The Sopranos Primary
Today is the New Jersey primary and progressives are hoping to score a couple victories.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer in the 5th District is being challenged by Arati Kreibich.
Gottheimer, who was elected in 2016 to represent New Jersey’s 5th District, in the northernmost part of the state, is perhaps best known for consistently voting with Republicans — he voted with President Donald Trump 55 percent of the time last session and 77 percent of the time in 2018 — and being a terrible boss.
In the 8th District, seven-term Rep. Albio Sires is being challenged by Hector Oseguera.
In recent weeks, Sires has scrambled to mount a defense against Oseguera, including re-launching a campaign Twitter account that had been dormant since 2012. The two have traded barbs, each accusing the other of formerly belonging to the Republican Party, among other issues.
...
Like Engel, Sires is a favorite of pro-Israel groups — Democratic Majority for Israel contributed $44,000 in outside expenditures to support his campaign, Pro-Israel America endorsed him and he received $10,000 in donations from the Desert Caucus, a single-issue pro-Israel PAC.
Neither primary has any public polls, so the only thing we can go by is the fact that the incumbents are spending money on attack ads against their progressive challengers.
They wouldn't be doing this if they weren't a real possibility of losing.
The depressing reality is that the odds are against both progressives, and all the other progressive challengers don't stand a chance.
A recent analysis by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) found that no incumbent state legislator who ran on the county line had lost a primary election in New Jersey between 2009 and 2018. Although incumbents generally win re-election, that advantage is rarely so absolute. In New York state, for example, 22 state legislature incumbents lost a primary election during that same time period.
The reason for this is simple - corruption.
New Jersey’s political machines function like those that ran many U.S. cities at the turn of the 20th century—think Tammany Hall in New York City. They’re run by “bosses” who use their control of jobs and other resources to maintain political power...
New Jersey’s reputation for crime and corruption—one book on the subject is called The Soprano State—may suggest that machine politics is simply endemic.
Fortunately, all is not lost. The progressive insurgency is only a couple years old. The political establishent cannot be overthrown overnight.
Wresting control from New Jersey’s political machines is a daunting challenge, but progressive activists in the state have formed a coalition called Take Back NJ to do just that. The coalition includes New Jersey Working Families, an affiliate of the Working Families Party, as well as several dozen grassroots groups such as NJ 11th for Change, NJ7 Forward, and South Jersey Women for Progressive Change, which helped flip four congressional seats in 2018. The members of these groups often became involved in electoral politics for the first time, learned about the state’s sclerotic political system, and decided to focus some of their energy on fixing it.
Comments
Speaking of corruption
Pelosi
I'd like to have a "minor stake" like that.
Ed. Spelling correction
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Who wouldn’t love to own a share of an income-producing asset
where you need not be in the least aware of what’s being done to keep the juicy returns flowing.
So did Betsy DeVos a billionaire a few times over
As did Elaine Chao, McConnell's wife. The Ayn Rand organization. And quite ca few other congress critters who are multi millionaires. Meanwhile McConnell’s friends think people getting unemployment benefits are lazy gits so they want to end the federal benefits.
This asset stripping will continue until moral improves. Or the millions of people who are going to be kicked out of their homes rise up again. Too bad we don’t have an FDR waiting in the wings this time. Just ByeDone saying that he’s going to be one.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Byedone
I might consider believing him if he first confessed and apologized for all the right wing evil he did as a Senator.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Just to get everyone in that Sopranos mood --
“The Democrats and Republicans want you to believe they are mortal enemies engaged in a desperate struggle when all the time, they are partners with a power-sharing agreement.” - Richard Moser
Seeing the YouTube channel “Mousetrap Mondays” makes me think
there’s a similar channel for Dem party political consultants called “Voter-Trap Tuesdays” …
https://www.youtube.com/user/historichunter
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKyIcX6I_AQ]
“Voters are attracted by the ‘Bernie butter’ and when they venture out far enough, suddenly the DNC cylinder spins and they drop into the Biden bucket … Now let’s set this one out overnight as a test and see how many progressives we catch.”
A resource for info
I recommend this website GoodJobsFirst.Org, for gathering information about Corporations, their Subsidies, Tax breaks, Violations, now including COVID Stimulus info.
For example, Nancy's husband's investment in EDI Associates.
I'm on a shoot this week with a guy from New Jersey. He looks like a Soprano. Short, heavy set, no neck, Italian. I mean he looks, kind of sounds like, he could be one of those characters from the TV series. That's exactly what I thought yesterday when I first met him. I was like New Jersey, get a rope... (Old TV commercial about Pace picante sauce vs a sauce from New Jersey)
[video:https://youtu.be/qk78nzoqEFo]
The shoot I was on yesterday, stated at 2:30pm and ended at 11pm. I was on top of the press box at one of the Jesuit highschool stadiums, shooting a Lacrosse tournament. I felt like I was in a frigging microwave. 3 more days... It's supposed to be 105 on Monday. Fuck....
If you don't here from me in a few days, I was either snuffed out by the guy from New Jersey running this shoot, or I just melted...(snark)
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Another report on this:
Pelosi, Nunes COVID-19 loans
IMHO, PPP wasn't the worst possible idea out of DC, but it required a lot more limitations and restrictions. IOW -- it was implemented in the same half-assed way the lockdowns were.
Don't fall!
Thanks for the link to https://covidstimuluswatch.org, RR. That's a good one. I've already used it to lookup a number of outfits that are shown to have received funds.
Do be careful about heat stroke when you're up high. It's happened to me and I was lucky I didn't fall. Perhaps lash yourself to something sturdy?
Fortunatley
Today we stated at 8am and ended at noon. But the sun was in our eyes and the frigging 2" monitor on the video camera, I couldn't even see it. Probably one of the lest "professional shoots" I've been on in a long time.
The Gosh dern lacrosse balls are tiny!
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
You can also
find subsidies, tax breaks, violations. I was talking with a friend of mine, who's like a techo genius (reall good at engineering / programming), and we're looking at combining opensecrets.org, votesmart.org, and the goodjobsfirst.org data, via an API (application programming interface) to be able to put in a politician's name, and get a super detail (drill down) report who financed their campaigns, then of those, what lobbyists, what companies they work for, what legislation they lobbied, all the violations of those company's that contributed, their tax break etc...
Kind of like an instant dossier on any politician in the US.
We're only in the "idea" stage at this point. It's a, I would really love to do this, but, we don't have money to spend the necessary time to do it, and do it "right".
I personally love it. I use screen shots, with a link, of the data on twitter a lot, like this one. (of course with a snarky comment to go with it...)
But, But, But, "Socialism"!
Or point out Jamie Dimon, and wonder why a company w/ 3 felony convictions gets, 1.3 trillion in subsides, and then gets a fucking raise instead of jail!
I'm glad you like it!
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Good ...but dangerous
Man, you're going to need some real computer horsepower to keep up with those crooks. Also, if you actually manage to do it, best have a good insurance policy and stay out of airplanes.
Hell of an idea, though. I like it.
I actually
haven't flown since 9/11. I refuse to have some stranger pat down my private parts.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
9/11 did indeed ruin it.
I've only flown commercially once since then. I didn't much care for it.
I have flown many, many miles since 9/11, but that was due to my former job as an aircraft mechanic. Most of that was in broken helicopters, trying to figure out what was broken and how to fix it. It doesn't really count since no one was patting down my butt.