Adler Ignores His Base And Digs His Grave-- Will Jon Runyan Tackle Him Next Year?

We've written a lot about how conservative Democrat Suzanne Kosmas has made a name for herself as always willing to ditch work to go for a nosh with the K Street whores a lobbyist. It hasn't gone unnoticed that this year she took in more from the Insurance Industry CEOs and lobbyists ($55,516) than any other freshman-- of either party-- save one (Jim Himes, who represents the district where they are headquartered and voted for the healthcare bill anyway). Kosmas doesn't deserve to be re-elected. And she isn't the only one. Another mark the insurance industry found is New Jersey Rep John Adler. He was their third biggest investment in freshman ($50,967) and he also voted against the wishes and needs of his own constituents to support his campaign contributors.

NJ-03 is a swing district, primarily the south Jersey suburbs of Philly, that gave Obama a 52-47% win over McCain last year. Adler also won the open seat with a 52% majority. (In a bit of a backlash in the district, Christie just beat Corzine 52%-48%.) It's a prosperous district but there are approximately 60,000 uninsured people in the district, 11% of the population who aren't on Medicare. The bill that Adler broke with Obama (and most of his constituents-- especially the Democratic ones-- to oppose would:

• Improve employer-based coverage for 459,000 residents.

• Provide credits to help pay for coverage for up to 115,000 households.

• Improve Medicare for 134,000 beneficiaries, including closing the prescription drug donut hole
for 12,000 seniors.

• Allow 16,000 small businesses to obtain affordable health care coverage and provide tax credits
to help reduce health insurance costs for up to 14,600 small businesses.

• Provide coverage for 27,000 uninsured residents.

• Protect up to 1,300 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.

• Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers by $56 million.

But he had just about 50,967 reasons to oppose it. And now he has something else-- a pissed off and demoralized Democratic base-- and a big name possible opponent, ex-Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Jon Runyan, a legend.

Last year, an intense, nasty and expensive three-way Republican primary between Medford Councilman Chris Myers, Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly and former Tabernacle Township Committeeman Justin Murphy helped pave the way for a general election victory by Adler, who was spared a primary challenge.

Without Runyon the same thing would be likely to happen again. With Runyon in, no other Republican would waste their time. And that would probably be the end of Adler, who looks like a political coward to Democrats for voting against health care reform. His dismal 37.25 ProgressivePunch score-- easily the worst of any New Jersey congressmember-- and even worse than Kosmas' abysmal 45.10-- is unlikely to inspire Democrats to come out on election day-- and at a time when the Republican base is far more fired up.

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.

ANOTHER NJ REPUBLICAN SAYS THANKS BUT NO THANKS TO THE HAPLESS NRCC-- THEY CAN'T EVEN GIVE THEIR NOMINATIONS AWAY THIS YEAR

A couple weeks ago the NRCC operative were pulling their hair out of their heads because all their top tier candidates in NJ's seventh congressional district were backing out of running against Linda Stender after 37 year old Mike Ferguson announced his retirement as a Bush rubber stamp. They were soon scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for candidates who hadn't been arrested or were likely to be arrested before the election. But at least they had all their ducks in a row for the other New Jersey seat being abandoned by a Bush rubber stamp, NJ-03. Or so they thought.

As soon as James Saxton figured out that Democrat John Adler was likely to kick his ass from Cherry Hill to Beach Haven he decided to start looking for a job on K Street. The state and national Republicans were distraught but figured they get a carbon copy of Saxton, State Rep. Diane Allen, to run instead. Yesterday that particular duck made the kinds of quacks they didn't want to hear, not only bowing out but bowing out with a nasty remark aimed at a corrupt old machine faction in the Jersey GOP.

“Now is not the time in my life that I feel prepared to again fight a Democrat opponent, as well as a rogue faction of the Burlington County Republican Party simultaneously.”

So the GOP starts from scratch to find someone to run in what was once safe Republican territory. They have a gaggle of minor GOP operative eager to give it a shot but, as today's Congressional Quarterly points out, "Allen’s departure leaves Republicans currently without a major candidate for the seat-- creating, at least for now, a heightened risk for Republicans in a potential battleground district. While Saxton, who [misleadingly] cultivated an image as a GOP moderate largely because of his pro-environment views, easily won his House elections, the 3rd District went Republican for President Bush by just a 3 percentage-point margin in 2004."

This will be another congressional district where Hillary Clinton's place at the top of the ticket will help sweep down-ticket Democrats into office.