By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno has sounded like a candidate for a long time now, Save Jerseyans, but she might be taking a significant step forward this afternoon. Maybe because it also happens to be her birthday?
Here’s what we know: it started early this morning when a gaggle of New Jersey GOP leaders received an out-of-the-blue e-mail purportedly from the LG (as she’s affectionately known) on behalf of ‘Building a Better NJ Together,’ a political organization registered at 1500 Lawrence Avenue in Ocean, New Jersey.
The message invited recipients to join Guadagno on a 1:00 p.m. Wednesday (4/13) phone call.
Why?
“Please join me and other New Jersey leaders on a conference call at 1:00 p.m. today,” the e-mail, containing conference call-in information, explains to the reader. “My apologies for the short notice, but there is some news that I’d like to personally share with you.”
‘News’ narrows it down, I’d expect. Leading Democrat candidates have already established (and fundraised) for their own well-heeled pacs. Is Kim getting in the game?
We’ll let you know later today…
For our out-of-state or low information Save Jersey friends: Guadagno is our state’s first Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey, elected in ’09 and reelected in ’13 with Chris Christie, and she shares a law enforcement background with her boss. Prior to serving as Monmouth County’s sheriff (her last job before becoming LG), Guadagno was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and the District of New Jersey and also an Assistant New Jersey Attorney General. She’s spent her time in the Christie Administration fulfilling Secretary of State duties and serving as promoter-in-chief of New Jersey businesses. Governor Christie’s aborted 2016 presidential campaign catapulted Guadagno to a more prominent role in state government since she filled the role of ‘acting’ governor for much of 2015 while Christie toured distant battleground states. She remains, however, only on the periphery of the Christie inner circle and the LG isn’t known for having a particularly close relationship with him.
Any Republican running in 2017 will start the race as an underdog given New Jersey’s bluish tint and the baggage associated with a deeply-unpopular Christie brand (stuck in the high 20%-approval range at last measure). No one else has formerly declared interest in the race to date but a few N.J. GOP figures (including Assembly GOP Leader Jon Bramnick, Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, and Assemblyman Jay Webber are all regularly cited as potential candidates).
Guadagno’s perceived general election advantages? The title and warm relations with GOP county committees across the state. What’s more, at the risk of being too clinical about it, the affable vice-executive of our great Garden State ‘checks’ a lot of ‘boxes’ as a strong, articulate, gay marriage-backing Republican woman from a key battleground county (Monmouth).
Her #1 challenge? Deciding how to walk the very, very fine line between (1) touting her gubernatorial experience and (2) creating sufficient distance between herself and an extremely unpopular boss. Her ability to do that – and deflect blame for the state’s economic woes back on Democrat leaders where it belongs – will tell the whole story.
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She’s ready.
Too little too late…….
She can try to run, I doubt she’ll get far tied to Christie and the stench of his failure, not just as a 2016 contender for the White House, but as a governor.
I was going to make jokes about the White Whale or Krispy Kremes or anything like that, but I thought better of it, as I myself could be considered “large and in charge.”
For the sake of this state’s future please abandon the two parties that got us here and vote in working class independents that can actually change things for the better
She has no Plan for AC or NJ! Really, a pretty face can NOT Help save NJ! It is going to take thinking outside of the Box and Fresh Ideas and Practical people and Money people to do it and THAT AIN’T Her! But Happy Birthday LG anyway!
Just stick to the dollars and the Demoncrap debt and deficit creators over and over and over. Pound that forever that we’re losing businesses because of Dem near socialist policies causing debts and eventual collapse. Go girl