Author: hankkalet

No surprises in South Brunswick. The Democrats won with a huge margin and the Republicans continued their descent into complete irrelevancy. (The lone surprise was the number of write-ins — more than a thousand, about one in nine votes cast.)

The GOP is likely to cast blame around with the targets likely to be everything from the Middlesex County Democratic machine (legitimate target) to the local Democrats’ money advantage (again, legitimate) to the South Brunswick Post (if only we had the kind of influence the GOP thinks we do).

One target likely to escape blame, however, will be their party’s leadership. The fact is, the party has failed its faithful, running a cast of mediocre candidates for years, candidates who have offered little in the way of vision and little to convince local voters that they should be elected to replace the incumbents.

If money was the only issue, if the party was running strong candidates or offering a compelling sense of where the township should be heading, it wouldn’t be losing by two-to-one margins, as it did this year.

Think about this: There was enough disenchantment with the incumbent mayor that a write-in camapaign against him managed to garner more than a thousand votes — an amazing feat given that writing in a candidate is not the easiest of processes.

If the GOP wants to be relevant again, it needs to find fresh faces and new leadership.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Finally getting a chance to post and it looks like the Dems may take the House. The key issue, of course, was Iraq — an issue on which the administration refuses to take off its rose-colored glasses. From the Times:

The election to a large extent became a national referendum on President Bush and the war in Iraq, according to exit polls.

Sixty percent of voters interviewed as they left the polls today said they opposed the war in Iraq, and 40 percent said their vote was a vote against Mr. Bush. In addition, a significant number of voters said corruption was a crucial issue in their decision, in a year in which Republicans have struggled with scandal in their ranks.

Independent voters, a closely watched group in a polarized country, broke heavily for Democrats over Republicans, the exit polls showed.

Here in New Jersey, the House seats went to the incumbents, as did the Senate seat — with Bob Menendez winning a particularly nasty race.

Again, the issue was Iraq.

President Bush never took an active role in the race but remained a polarizing figure who might have affected the outcome. Exit polls showed 86 percent of Menendez voters disapproved of the president’s performance; 76 percent of Kean voters said they strongly approved the way the president handled his job.

The results were similar on the issue of Iraq: 81 percent of Kean voters strongly approved of the war in Iraq, 75 percent of Menendez voters disagreed.

Kean had tried to distance himself from the administration, calling for the outset of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and arguing that White House had made mistakes. He even avoided describing himself as a Republican, but the link was tough to overcome.

“It comes down to this serious headwind this campaign was facing: anti-Bush; anti-war; anti-Iraq,” said Tom Wilson, chairman of the state GOP. “The Democrats nationalized their message. We practiced the idiom that all politics is local. We made it Tom Kean versus Bob Menendez.”

That, obviously, was not enough as New Jersey voters not only backed Sen. Menendez, but gave him a rather healthy margin of victory, as well.

There remains a possiblity — probably even money — that the Democrats will take both houses, but no one should have any illusions about what that will mean. A notoriously timid party, the Democrats might opt for some investigations and may push some needed legislation, but the president still holds the cards. He is likely to veto the main Democratic planks while refusing to back down on Iraq. That means that disaster will continue at least until he retires and we have a chance to elect someone with a modicum of respect for the international community and the U.S. Constitution.

That said, the Democrats have put themselves back in the game.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I have to share this with the readership. It is an e-mail that came in today, full of weird conspiracy mumbo-jumbo, some focused on Diebold voting machines, some focused on just random weirdness — I get material from all over.

I particularly enjoyed this bit, though:

I HAVE NO CONFIDENCE THAT WE HAVE CAPTURED SADDAM HUSSEIN.

Saddam’s wife said that the man we had captured “was not her husband” the moment she saw him, and would not speak to him.

Prove without a shadow of a doubt that the man we have is the man who ruled Iraq, and you can consider a ruling. Otherwise, you have the identical twin dilemna.

Um. Huh?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The Xpatriated Texan on BlueJersey explains why he — and I — will be voting against the three New Jersey public questions tomorrow:

First and foremost, the Constitution is not supposed to be a budgetary document. It is the fundamental law of the land. It shouldn’t be changed at the whim of economic winds. It should set forth the general principles of our society. Dedicating money to one fund or another simply doesn’t measure up to that level.

Second, we just closed down the government a few months ago because we couldn’t agree on how we should close a $4.5 billion dollar deficit. If we slice up how this money is dedicated, how will that help us close this gap? Short answer: It won’t. In fact, we will have to raise taxes somewhere else in order to replace the money we are re-directing.

Third, it is the responsibility of our legislature to create a balanced budget document. We should fully fund the Transportation Trust Fund and we should fully fund property tax relief and we should fully fund our parks and recreation services – but we can already do that in the normal budget process. The fact that these services are lagging behind is a reflection of the values of the people we send to Trenton. Constraining future legislatures with a Constitutional amendment simply allows them to dodge the responsibility for matching their priorities with ours. Let them decide whether to fund these vital services or to give their buddies another over-paid no-show job – and then vote accordingly.

Fourth, the percentage of the state budget controlled by the state legislature is somewhere around 15%. Constraining the legislators this far hasn’t helped, and I don’t see any benefit to doing it further. From my limited analysis of New Jersey budgeting, the problem is not that the New Jersey legislature doesn’t have money to spend – it’s that it chooses to spend the money it does control on stupid things. It’s that it has, all too often, totally abrogated its responsibility to exercise oversight once it appropriates money.

I understand the desire to constrain the legislature so that certain vital services are maintained. But once we start, where do we stop? Unless we truly want to fix the entire budget by Constitutional amendment, it makes no sense whatsoever to approve these questions.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The political junkie in me is out and I need to be careful not to fall prey to the kind of prognosticating nonsense that plagues cable news. I’m watching Tucker Carlson (ugh) on MSNBC, following the end of Chris Matthews’ “Hardball,” and I’m struck by how little the folks on the tube are talking about what each of these candidates stand for and what the change might mean in policy terms.

Aside from a short nod to Iraq — the consensus on “Hardball,” accurate I think, is that a Democrtic win will mean little change because George Bush will still be in the White House — the talking heads are saying little about the future of the Bush tax cuts, Social Security, trade issues (aside from saying that the likely Democratic winners are cut from the “populist” cloth) , the Supreme Court, abortion, the separation of powers, the abuse of power by the White House, etc., etc., etc.

I can understand how this happens. Horse-race coverage requires little real work, aside from looking at polls, and allows reporters and talking heads to not delve into the deep end of the policy pool, which would require thoughtful discussion and a careful explanation of where the candidates stand.

But it does a disservice to voters, leaving the candidates through stylized and misleading television advertising to define themselves and their opponents.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick