This year’s N.J. GOP gubernatorial primary was divisive.
There can be no denying that.
For months, we have been debating the merits of our Republican candidates and their various plans and proposals. At times these debates got tense, even ugly. Last Tuesday, however, a 16-point plurality of Republicans statewide chose Kim Guadagno to be our standard-bearer in November. In years past, Republicans have spent weeks and even months lamenting the outcomes of primaries. You can still – fairly frequently – find people complaining that Steve Lonegan was clearly deserving of a victory in 2009. While healthy debate is good and reflection can help us grow as a party, we cannot allow ourselves to be caught up in our own drama in 2017.
We are watching in real time as the most destructive candidacy in the modern history of New Jersey steamrolls unhindered toward Drumthwacket. Rank-and- file Democrats and activists were no match for the millions upon millions of dollars that Phil Murphy bathed Democratic party bosses in. The way to a Democratic chairman’s heart is through his wallet, and in the end they all kissed the ring of a man whose sole experience with New Jersey’s politics is his desire to be Governor.
Phil Murphy’s career is a profile in greed and incompetence.
He began at Goldman Sachs, an organization not quite renowned for its dedication to philanthropy or working for the common good. He went on to become the US Ambassador to Germany, where he represented America poorly by insulting Chancellor Angela Merkel, leading many Germans to demand his recall. After a few years of relative inactivity, Phil’s back and he’s willing to buy the governorship at any price.
For perspective: Hillary Clinton’s infamously high-spending presidential campaign spent about $9 for each vote she received in the general election. Murphy, spending in the neighborhood of $20 million to win just north of 240,000 votes, spent about $83 per vote. This does not make me optimistic for his chances to run a tight fiscal ship as governor.
It’s troubling that two of the last three N.J. Democrats gubernatorial standard-bearers have been almost identical – and identically monstrous. New Jersey’s Democratic Party is horribly broken. It is no longer (was it ever?) a vehicle for well-intentioned center-leftists, liberals and progressives, but rather a slush fund for party bosses and power brokers who, by all indications, have zero interest in making life better for anyone but themselves. It is a system begging to be abused by people like Jon Corzine and Phil Murphy, regardless of how many working families have to suffer the consequences.
So let me be clear: We don’t need bickering about a primary.
Remember that Phil Murphy needs us to bicker about the primary because it keeps us from pounding the pavement to tell New Jerseyans what the media – and the ads Phil’s buying with the fifteen million dollars (!!!) of his own pocket change he scrounged up to put in to his campaign – won’t say: Phil Murphy is trying to close a deal to purchase New Jersey. With the Democrats (most of whom he’s already bought) running the Senate and the Assembly, this man will have the keys to the kingdom, and there is no telling how much damage he can do to New Jersey’s families and taxpayers, already saddled with massive debt and crumbling infrastructure and still reeling from a catastrophic natural disaster.
The only person in Phil Murphy’s way is Kim Guadagno. She’s tough as nails, but she’s toast without you and I behind her. The stakes are too high to be complacent. This November, we have to tell Phil Murphy and his Democratic lapdogs: New Jersey is not for sale.
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