2018 Midterm Snapshot: Dems Score at the Polls

Phil Murphy, New Jersey Democratic governor-elect

It's been damp, cool and rainy most of the day here in Hamilton, New Jersey.

Reflective, perhaps, of the fact that almost a year ago the lowest American presidential voter turnout in 20 years elected a man who may well be the most unqualified, unpopular, divisive and ethically-repugnant candidate ever elected to the highest office in the land.

But today is another election day, and this morning I felt a measure of quiet political optimism for perhaps the first time since inauguration day back in January.

As I usually do if I'm in the office and don't have an appointment scheduled or phone calls to make, this morning I started off my day at work listening to The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.org.

While I was particularly interested to listen to what other New Jersey voters had to say about election day during a segment when Brian fielded calls from Garden State listeners, his overview of the elections in New York and around the country were informative and got me fired up to cast my own vote.

Knowing it was going to rain, I cut out at about 11:20am to drive over and vote at the local senior citizens center that serves as my local polling place - fortunately it's only a three-minute drive from work so I was there, signed in, cast my vote and was back in the office in about eight minutes.

Now obviously I'm eager to see the lackluster, remarkably unproductive, scandal-plagued era of Republican Governor Chris Christie come to a merciful end, but I think Phil Murphy is the best candidate to represent the changes that most New Jerseyeans want to see.

Overall, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno, Christie's lieutenant governor since 2009, ran a fairly unimaginative and uninspiring campaign.

NJ Republican candidate Kim Guadagno 

With the state hovering dangerously close to the border of fiscal crisis with issues like massive infrastructure spending needs and a looming pension crisis that keeps getting kicked down the road (including by Christie...), Guadagno tried to dazzle voters.

Not with innovative ideas, sound fiscal policy or a plan to boost sagging wages, but with vague promises to cut taxes by eliminating unidentified "government waste".

Which is little more than Republican code-speak for cutting state government jobs and gutting social spending programs - the same kind of "Starve the Beast" nonsense that sent the Kansas economy spiraling into fiscal free-fall under Republican anti-tax fetishist Gov. Sam Brownback.

Aside from Guadagno's divisive xenophobic fear-mongering about immigration, Guadagno followed her notoriously short-tempered boss' unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign tactic and took a hard ideological-right in an attempt to drum up support among the hardcore right-wing conservatives that went for Trump here in New Jersey last November.

Desperate to close the gap between her and Murphy, in the final weeks of the campaign she finally sunk to the level of running bogus attack ads falsely claiming that Murphy's support for making New Jersey a sanctuary state for undocumented immigrants (NJ is one of the most diverse states in America) meant he wanted to shield violent criminals who are in this country illegally.

A simplistic bush-league Republican tactic that's been used by the GOP in campaigns around the country (including by Virginia Republican candidate for governor Ed Gillespie) to try and gin up the irrational conservative paranoia peddled by Trump and his cadre of xenophobic advisers and cabinet members. 

Virginia Democratic governor-elect Ralph Northam
and Republican Ed "Dixie Boy" Gillespie (right)

That same strategy backfired on Gillespie in Virginia tonight too, the former Republican National Committee chairman was soundly beaten by 54% - 45% by Democratic candidate for governor Ralph Northam.

Who, as NBC reported, benefitted from the boost of strong opposition to Republican attempts to destroy healthcare, Trump, and a strong state economy guided by outgoing popular Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.

Like Guadagno donning the cloak of xenophobia, Gillespie really misread the temperature of Virginia voters.

Especially when he took up a pro-Confederate statue cause in the waning days of the election to try and draw support from Trump voters - as RNC chairman, he was actually fairly moderate and advocated for more inclusiveness.

Frankly I find it remarkable that with all the challenges we face in this country, Trump and his chief of staff John Kelly seem consumed with making a revisionist view of the Civil War and the Confederacy the main domestic focus of a White House trying to pull off a massive tax giveaway to corporations and the wealthiest percentage of Americans by Christmas.

Guadagno never strayed into "Confederate statue territory", but trying to embrace Trump's anti-immigrant hysteria at the last minute backfired for her here in New Jersey too - she won a mere 14% of the Hispanic vote and a paltry 9% of the African-American vote based on today's election results.

There are a healthy amount of Trump voters here in Jersey, but overall Garden State Republicans tend to be more moderate in the mold of my Congressman Chris Smith.

Chris Christie argues with a voter outside a polling
station earlier today

So I think Guadagno resorting to hate and bigotry to boost her sagging poll numbers didn't do much for her image as someone who was going to unify the state and bring something different to the NJ Governor's Mansion.

She's a pretty good communicator with some solid experience as a prosecutor and Monmouth County Sheriff, but regardless of what she did, it was going to be tough for her to get the stench of Christie and Bridgegate off of her.

Did you hear about him getting into a public argument with a NJ voter outside a polling station earlier today?

Believe it or not, Christie is so unpopular (14% approval rate according to one recent poll) that the most unpopular presidential candidate in modern American history is actually has a higher approval rate here in the Garden State.

Aside from the weight of the Christie baggage, Guadagno was also clearly a sounding board for people who might not have been all that excited by Phil Murphy, but hated Trump more and were eager to send a message to the Embarrassment-in-Chief and the Republican Party that tapped him as their candidate.

But the polls are closed in the east and the voters have spoken.

While professional pollsters and analysts will dig deeper into today's election results in the coming days over an election in which strong Democrat turnout led to decisive victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governor's races and the mayoral race in New York City by Bill de Blasio, there's little doubt that the Democratic base is fired up.

From my perspective tonight's results are a clear reflection that a majority of Americans are fed up with Trump and a Republican-majority House and Senate who've yet to pass a single piece of meaningful legislation on behalf of the American people in over nine months.

Next year's midterm elections are a long ways away, and a lot can happen before then, but if today's results are any indication, November 6, 2018 could be a rude awakening for Trump - one he won't be able to shrug off as "fake news" with a tweet.

As I said, I was quietly optimistic this morning, and I'll sleep much more soundly tonight than I did on election night last November.

Stealth Democratic Debates - Pathway To Clinton-Sanders 2016 Ticket?

The Saturday December 19th Democratic debate

Even though I consider myself an avid political junkie, after a long work week about the last thing I want to do is sit down and spend two hours (or more) watching a political debate on television on a weekend night.

Now much has been written about the fact that the past two televised Democratic presidential debates have taken place on Saturday nights, which is generally considered the low-rent neighborhood of the weekday broadcast spectrum in terms of viewing audience and ratings.

Confession: on Saturday night I watched the Jets - Cowboys game then tuned in for Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler co-hosting and Bruce Springsteen as the musical guest.

As far back as last August The Guardian was one of many media outlets making the observation that stashing the Democratic debates away on Saturday nights was essentially having the effect of a slow "coronation" of Hillary Clinton because candidates like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee (remember him?) all get far less free media exposure than Clinton does.

Granted no small measure of Hillary's media exposure in the past couple months has resulted from the Republican Congressional frenzy over Benghazi and her emails, but the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State is a shrewd political operator who understands there is no such thing as bad publicity in the 24-hour news cycle - only the ability or failure to take advantage of it.

After her sometimes-tumultuous presidential campaigns with Explainer-in-Chief Bill Clinton in the 90's, Hillary knows how to surf controversy like Patrick Swayze's "Bodhi" handled waves in the original Point Break.

Hillary silently mocks hysterical Republicans during the Benghazi hearings 

Her ability to deflect scandal would make deceased "Teflon Don" John Gotti envious.

Benghazi? Ping! Email server controversy? Ping!

Even though Hillary herself cautioned supporters that she did not want to make the mistake of assuming what many power brokers in the DNC have already assumed (that she will be the presumptive Democratic nominee for 2016), the scheduling of the past two debates has helped to limit the amount of media exposure for Bernie Sanders to get his message out.

Despite reports that Sanders recently broke President Obama's campaign fundraising records, he still lags behind Hillary in terms of overall media coverage.

I read the recent interview with Bernie Sanders in Rolling Stone and came away genuinely impressed with the thrust of his overall campaign message and political objectives; definitely check it out if you haven't already read it.

After reading the RS article, to me it seems like he has a much more coherent and populist message than she does with his emphasis on correcting the massive imbalances and inequities within the American economy in terms of wage growth, the erosion of the middle class, fair taxation of corporations and the ultra rich and holding the Wall Street kingpins and uber-bankers responsible for crashing the economy in 2008.

But in terms of mainstream media coverage, the core of his message seems to stay buried under the weight of Hillary's larger national exposure and better name familiarity.

By all accounts she has the support of far more party delegates than he does as well as the power Democratic rainmakers.

Given the outsize influence of lobbyists and money on our political system these days, I'm not naive about the sharp right turn America's representative Democracy has taken towards becoming an oligarchy with the help of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United and their willingness to undermine key provisions of the historic Voting Rights Act.

But I'm feeling a sense of disappointment with the way the DNC has handled the scheduling of the limited slate of public debates between the three leading Democratic candidates - especially during the 7th year of a two-term Democratic President.

Even though the importance of the 2016 presidential elections is critical to the direction of this country in so many ways, I've got mixed feelings about the conduct of the Democratic National Committee as of late - it just feels rigged in Hillary's favor.

As an active party supporter, I don't just vote in all national, state and local elections, I support Congressional and Senate candidates from other states with modest contributions and try do my thing on social media.

So in my humble view, the very name "Democrat" implies more than just a casual connection to the basic principles of Democracy and the Democratic process - shouldn't Democrats get the chance to hear  the candidates debate the merits of the issues and form their own opinions?

Thus far that doesn't quite seem to be playing out with the way the past two debates have gone.

The next Democratic debate is supposedly scheduled for Thursday January 7th as the primary season starts to heat up and the rubber starts to meet the road - but my sense is Hillary's lead will already be cemented by then.

It's not that I think the DNC is being insidious or anything. On the contrary.

Like millions of Americans, I think the Democratic party power brokers realize this current crop of Republican candidates would be a disaster for the country and so their sights are firmly set on the White House and the path that leads there must be blazed by a candidate who can win the popular vote.

I like Bernie's message but the bottom line is Hillary will be hard to beat in 2016 with Bill hitting the campaign trail with her; like many I confess to being secretly intrigued by the idea of Bill back in the White House.

Frankly, if she brings Bernie on as her VP candidate the Republican party has nothing to even touch that ticket in a popular election - not with an abusive racist clown like Donald Trump leading GOP polls by double digits.

Who knows, maybe that's exactly what the DNC has in mind.

After all by keeping the debates low-key they minimize the damage Hillary and Bernie can do to each other during the primary season to make it that much easier for them to combine forces like the Wonder Twins and bring this thing home in 2016.

I'm no Nate Silver-like political prognosticator but Clinton-Sanders 2016; that's where my money is.