By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Chairman Mac Thornberry of the House Armed Services Committee is coming South Jersey this Friday, Save Jerseyans, and while the official reason for the visit is a tour of the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, it’s also a signal with potentially profound implications for New Jersey’s Election 2016.
Thornberry’s visit to freshman Congressman Tom MacArthur‘s district, home to the state’s second single largest employer (the base), comes one week after the President signed a bill guaranteeing the base’s operation until at least 2017. MacArthur can rightly take a lot of the credit having led the charge to salvage the joint base’s lifeblood, the KC-10 aerial refueling program, an impressive feat for a frosh member.
What it means for next year? A few things. MacArthur is electorally stronger for having helped save the base, obviously, and Thornberry’s visit is meant to remind the DCCC (which has yet to anoint a candidate) of both MacArthur’s strength and the GOP’s determination to defend this R+1 district despite its propensity to vote Democrat for president (in 2000, 2008 and 2012).
Democrats also won’t have an easy job recruiting a top tier challenger despite the strong possibility of Hillary Clinton carrying the district. No one has stepped forward to date. The problem is partly attributable to a simple but serious problem: supply. With 2014 Democrat candidate Aimee Belgard‘s freeholder board defeat this November, Democrats are all but extinct in Ocean and Burlington counties at the county-wide and legislative level save for LD7 where both Assembly Dem incumbents are more likely gunning for Diane Allen‘s state senate seat when she retires.
Thornberry is coming to remind them of their plight. The longer it takes a challenger to materialize, the better MacArthur’s chances of reelection become. It’s part of the reason why The Rothenberg Report moved MacArthur to “safe” this summer but placed Scott Garrett in the “favored” column. Democrat weakness in NJ-03 and NJ-02 mean NJ-05, where the incumbent is reviled by gay activists, might be their only place to play in 2016.
______
This still does not change his liberal voting record. Because of his liberal illegal immigration stance we are going to need this base even more.