There’s more trouble in Democrat-land tonight, Save Jerseyans.
The New Jersey State AFL-CIO, one of the state’s most powerful labor unions, has declined to endorse Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) in his 2011 re-election campaign. Candidates need 67% of the vote to gain the union nod; he garnered just 61% according to the Associated Press.
On some level, it still utterly astounds me that the notoriously partisan AFL-CIO would ditch a Democrat leader with deep labor roots over a bi-partisan pension bill. Whether or not this affects Sweeney’s own re-elect is questionable; the larger negative effect of the AFL-CIO’s actions on NJ Democrat Party unity is much more certain.
UPDATE:Â Apparently State Senator Don Norcross (D-Camden) got dissed, too! The brother of powerful party boss George Norcross recently relinquished the presidency of the AFL-CIO’s southern leadership. Its wrath was bipartisan: Assemblyman John Amodeo (R-Atlantic) is a crane operator in Atlantic County and is also “unendorsed” or whatever you want to call it after tonight’s vote.
People are sick and tired of Sweeney and Norcross. They have destroyed South Jersey. People want new leaders and people who care about each other, not people like Sweeney and Norcross who throw good people under the bus because their locals don't like them or they feel they have to all conform and stop talking to certain people because they are not in their stupid click. Norcross and Sweeney barely finished high school and their mindset is still in the 9th grade.