By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
The senior statesmen of conservative media continue to advocate for the candidacy of Jeff Bell, Save Jerseyans, all despite growing odds and shortening days in the Election 2014 cycle.
This time it’s George Will, saying something we’ve been saying for months, shortly after Bill Kristol weighed in to argue for the viability of the Bell campaign to dethrone Cory Booker (D-Twitter).
From Friday night on the WashPo website:
“Yet Booker’s lead is only in the low double digits — 13 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. In eight Senate races (Delaware, Hawaii, New Mexico, Oregon, Illinois, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Virginia), Republicans are less competitive than Bell is. If Republican groups had given Bell the money they spent dragging Sen. Thad Cochran to re-nomination in Mississippi, Bell might be hot on Booker’s heels. He could still get there with a modest infusion of campaign contributions: Several polls have shown Booker’s support below 50 percent.”
I guess it depends on your definition of “modest.”
Bell would probably need a few million on TV – starting tomorrow – to begin to compensate for Booker’s name recognition and head start (remember – this isn’t OK; we’ve got the #1 and another top 5 most expensive media markets in the country).
The only way that’s happening is if (1) the other lean-to-borderline GOP Senate targets (GA, AR, AK, etc.) break heavily towards us in the next week AND (2) someone with big-time influence like Chris Christie recommits to making it a top priority over the final four weeks (I’m talking on-the-road joint public appearances, not just fundraisers).
Then, and only then, someone in D.C. might be willing to roll the dice and try to move the numbers…
But Will’s larger point by inference remains. This contest was the Republican Party’s race to lose and the GOP didn’t even try, regardless of whether you think the decision to punt was justified. That’s the uncomfortable truth of this whole affair.
And if we don’t get our collective act together……we’re doomed.
No
He’s not gonna win, we all know this.
He doesn’t want to win. Unfortunately this was a winnable race that has now become an academic exercise in mental masturbation.
“Bell would probably need a few million on TV – starting tomorrow – to begin to compensate for Booker’s name recognition and head start (remember – this isn’t OK; we’ve got the #1 and another top 5 most expensive media markets in the country).”
This is why New Jersey needs to be its own media market – which actually Booker is pushing for. New Jersey politicians have to buy television time on foreign tv stations where most of the viewers aren’t New Jerseyans and can’t vote in NJ elections. It is just pissing money away in NJ to buy network ads.
http://voicenj.com
No argument from me. Exclusively relying on NYC and Philly for our televised political news is an obstacle to democracy in the Garden State.
We’ll all vote for the right guy. No amount of money will convince those who aren’t planning to that they should. Tired of NJ. My vote means nothing here.
Just gave 10 dollars. Hope you all do the same.