the hardcore party activism comes solely from those white middle class people. In Denver, the Democrats had 50% women, 24.5% black, 11.8% Hispanic and so on. Unfortunately, statistics aren't available from Minnesota, but don't worry because Wilson has developed an intensive strategy to expand the party into more urban areas however: (Emphasis Mine)
"You need ambassadors - people from those communities who reach out to people and tell them 'We're Republicans, we're not bad people', we just don't think government's the answer."
So the official NJ GOP plan for minority outreach is the "we're not bad people" strategy? And they wonder.
Tom Wilson may just be preparing himself for the inevitable. It seems like he's going through the stages of grief over possibly losing 2 GOP held Congressional seats. It looks like he's currently floating between denial and anger. When asked how he'd feel if the NRCC didn't invest in Chris Myers after Jim Saxton gave 400K to the national party, Wilson said this:
"If they don't, I'll be more than disappointed. I'll be sickened, and I'll be pissed," he said. "I can tell them to. They don't have to listen to me. Once the money is in their treasury it's theirs to do what they will with, but hopefully his colleagues will be respectful of his commitment to the caucus and make sure that his seat stays in Republican hands."
His colleagues will look out for their own self interests and he knows it. That's why he's making the statement. I was torn over whether to make that the QOTD or this response in the thread to his comment in the story:
I would be sickened, too, if I had on my resume that I was the state Chairman, the year Republicans lost two historically red districts.
Other than the fact that Tom Wilson doesn't want to lose a seat, is there a logical reason why the GOP should invest in NJ-3 or NJ-7 when they have so many other seats to defend? With 2 rounds of NRCC investments down, neither seat has made the list of ad buys meaning they're not even 2nd tier races for the national party, so apparently they don't see any reason to invest in them either.
Tom Wilson has been screaming for well over a year that Jon Corzine is corrupt, terrible, horrible, banal, scandalous, bitter, awful and any other negative adjective he could find in a thesaurus because Corzine will not release e-mails between himself and ex-girlfriend/CWA leader Carla Katz.
So what does he think of his new Vice Presidential candidate, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin?
I mentioned earlier that Gov. Palin is in the thick of her own very Bush era scandal over her attempts to have her ex-brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, using her clout as governor. Now we've learned she's invoked the Alaska version of executive privilege to withhold emails dealing with the case. Our report on the latest on the case will be coming up shortly.
And special bonus: after the firing that got her administration into trouble, Palin replaced him with another guy who'd recently been hit with a credible sexual harassment accusation. Palin later admitted that she knew about the complaint in advance but denied that she knew of the letter of reprimand he'd received.
Well, Tom? Are you a hypocrite or is Palin corrupt?
But ultimately, said Wilson, "If Chris [Christie] is the nominee, his running mate for lieutenant governor has to be someone who shares his priorities and his sense of ethics."
That makes veteran state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) a very viable candidate in the state chairman's opinion.
"Joe Kyrillos is a longtime friend of Chris who understands the nuts and bolts of government," said Wilson
Longtime friend of Chris? Understands the nuts and bolts of Government?
Here's the story of these longtime friends and how they used the "nuts and bolts of government" to get Chris a job.
The year, 2000: Joe Kyrillos is a State Senator, Chris Christie is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for George Bush for President and serving as the corporate counsel for the campaign. Christie makes it known he wants to be a US Attorney after helping the Republican nominee.
Bush wins the White House (OK, sort of, but go with me) and it is released that Chris Christie "won't receive any consideration for a top federal appointment."
The year, 2001: Joe Kyrillos becomes the New Jersey state GOP chair, and suddenly Christie money starts flowing into the state party's coffers. Christie and his wife put up $20,000 though they had never given anywhere near that amount before. Christie's brother and his wife each gave $37,000 for a close family contribution of $94,000 in the first couple months after Kyrillos took office.
And by the time the summer is over Christie learns that he will be nominated to the post of US Attorney for NJ.
The year, 2002: Chris Christie is sworn in to office in January. Two months later his brother -- remember the brother? -- donates $225,000 to the federal party. Add in a few more $25,000 checks and a few for $5 and $10K and the total amount donated by the Christie family around the time of the job search and swearing in passes a half million dollars.
To summarize. No job for Chris, family friend gets powerful position, Chris's family gives friend six figure donations, Chris gets job, Chris's family quadruples the donation.
And these two "share a sense of ethics" that the Republican chairman thinks should guide the state.
New Jersey Republicans have been freaking out for the past few weeks about the prospect of running either Joe Pennacchio or Murray Sabrin against Senator Lautenberg.
Sabrin is the Ron Paul libertarian type (though not really: he's for a constitutional ban on abortion, a national language, etc): 1/3 good ideas, 1/3 "interesting" ideas and 1/3 absolutely crazy ideas.
Pennacchio wrote a manifesto in 1991 (that just got unearthed) that actually had a lot of good ideas in it (which Republicans hate), but he's since renounced most of those anyway. But it also had controversial stuff about how women are equal (but not really) to men and about putting homeless people onto military bases. And the whole thing overcompensates a bit on the issue of race. My favorite line reminds me of Joe Biden: "Shelby Steele, a black English professor at San Jose' State has written eloquently on American race relations."
Since Anne Estabrook dropped out of the race, Republicans have been throwing out all kinds of names as potential third options. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Al Leiter and lately, Andy Unanue - former COO of Goya Foods.
The last one stuck and he threw his hat in the ring yesterday. And it's funny how giddy Republicans are about him. NJ GOP chair Tom Wilson:
"The opportunity to put a different face on the Republican Party and have a candidate who is young, Hispanic and so dynamic excites a lot of the party leaders right now."
That is quite a different face. They're going from running a disgusting, racist campaign against Senator Menendez in 2006 to running a Hispanic of their own less than two years later.
The GOP still doesn't get it. You don't automatically win over Hispanics or blacks or any other group just by running them for office. You start by not being so racist and scapegoating them for all of the country's problems.
I don't know very much yet about Unanue, but I do wonder how it must feel to be drafted by and agree to run with the party that used your ethnicity to scare voters in the prior election.
But before sentencing, he told Judge Jerome Simandle that he was forced to contribute between $3,000 and $4,000 every month to the Republican Party as a condition of keeping his lucrative contract with the bridge commission.
"I got sucked into a group of corrupt people," Stears said. "I allowed myself to engage in fraudulent schemes."
"The contributions were mostly in Burlington County, but there were other contributions they would ask us to make."
"You're saying that money was paid back in political contributions that wouldn't otherwise have existed?" Simandle asked.
"Yes," Stears responded, adding that "I wish my case were unique, but it's not."
I wonder who directed him to make those contributions and who benefited from the money donated, possibly his partner and GOP State Chair Tom Wilson, County boss Glenn Paulsen or Ms. No-Show Job herself Martha Bark? Paging U.S. Attorney Christie...
