Tough cuts and the chief wingnut

This budget proposal comes from a man who wants to be the face of New Jersey conservatism? The Corzine budget proposal is going to be painful enough without putting in place the kind of draconian cuts that Steve Lonegan is pushing. I’m thinking it is time that the state’s media stop taking this guy seriously.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Random thoughts on the Mets pitching history

The acquisition of Johan Santana this off-season got me thinking about some useless information, as Jason Stark would call it.

The Mets the last few years have been known for their bats, but historically this has been a team built around pitching. Its greatest player was Tom Seaver, a three-time Cy Young pitcher, and its two World Series teams were built on arms. Met pitchers have won the award four times — Dwight Gooden is the other.

The Santana acquisition gives the Mets two former Cy Young award winners for the third straight years — with both pitchers each year winning the award more than once. Pedro Martinez, in his third year with the Mets, is a three-time winner, Santana a two-time winner and Tom Glavine, Pedro’s teammate for two years, won twice.

All told, there have been 10 pitchers who came to the Mets after winning the Cy Young: Warren Spahn, Dean Chance, Mike Marshall, Randy Jones, Frank Viola, Bret Saberhagen, Orel Hershiser, Glavine, Pedro and Santana.

There also have been two pitchers to win the award after leaving the Mets: Mike Scott and David Cone.

Other odd notes about the Cy Young: Four pitchers — Gaylord Perry, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens — have won the award in both leagues. Sanata is hoping to add his name to this list. Greg Maddux is the only other pitcher to win the award for multiple teams and Clemens is the only pitcher to win with four teams.

Perry and his brother, Jim Perry, are the only brother combo to win it.

The Dodgers have won eight and the Braves seven, each covering two cities. In the AL, the Orioles and Red Sox have each won six.

The Mets (Santana and Martinez), Padres (Jake Peavey and Maddux), Diamondbacks (Brandon Webb and Johnson) and Braves (Glavine and John Smoltz) each have two former Cy Young winners on their teams this year.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Spring is in the arms

At this point in the spring, before a real pitch has even been thrown, there is always hope. And while I agree with John Harper about John Maine (pictured from Mets’ site) and the Mets’ rotation — the same story could be written about Oliver Perez, as well — I am desperately trying to keep my optimism to myself. Even if the Phillies’ big acquisition is on the shelf for at least a month.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Too much money business

Money is a distorting influence on the electoral process. Simply put, the need to raise ungodly amounts to cover the cost of running not only national by state level and local campaigns has resulted in a level of cynicism that should be unacceptable to the political classes.

Instead, we hear the candidates talk tough but then rush out to collect their checks, ignoring the rules that they say they support.

That’s what we’ve been watching over the last week or so, as the three remaining major candidates — Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain — do a dance designed to raise questions about their opponents sincerity.

First, there was the criticism of Obama by McCain for Obama’s weasling out of a promise to abide by public financing rules for the general election, prompted by conditions Obama wanted placed on the agreement.

Not that McCain was playing it straight, either, as he attempted to back out of the public financing system after using it to secure a loan when his campaign was near bankruptcy. Add to this the series of stories detailing his connections to lobbyists and you have a picture of the clean-cut kid sneaking behind the school gym to get high.

Clinton, for her part, has been spending campaign cash like a drunken sailor,

Then there are the Democrats’ superdelegates — a group that has been receiving generous help from both Obama and Clinton over the last three years.

All of this creates an impression of conflict — the infamous quid pro quos — and hypocrisy, neithger of which leave our elected officials and democratic system looking particularly good.

As The New York Times writes today, “Americans deserve better.”

Taken together, these skirmishes over cash stand as an advertisement for change. Money has to be taken out fo the system without violating the First Amendment. The courts have ruled that money is the equivalent of speech, and while they are not the same it is money that allows speech to be heard in our culture. A hard cap on donations or spending would cross this line, I think, so some other system must be put in place.

Or the system that exists for public funding of the presidential race needs to be reinvigorated bu making sure there is enough cash available to run legitimate campaigns. In an era of tight budgets, this will not be popular. But the money saved on the kind of pay-to-play nonsense that plagues government could help offset the costs.

Plus, public funding should be extended beyond the presidential races to the states — to senators, Congressmen and state-level officials, even local officials.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.