What I enjoyed about voting last week (besides the 3 minute commute to my polling place) was that I had a chance to vote for candidates that will have some level of impact on me and my immediate community. Again, as a guy who has been voting in Morris County for the last 15 years, the people that I’ve been voting for have largely not been the Mayors, Town Councilors, Board of Education members, State Legislators, and Congressmen who have a direct impact on the community where I actually live. Last Tuesday, the votes that I cast were different in that they have a direct relationship to my daily life.

And the American in me enjoys the fact that I get to vote in the first place! Unlike most folks out there, I enjoy voting for people from both sides of the aisle – which I did last Tuesday. One of the great things about this country is that we have a choice. Frankly, I wish we had more that two viable choices and I really wish that the Libertarian and Constitutional Parties would grow to become larger players in American politics. But that’s okay – the people are beginning to realize that there are more than two answers to every political question and that it’s not such a bad idea to get people with different ideas involved.

As for the results from last week’s elections, well I didn’t think it was any big surprise. Of course the Republicans were going to run away with the Senate and increase their lead in the House – the majority of the places and states in this country are center-right and every political map proves that point. Yes, the cities and urban areas vote heavily Democratic and that’s where the President has his most ardent supporters, but most of this country isn’t filled with cities and urban areas. Thus the results from last week are no big surprise.

Plus, I’m a big believer in divided government. We have a Democratic President and I think it’s a good idea to have a Republican Congress to check his power. I thought the same thing when President George W. Bush was in charge – a Democratic Congress was good for him to have to collaborate with the other side (which he did very well at the beginning of his first term as well). The biggest “check” that I think will come out of the Republican Congress is their ability to conduct fuller investigations in the Senate. The talking heads on television suggest that there are a variety of scandals brewing from Benghazi to the fast and furious gun running issue to immigration and now to the fact that there were blatant lies told to the American people in order to get the Affordable Care Act passed.

While those are all issues that deserve fuller investigations, what I’m looking forward to knowing more about is the IRS targeting scandal. Folks, if the accusations are true – that the IRS targeted individuals and groups that they disagreed with politically – then that is going to be the biggest scandal in the history of American politics up through our lifetimes, I guaranty it. This is the exact type of issue that the colonists rebelled against back in the late 1700s and it’s the exact type of issue that makes our government ineffective in the 2010s. So… that’s what I’m looking forward to from the new Congress: a true investigation into the IRS targeting scandal.

That’s right. All Mayor Zimmer wanted was to raise her profile in New Jersey politics. There is no question that Mayor Zimmer has aspirations for higher office in this state and – like a typical, untrustworthy politician – she warped reality to elevate her name recognition. What I want to know, though, is why she hasn’t responded to legitimate questions being brought up by the only major mainstream news personality that thought to investigate her claims – Megan Kelly. Take a look:

What gives, Mayor Zimmer? Stop running and answer these questions! Or, do you already know that if you answer honestly it throws your entire scheme over the edge and immediately eliminates any credibility that you have?

Remember this cowardice my fellow New Jersey voters…

Though I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t mind citing who I voted for in the prior presidential elections. In 2000 I didn’t vote (and I couldn’t tell you why – I honestly don’t remember), in 2004 I voted for George W. Bush, and in 2008 I voted for Obama. The reason I voted for Bush in 2004 is because he was the right man for the job at that time and his competition (Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts) just wasn’t the man to be President. Similarly, the reason that I voted for Obama was because he was the right man for the job. The difference between my vote for Obama and my vote for Bush was that Bush was ready for the job and Obama was a little green under the collar. However, I thought that with the cast of characters surrounding Obama (Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, etc) that he would be able to cobble together a decent first year, learn about executive leadership while on the job, and then have an outstanding second, third, and fourth years in office.

As an independent observer, I can’t honestly say that the past four years have been good ones for Obama or for the country.

The root of the problem for the last four years is an executive leadership team (headed up by Obama) who refuse to take blame for the bad things going on in the country. They point to prior administrations and say the bad things are their fault, not the fault of the current administration. That argument may have worked during the first days, weeks, and months of the administration, but at some point you bought the farm and its lack of crops is your fault. Obama and his advisors don’t seem to get that simple fact of management – that at some point you can no longer point behind you and say, “This is all their fault.”

So I look at a guy like Obama – a guy who doesn’t understand leadership and doesn’t understand the economy and there’s no way I can see myself voting for him again. His Presidency will go down as one of the most mediocre, if not fiscally atrocious, ones in the modern era.

And then I turn and look at a guy like Mitt Romney and I want to put my fist through the wall.

Really, Republicans? Really? This is the guy you chose to run against Obama? Good grief.

When I look at Romney I see what the man is – a very rich, northeastern businessman who dabbled in politics for a little while and has been running for President since 2007. He made a ton of money as an investor before he became a politician and that doesn’t bother me at all. Good for him. I hope everyone has an opportunity in their lives to make the type of money that Romney made. Granted, not everyone will seize that opportunity or even be presented with that type of opportunity in the first place, but I don’t begrudge anybody on this planet their success or their natural environment. In other words, if you’re born into a rich family like Romney, then I don’t hold that against you. If you choose to flaunt that wealth like it’s your own (think Paris Hilton and the crew of morons that she hangs around with), then I think you deserve the near-unanimous scorn that you get from the public.

Romney might have been born into money, but he made a ton more money on his own and I don’t hate him for that success.

What I find absolutely shocking, though, is that the Republican power brokers decided to make this man the presidential nominee when his core life experience doesn’t speak – at all – to the group of Americans who are most upset with the Obama administration. If you look at the folks out there who are disenfranchised by and upset with Obama’s performance, then you’d see that they are mostly middle class people who live in the heartland of American. Sure, some of the liberal-leaning people from the far West and East Coasts are also fed up with Obama’s inability to lead and fundamental dislike of the capitalist economy, but you can’t talk to the fringes of the disenfranchised and expect that to ignite the type of fire that can throw a sitting President out of office. And that’s what the Republicans did by selecting Romney – they chose a guy whose life experience is cut from a different cloth than the type of people who want Obama out of office. They chose a rich guy who has absolutely no idea what it’s like to struggle financially, what it’s like to not be able to find a job, what it’s like to have seemingly insurmountable bills piling up week after week, month after month.

Did the Republicans have to pick a “common man” to be their nominee in order to beat Obama? Not necessarily. They should have, however, picked a guy who at least speaks to the common man’s experience in America. That’s not Mitt Romney. At all.

The bottom line is – do you think Romney would be a better leader than Obama and I think the answer is a simple, unenthusiastic “yes.” The man was a wild success as a businessman/investor and a good executive-level politician. That’s it. He’s got the charisma of a wet noodle and is about as endearing as a bruise that won’t go away.

Where that leaves me this November is in an uncertain place. In good conscience, I can’t vote for Obama again. Aside from lying during the campaign (remember the line that no one making less than $250,000 would see their taxes go up? Yeah – then we got the myriad hidden taxes to pay for his healthcare law… liar), he’s just not grounded in the realities of this economy. However, my gut tells me that Romney isn’t the right man for the job. He has no connection to the disgruntled voter base and simply doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a regular, working class or struggling person in today’s America.

It’s a shame that there isn’t a strong third party in America because this is the election where they’d see major success. You have the Libertarian party running former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, but they aren’t given any coverage by the media. There’s always the chance that a guy like Ron Paul could launch an independent candidacy and challenge both Obama and Romney, but that would just about secure the reelection of Obama and I don’t think Paul wants to do that at all. Or, you could just not vote this time around, but I prefer to actually vote because you get a chance to vote for the “undercard” including state and local elections (where, I think, a person’s votes actually matter).

Not sure who I’ll vote for this November, but a third party looks more exciting than either of the big two candidates. All I know for sure is that I absolutely cannot vote for Obama again.

For me, this is a simple situation and one that really doesn’t require any protesting or arguing or petty “left vs. right” political comparisons. In short, there’s no money. No money = no jobs. Take the private sector over the last three years – people have been losing their jobs left and right. Why? Because their companies couldn’t afford to staff the position. It might suck, but New Jersey can’t afford to pay some of its policemen and firefighters, among other public workers.

And it’s silly to blame Governor Christie when Jon “Money Bags” Corzine, Jim McGreevey, and Christine Todd Whitman (among many other previous political leaders in this state) are the ones who raped our state’s finances. For my friends who aren’t from New Jersey – for decades it hasn’t mattered whether a Republican or a Democrat has been in office because both parties fleeced the state.

Yet, I understand that people need someone to lash out at and Governor Christie is the head of the state so they’re going to lash out at him. In fact, there’s a protest of public workers going on up the street from my office in Trenton today. And while I think contemporary protesting is so fabricated and false that in 2011 it typically gets Americans nowhere, I don’t mind the folks up the street protesting. I do mind that they added 45 minutes on to my commute this morning (because I wanted to spend nearly 2 hours in the car). But at least the folks protesting today are from New Jersey versus the idiots who protested in Trenton last week who were primarily bussed in from Pennsylvania and New York.

At the end of the day, though, there’s no money and cuts have to come from somewhere so jobs are going to be lost. For anyone to be surprised at that simple economic math means that they either had their head buried in the sand as the private sector was rocked over the last 3 years or they just don’t understand that no money = no jobs.

The video below puts it pretty plainly – Governor Christie has turned New Jersey upside down in a good way! If there were any doubts left in anyone’s mind about whether times are changing in Trenton, watch the video below. During a press conference a few weeks ago, Governor Christie noted a proposal presented by Democrats for business tax cuts as an example of his Administration being transformational. He said:

“Here’s another manifestation of turning Trenton upside down. Democrats are talking about business tax cuts in New Jersey. Ok? So if you don’t think that this administration has been transformational in a year, then I point you to that example.”

What this man has accomplished in New Jersey is nothing short of phenomenal. He is saving this state and improving our near death-bed fiscal health at the same time. Absolutely remarkable.

Please note that portions of the text above were taken from an e-mail prepared by the Governor’s Office.

Who is Alvin Green, you ask? Well, he happens to be the gentleman who won this week’s primary in South Carolina for the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for the United States Senate. Oh, he also happens to have been discharged from the Air Force and the Army and he also has a pending sexual harassment charge (I think) against him. Oh, and he spent less than $2,000 on his “campaign” for this nomination. You know what? Just watch the video…

Truthfully, I don’t know whether I absolutely despise Mr. Greene or find him to be a breath of fresh air. Granted, it seems like he has a sordid past and he clearly doesn’t know a damn thing about the issues, but once upon a time the majority of our Senators and Representatives were very similar to Mr. Greene.

Do you have any thoughts on this guy? I’ll tell you what – he’s pretty entertaining!

Looking at the Mt. Arlington Results

Last year I tended to look at the power of the third party candidates to see whether or not it would be worthwhile for a third party to centralize its efforts in a single town. I thought I’d do the same thing for the 2009 results.

In Mt. Arlington, Chris Christie drew 1,130 votes for Governor while the then-incumbent Jon Corzine drew 512 votes. In total, 154 ballots were cast for third party candidates which includes 136 votes for Chris Daggett. In truth, that’s not that bad for the third parties during an election cycle that was pretty well-publicized and emotionally-charged in New Jersey. It is clear, though, that Mt. Arlington remains a strong Republican district and that whatever crossover support Corzine enjoyed in this particular district prior to the election evaporated.

In total, 1,808 ballots were cast in Mt. Arlington. Of those ballots, 1,732 were cast in person at polling stations and 76 were cast via vote by mail ballots. Again, this isn’t a bad turnout for the vote by mail contingent (myself included) and it shows that the intent of the change in election law to allow more people to use vote by mail ballots is being realized by the people. And though the percentage of the vote that came through vote by mail ballots was only 2.07%, I still think that if a third party could find a way to energize a local base, then it could enjoy some degree of success at the local level and possibly build on that success regionally, then at the state level, and then possibly at higher levels of government.

With the recent showing of Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 congressional district special election, it would appear that there is a real desire on behalf of the people to see something new from their politicians. The people want more choices than simply “R” or “D” and I still think that the building a strong base at the local level is the best way for third parties to pop up and begin providing more choice to the voters.

You are invited to a
Post-Election Panel Discussion
What Happened in New Jersey?

Thursday November 5, 2009
1:00 – 2:15 PM

Jules L. Plangere Jr. Center for Communication (TV Studio)
Monmouth University, West Long Branch

Two nationally recognized campaign strategists and other keen observers of the Garden State’s political scene will break down the election results and look forward to 2010.

Moderators:
« Alan Steinberg, Former EPA Regional Director and Monmouth University Public Servant in Residence
« Michael Murphy, Former Gubernatorial Candidate and Democratic Lobbyist

Panelists:
« Bill Pascoe, Republican Campaign Communications Strategist
« Steve Ayscue, Democratic Campaign Communications Strategist
« Patrick Murray, Director, Monmouth University Polling Institute

Sponsors:
Polling Institute
Department of Political Science
Office of Academic Program Initiatives

This event is open to the Monmouth community, the general public, and the media.

For more information, or if you want to bring a class, call: (732) 263-5860 or polling@monmouth.edu

Sounds like it’s going to be a good event so if you’re in the area and you have an hour or so to spare, you might want to go check this out and see what this panel has to say. Lord knows that the entire state is going to be crowing after this year’s election. It’s interesting when you think about it. No candidate has a clear majority of the vote so you would assume that less than a majority of the people in New Jersey are going to be happy with the winner of this election no matter what the outcome. Pretty amazing, really.

When I see both Republicans and Democrats casting off the concerns of their constituency, it makes me wonder how these people keep their offices. Why are there not more recall elections? Where is the political passion in America that we recently saw in the Iranian reformists, for example? Why are there not mass gatherings in Washington DC demanding that the Republicans in Congress and the Democrats both in the White House and the Congressional leadership begin listening to their constituents?

Look, I know that a minority in this country want both a public option for healthcare and a single payer system, but this country was not set up for the majority to be overwhelmed by the minority. In other words, while we listen to the minority voices and take their views into account, those views should not run this nation. Healthcare does need to be reformed so that more people can receive more coverage. But until our elected officials begin to listen to us, nothing will be accomplished.

Unless a third party rises up with a platform based off of the majority of the population’s concerns…

And in their article they made the following suggestion:

Since the beginning of March, CNN has fallen behind both the longtime ratings leader, Fox News Channel, which, as the voice of disaffected conservatives, again has an imposing lead, and the upstart MSNBC, which has tried to mirror Fox’s success by steering to the left.

CNN has even dipped behind its sister network HLN (formerly Headline News) on many occasions. Since the beginning of 2009, CNN has finished fourth in prime time among the cable news networks on 35 out of 84 weeknights.

The development raises an obvious question: With its rivals stoking prime time with high-octane political opinion and rant, can CNN compete effectively with a formula of news delivered more or less straight?

Alright, there are a couple of things here that need to be addressed and I’m annoyed that they need to be addressed because I’d prefer to comment on the actual article’s content, not the worldview of The New York Times. First of all, FOX News is not in the lead because it is the voice of disaffected conservatives (in fact, most studies show that more than half of their viewership consists of independent and democratic voters). It is in the lead for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which is that they’ve managed to successfully marry entertainment and news as well as entertainment and commentary.

No one can watch Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, or Greta Van Susteren and suggest that they are not in the midst of some type of performance. O’Reilly has the American Culture quiz, for Pete’s sake! Hannity has the Great American Panel which introduces an X-Factor (usually an entertainer) into the show plus he’s got that Liberal Translator thing which is clearly a form of entertainment. And Van Susteren is constantly jumping out of planes or throwing out first pitches, plus she’s put together two new segments at the end of her show called “Best of the Rest” and “Last Call” to get people staying tuned. And I’m fine with all of this stuff because these shows are commentary and should show some personality. Nothing wrong with that on FOX or any other cable news channel.

My next problem with the view presented by The New York Times is the idea that MSNBC is an upstart company. Are you kidding me? They were a failed cable news outlet before FOX News was even an idea! The biggest problem on MSNBC right now is the unchecked hatred that they allow to spew on their airwaves, not that they have competition from CNN or FOX News. The difference between CNN and FOX News and the folks over at MSNBC is that they allow completely absurd statements to be made without a strong counterpoint. You absolutely will not find that on O’Reilly’s FOX News show, political leanings aside.

The other problem at MSNBC is talent. Who the hell wants to watch Keith Olberman? The man is a failed ESPN broadcaster and MSNBC gives him his own show? What’s next? The Money Hour with Bernie Madoff? Give me a break.

And the problem with CNN is that they cannot fathom that their opinions are anything other than 100% correct and middle of the road. Look, CNN leans left; not hard-left or hateful like MSNBC, but they do lean left. And the thing is – they don’t get it. For example, I posted a few days ago about that crazy woman reporter from CNN that attended one of the tea parties and was so self-centered that she claimed the tea parties were anti-CNN! Ha! Can you imagine that?!

I’ve seen FOX News reporters go into rallies that truly WERE anti-FOX News and present a set of fair questions to the protesters. Maybe the best thing for CNN, MSNBC, and even The New York Times to do is sit down and actually watch a few hours of FOX News for a change.

Update: The real, straight shooting numbers on who is really winning (“hammering the competition” is more like it) in the ratings war are available at NewsMax.com.