NEW JERSEY PREPARES TO CEDE TWO MORE CONGRESSIONAL SEATS TO THE DEMOCRATS

Fast forward to November

Yesterday the DCCC announced a batch of "red to blue" districts they would be targeting this year, including two open seats in New Jersey, the 3rd CD, where Jim Saxton is retiring, and the 7th, where Mike Ferguson is retiring. Each district has a small GOP lean but both are likely to go blue in 2008.

Saxton was hoping he could help his party avoid a bruising primary that could lead to a right-wing extremist getting the nomination in the moderate 3rd. His plan, to endorse Lockheed Martin executive Chris Myers (a mainstream greed-and-selfishness conservative) failed to scare off the nuts. Remember what Huckabee said about middle and working class voters not wanting to support someone like Mitt Romney because he reminds them of someone who lays people off? Chris Myers is one like that. And last week Meyers got the message that he'll have a far right extremist to contend with in June before he faces a very formidable Democratic opponent in November. The right winger is Ocean County Freeholder, Jack Kelly, who's being supported by Congressman Chris Smith, who represents the neighboring 4th CD. It should be a very bloody primary because Kelly and the people around him are straight out of the Bush-Rove-Cheney playbook.

Newly retired state Sen. Leonard Connors, who serves as campaign chair, also touted Kelly’s fiscal record.

"For a long time, the country has been leaning more and more toward socialistic ideas," said Connors. "I know Jack doesn’t agree with that. He believes in a strong military."... Kelly said with the information supplied to Congress leading up to the Iraq War resolution vote in 2002, he would have voted yes, just like Saxton. "We took the war to them," said Kelly, who stressed that the world is too dangerous and too volatile to remain on defense in what is a "worldwide jihad."

Asked if he would examine diplomatic measures to complement military action, Kelly said, "There is no diplomacy with terrorists who have nothing in their hearts but to destroy the United States."

The district gave Bush a narrow 51% win in 2004. And the winner of the Republican primary will be facing immensely popular-- and well-financed-- State Senator John Adler in New Jersey. "Worldwide jihad" may work for a narrow segment of voters in the 3rd-- but just a narrow segment. These folks are far more worried about the Bush Recession and about inflation and the impact that Bush's economic policies have had on the country. This probably won't be a good year for fat cat corporate executives or war-mongers.

There was fear that in the 7th CD, there would be no credible candidate at all when Ferguson decided to move over to K Street and, like in the 3rd, there is a hugely popular Democratic candidate, in this case Linda Stender. After all the top tier candidates announced they had better things to do with their time than get mowed down by Stender, Christine Todd Whitman's daughter, Kate, and another mainstream conservative, state Sen. Leonard Lance (Tom Keane Jr's boy), jumped in. Now Republicans are afraid that the two mainstream candidates will split the vote and allow an unelectable extremist, like Martin Marks, to make off with the nomination.

These two districts should be Democratic pick ups for 2008. Meanwhile, next door in Maryland's 1st CD, in an unexpected development, the far right jihad to purge mainstream conservative incumbent Wayne Gilchrest, suffered a setback when Bush himself endorsed Gilchrest over his far right opponents in the GOP primary coming up next month.