I watched Sunday’s New Jersey Globe NJ-07 debate, Save Jerseyans, and while I’d love to pretend the substance of the candidates’ answers during the two hour confrontation was what stood out to me, the truth is that Democrat Sue Altman’s lighting (or social media filter?) during the remote congressional debate was more than a little distracting.
Long before she was the NJ-07 nominee attempting to unseat Republican Tom Kean Jr., Altman was a far-far-Left political activist best known for being dragged out of a Statehouse hearing by State Troopers. She looked like an activist: earthy, makeup-less, and if we’re being honest, desperately in need a bath and a comb for having spent countless hours chaining oneself to the radiator of a protester-besieged building.
Not on Sunday night! She didn’t even look like the same person. I was initially seriously confused and wrestling with the possibility that maybe NJ-07 Democrats had pulled a Biden/Toricelli-switcheroo and swapped out their failing candidate for someone with a better hair-and-makeup team and maybe a little (or a lot) of Botox, too. Check out the contrast between the images posted at the top of the article… they may look related, but you’re dishonest if you pretend they resemble the same individual.
Now, to those of you already whining that mean old Matt is commenting on a woman’s appearance, I have only the following to say: fuck off. Seriously. This is politics. Appearance has always been an issue in the political arena whether the gender of the candidate be male or female or something only recently invented by a professor of sociology. Ask Chris Christie all about it! Hell… Politico just published a piece in which the author insists that J.D. Vance’s facial hair is a warning sign of toxic masculine tendencies and that the Veep hopeful is “less supportive of feminist issues.” Whatever that means!
But the truth is that Altman’s altered physical appearance belies a deeper, more sinister internal phoniness. As Politico‘s own Matt Friedman conceded, “[y]ou could often see the contrast between Altman the candidate and Altman the activist, like her answer opposing reparations for Black Americans, which she sought to clarify by talking about breaking the ‘cycle of poverty.’” The woman who once made defunding the police a central aspect of her public crusading is now deleting tweets to hide her past from voters.
She’s trying to be something she’s not, and it’s clearly not working as evidenced by her weak polling and the fact that we’re three weeks from Election Day and the major Democrat national pacs haven’t spent anything on her behalf in a district carried by Joe Biden in 2020.
Voters are pretty good at sniffing out a fraud. Tom Kean is a good man. A prize debater? A master orator? The coolest kid at school? No, no and no. But he is who he is. Altman 2.0 reeks of insincerity, bearing no resemblance to the woman kicking and screaming as blue uniformed state police officers hauled her out of a public hearing. That’s NOT a winning contrast in the present environment.
BTW: Here’s the full debate in case you missed it…
