Can A Blue Dog Party Switcher's Pledge Of Undying Loyalty To Trump Help Him Win Re-Election... In Atlantic City, Where Trump Destroyed The Economy?

 

New Jersey's second district is the only real swing district in the state. Obama won it it a tad over 53% both times he ran and then Trump beat Hillary there 50.6% to 46.0%. The district takes up the entire southern part of the state, including Atlantic City, although most of it suburban and rural. There are 8 counties and parts of counties, but most of the people live in just 4: Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Gloucester counties.

Frank LoBiondo, a mainstream Republican, was elected to the congressional seat in 1994 and finally retired in 2018 granting the DCCC their long-in-the-tooth and disastrous wish-- a run by the most conservative member of the New Jersey state legislature, NRA darling Jefferson Van Drew. He won but not by a huge margin-- 52.9% to 45.2%-- while losing Salem, Ocean, Camden and Burlington counties. And he spent $1,877,531 while his Republican opponent only managed to spend $299,475. Outside group spent another million-plus on bolstering Van Drew, while his GOP opponent was without allies in that department.

Now, of course, Van Drew is the Republican candidate and the Democrats snagged a moderate Democrat, Amy Kennedy. So far she's outspent him by around a million dollars-- $4,085,926 to $3,028,402 with Pelosi's superPAC kicking in another $5,275,471 and the DCCC $1,165,084 more. In all over $7 million in outside money has been spent on Kennedy's behalf while "just" $5.3 million has been spent by the GOP to defend Van Drew.





CNN reported this week that Van Drew's very public pledge of his "undying support" for Trump has not done him any good with independent voters, who ultimately decide who wins and who loses elections in NJ-02. Rebecca Buck wrote that last December, Van Drew "shocked his colleagues in the Democratic Party when he announced he would become a Republican," blaming the impeachment for his decision. His shocked colleagues would only have to know a little something about Blue Dogs-- dozens of whom have stabbed the party in the back and joined the GOP-- and Van Drew's very Republican voting record to have not been shocked. Just as they shouldn't be if others just like him-- Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Kendra Horn (OK) being prime examples-- when they hop the fence in a couple of years. Buck continued that "Van Drew's detractors point to a more craven political calculation: that he might not have been able to survive his Democratic primary."

The decision culminated in an Oval Office photo-op, where Van Drew pledged his "undying support" to the President. Camera shutters clicked as the two men vigorously shook hands. Eleven months later, those images are at the center of one of the hottest congressional races in the country, with Van Drew seeking reelection for the first time-- and, also for the first time, running as a Republican.

His GOP debut happens to coincide with a daunting year for his new party. But he says his transition is "going fine."

"What's really good about it is, I sort of feel liberated, in that I don't have somebody telling me what you can and can't vote for," Van Drew said, "and that's what really started all of it."

Van Drew's Democratic challenger, Amy Kennedy, is a former schoolteacher born and raised in South Jersey; she is also the wife of former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

The race is only nominally between Kennedy and Van Drew, however. As in down-ballot contests across the country this year, Trump looms large here-- perhaps even more so because of the public embrace between Van Drew and the President.

"What's happening at the top of the ticket is really defining the down-ballot races," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, which recently surveyed the race for New Jersey's Second Congressional District. "It's much, much harder this time around than it has been in the past to establish yourself as an independent voice."

A year ago, a close association with Trump might not have sounded like such a bad thing in South Jersey. The President won this district in 2016 by 5 points; in January, when Trump traveled there for a victory-lap rally with Van Drew, thousands of supporters lined up in the frigid cold. Van Drew, reminiscing on that night, recalled an atmosphere of such exuberance that a match "just would have self-lit."

But that was before Trump stumbled responding to a global pandemic, before millions of Americans lost their jobs, and before 2020 and the election took a sharp turn in another direction.

Now, Trump's endorsement might not be enough, if it's a net positive at all-- and as the President lags in the polls with Election Day nearing, Van Drew, a former mayor and state lawmaker, is trying to remind voters of his own brand, cultivated over two decades in public service, of an independent-minded politician unconcerned with party labels.

"I don't always agree with what the Republican Party is doing or even the President is doing. And the President knew that when I got involved," Van Drew said. "I vote independently. I'm the same Jeff Van Drew I always was."

If some at-risk Republican candidates are hedging their support for Trump, however, Van Drew insists he isn't one of them.

Indeed, Van Drew's campaign website still features a large banner photo of his Oval Office handshake, swallowing up most of the screen. Van Drew was a featured speaker during the Republican National Convention over the summer. And his campaign office windows plainly bear the signs of Van Drew 2.0: not only Van Drew's logo, printed on yard signs this year in a new shade of bright GOP red, but also Trump's. The Van Drew campaign shares the office with Trump's New Jersey operation.

"I don't run away from people," Van Drew said. "...I don't think, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, whether you always agree with the President or not, that you just betray him and walk away. I don't think that's the right thing to do."

Some Democratic voters who supported Van Drew two years ago believe that's exactly what he did to them, by switching parties just one year after they sent him to Washington.

"I felt betrayed actually, that he would do something like that," said David Burr, a Democratic voter who cast his ballot this year for Kennedy. "It just seemed like he wasn't thinking about me, he was thinking about remaining in office."

And it isn't just voters: party leaders, too, felt broadsided by Van Drew's decision. Just days before Van Drew's announcement, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer headlined a lunch reception for the congressman at a townhouse on Capitol Hill. There, according to Hoyer, he praised Van Drew for his party loyalty, despite hailing from a moderate district. Donors wrote checks for as much as $5,000 to Van Drew's reelection campaign; Hoyer, for his part, had already maxed out.

Many of the actual founders of the Blue Dog coalition found it expedient to quit the Democrats and become Republicans, like Nathan Deal (GA), Billy Tauzin (LA), Jimmy Hayes (LA), Michael Parker (MS), Gene Taylor (MS), Ralph Hall (TX), Pete Geren (TX), who came up with the term "Blue Dog," and Greg Laughlin (TX). In leaving the Democratic Party, Van Drew was staying true to what Blue Dogs generally do.

However, many of these Blue Dog party switchers lose subsequent elections (or even GOP primaries). Buck reported that "Van Drew claims to be 'the only person in all of American history who ever went from the majority party to the minority party,' and insists that others who have done it have been rewarded with chairmanships and greater political clout. But that's not true, even in recent political history." She cited Blue Dog scumbag Parker Griffith (AL) who became a Republican in 2009. Alabama Republicans weren't interested and defeated him in a primary.

For Van Drew, at least, a contested GOP primary wasn't an issue after Republicans rolled out the red carpet for him. Along with Trump's endorsement of Van Drew, the President's reelection committee immediately invested $250,000 in advertisements thanking the congressman for switching parties and supporting the President.

But if the GOP welcomed Van Drew with open arms, his district's voters might make another calculation.

"Van Drew has been successful his entire career setting himself up as not the typical politician, not somebody who's beholden to partisan interests," said Murray, of Monmouth. "Yet many voters view his party switch exactly in that vein, that it was an act of political self-preservation."

In a sense, it was. As Van Drew prepared to vote against impeaching the President last year, his campaign team shared with him an internal poll suggesting the stance would doom him in a Democratic primary. Switching to the GOP was hardly a guaranteed return ticket to Washington-- but at least it wouldn't be a certain political death sentence.

...The bigger issue for Van Drew, unquestionably, will be Trump-- and their alliance symbolized by the moment when Van Drew pledged his "undying support, always" to the President.

It was that moment, Kennedy says, that motivated her to run in the first place.

"I had no intention of running for office," Kennedy said. "But it was hearing those words, 'I pledge my undying support to you Mr. President, always,' that was when I felt like this is someone who is absolutely not there to look out for our best interests. And that compelled me to want to run."

Now that moment has become a symbol of the campaign-- and a headache for Van Drew, who like voters in his district has seen his sound bite played and replayed "over and over and over again," by his count, in attack ads this year.

During CNN's interview this week, we asked Van Drew if he regretted those words that have followed him around these months and might now cost him reelection.

"I think the words didn't explain as well what I exactly felt," Van Drew conceded. "It's not undying support that, whatever you say I'm going to do, or undying support, I agree with whatever you say. It was undying support for the presidency, for the idea of the greatness of America, for a friendship, but not necessarily that I'm going to agree with everything."

But it's unclear if will voters understand what he meant versus what he said.

"I think voters understand that when you're in the Oval Office and you're having a very exciting day and you're making a little piece of history," Van Drew said, "that sometimes we all say things."

A few minutes later, after our conversation had moved on, Van Drew stopped mid-sentence to rephrase something-- and then, recognizing the humor of it, he cut himself off again. Under his mask, he might have allowed a smile.

"See how your words can come out wrong?" he said, stabbing the air playfully, laying his Jersey accent on thick. "Well, I got a chance to fix it this time."

Kennedy isn't a Blue Dog, but has been endorsed by the New Dems, basically just as bad and more firmly tied to Wall Street. Progressives have no candidate to vote for Tuesday, though many are just going to hold their noses and vote for Kennedy to express their antipathy for Van Drew.

Amy Kennedy Is Besting New Jersey Turncoat Jeff Van Drew. Is That Any Reason To Celebrate?

What's worse? This or supporting another dynast?

 

The New Dems, even more so that the withered and impotent Blue Dogs, are the heart of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. They are Wall Street and corporate-America sell outs and have more in common with Eisenhower-era Republicans than they do with progressive Democrats. They vote badly but, worse yet, they prevent progressive legislation from ever getting to the floor, even in a Democratically-controlled House.

DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos quietly resigned from the Blue Dogs to become a New Dem when she decided to work towards become Speaker. She has worked diligently and successfully to knock out progressives where ever possible to make sure Democratic Party nominees would be New Dems. The New Dems themselves have endorsed 25 candidates so far this cycle-- and have 6 others on their website as "Candidates to watch." They may be better than Republicans-- but only because the GOP has moved so far right that they can now be classified as a fascist party. The New Dems today are what the Republicans were previously-- not racist, misogynistic or homophobic, but virulently pro-corporate and anti-working class.

The new Dem leadership, chaired by Derek Kilmer (WA), is basically putrid: Ann Kuster (NH), Scott Peters (CA), Terri Sewell (AL), Suzane DelBene (WA), corrupt coke freak Pete Aguilar (CA), Kathleen Rice (NY), Ami Bera (CA), Chrissy Houlahan (PA) and Mikie Sherrill (NJ). These are cowardly careerists, not leaders. There can be no progress as long as they dominate the Democratic House caucus.

Here's dozen of their worst recruits this cycle: the Democrats who will guarantee-- along with Biden's White House and Schumer's Senate-- that there is a massive red wave in 2022.

The worst of the New Dem recruits have also been endorsed by the Blue Dogs: Eugene DePasquale (PA), Margaret Good (FL), Jackie Gordon (NY), Christina Hale (IN) and Sri Kulkarni (TX), a future Pete Aguilar pal. Both organizations are very careful with their endorsements. Believe me-- no progressives, none, never. So... when people were rejoicing at the Monmouth poll released yesterday showing former Blue Dog/New Dem/DCCC recruit, NRA hero Jefferson Van Drew-- now a devoted Trumpist and officially a Republican-- being defeated by Amy Kennedy, I wondered how many Democratic voters know what to expect from her.

Oh, she'll be a bit of an improvement over Van Drew for sure. But I would suggest you use your psychic energy to help elect these men and women, not another New Dem.

Obama won NJ's 2nd district with around 53.5% both times he ran. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary 50.6% to 46.0%. The seat opened up in 2018 and the DCCC and Blue Dogs and New Dems recruited the absolute worst member of the New Jersey state legislature, Jefferson Van Drew. He ran against a clown the GOP didn't support, Seth Grossman. Grossman spent $299,475 to Van Drew's $1,877,531. The DCCC and it's allies spent another $1.1 million bolstering Van Drew and attacking Grossman.

This cycle, Kennedy has raised $1,529,882, most of which she spent in the primary, to Van Drew's $2,548,688. But... the DCCC and it's allies have already spent nearly $2 million on Kennedy, while a Trump PAC has spent around $260,000 defending Van Drew.

Monmouth reported that "Among all registered voters, Kennedy is supported by 49% and Van Drew is supported by 44%. Another 1% say they will support a third party candidate and 5% are undecided. Among likely voters in a high turnout scenario, Kennedy holds a 50% to 44% edge. She maintains that lead in a lower turnout model with 51% supporting her to 44% for Van Drew. It should be noted that these leads are all within the survey’s margin of error. Kennedy holds a 94% to 1% advantage among Democratic voters while Van Drew has an 89% to 8% lead among his now-fellow Republicans. Independents prefer Kennedy by a 50% to 40% margin... In the presidential election, Joe Biden holds a small lead over Donald Trump in the district-- 48% to 45% among all registered voters, 50% to 45% among likely voters in a high turnout election, and 49% to 45% in a low turnout election."

Meanwhile... this powerful, incredibly well-articulated and unprecedented video by a former First Lady may upset a White House occupant trying to keep his blood pressure from spiking and killing him. All the worst of luck, Pig Man!

South Jersey Democrats Have A Conundrum Coming Up Quickly

Will, Brigid and Amy

There's a red hot race for the Democratic nomination for New Jersey's 2nd congressional district, the one the South Jersey (Norcross) Machine and the DCCC screwed up when their repulsive Blue Dog pet-- Jeff Van Drew-- switched parties and (openly) became a Trump butt wipe. The same machine-- along with the DCCC-- has another candidate though... like anyone wants to trust them again-- Brigid Harrison. Everyone I know in south Jersey tells me that the progressive in the race, Will Cunningham, "can't win" and that the only chance to stop Harrison is to back Amy Kennedy. The problem with that strategy is that we'd wind up with Amy Kennedy in Congress. (That's always what's wrong with going along with lesser of two evils strategies.)

A south Jersey player who I know well but who doesn't want to be identified because he fears retribution from the Mob the Machine, sent an open letter to Amy Kennedy with a suggestion about how she could win the postponed primary, now scheduled for July 7th:


Open Letter To Amy Kennedy
-by Anonymous

Dear Amy,

You can win the Democratic nomination for the NJ-02 congressional seat, but first you have to defeat Brigid Harrison, the only other viable candidate in the race. And with the Norcross machine backing her, that won’t be easy.

You need to issue a statement embracing a popular position that will clearly distinguish you from Harrison. And there’s no better issue for that purpose than Medicare for All.

Dissatisfaction with the dysfunctional U.S. healthcare system was a factor in the 2018 wave election that gave Democrats control of the House. A 2018 Reuters-Ipsos poll found Medicare for All was supported by 70 percent of all voters, including 85 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans.

And now, with the Covid 19 pandemic devastating the economy-- and with millions of workers losing employer-provided health insurance along with their jobs-- support for Medicare for All is greater than ever.

As the Norcross candidate, Brigid Harrison can’t afford to support Medicare for All. George Norcross is not only Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Cooper; he’s also Executive Chairman of Conner, Strong & Buckelew, a huge insurance brokerage where employee benefits packages are a big part of the business. Thus the sale of private, for-profit health insurance provides much of his personal income.

As you know, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy sponsored earlier Medicare for All bills in the 109th and 110th Congresses, before the Democratic leadership took all single payer proposals off the table in 2009 in order to support the ACA. And even earlier, JFK proposed Medicare for seniors as only a first step toward universal coverage. So your embrace of Medicare for All could be seen as an embrace of a family tradition.

Supporting Medicare for All will help you win the July 7 primary. And your victory will be a major setback for the Norcross machine-- a very good thing for South Jersey!