Barack Obama may be blind to it, Save Jerseyans, but the world is re-learning a difficult lesson through his many blunders on the international stage, specifically, that peace is impossible except through strength.
The domestic political sphere isn’t dramatically different in this respect.
New Jersey Republicans are going back to school, too, these days, and it’s ordinary taxpayers who stand to suffer the most from the opposition party’s stubbornly steep learning curve…
Our friend Art Gallagher touched the point with a pin on Tuesday after it became painfully clear that Trenton Democrats, as ever in the pocket of Big Labor, planned to let the Governor’s hallmark legislative achievement, the so-called arbitration cap responsible for dramatically decreasing the rate of property tax increases, wither and die on the vine:
Art’s not wrong; our glorious revolution came off the rails when Republicans failed (and in some respects didn’t even try) to capture the state legislature. Courage and principles – not “bipartisanship” – had built the Christie brand during the first half of his first term.“What we are witnessing is the consequence of Christie’s no coattails reelection. It is beginning to look like Sweeney and his mentor George Norcross have played Christie like Putin playing Obama. They watched and smiled last fall as Christie ran up the score on a election he was assured of winning while he appeared with smiling Democrats, including Sweeney, on the campaign trail. The Democrats and their union backers have lots to smile about now.”
The short-sighted pursuit of “bipartisanship” detached from a real plan to build the party is catalyzing the unraveling of Governor Christie’s solid but statutory legislative successes. The Democrats don’t have to worry about such reversals regardless of future electoral fortunes; their latest atrocities (like the 2013 minimum wage hike) are constitutionally-embedded.
Christie and Sweeney at Rowan University (October 2013)
What’s undeniable is that we can’t Save Jersey without ending these destructive cost drivers which make our state an unaffordable place to live, raise families and grow businesses, but we also can’t accomplish a comprehensive reversal of our present course without a State Senate willing to accept the judicial nominations of the Republican Governor. At his Tuesday town hall in Belmar, the Governor noted voters don’t seem to care very much about changing the judiciary.
My question: how can we expect them to care when not a single mailer or television ad carried that message into the fall, and when the top of the Republican ticket rallied with the chief obstructionist of his judicial nominations only one month out from Election Day in a swing district?
It still boggles my mind, Save Jerseyans, especially since everything that’s gone wrong since (including the SCI Bridgegate investigation) is a direct result of that woefully inadvisable alliance with ethically-bankrupt machine Democrats.
Going forward, I fully expect the Christie Administration to fight back against the RGGI ruling, and you can safely anticipate a conditional veto of the current toothless arb cap renewal measure without significant changes.
The unavoidable problem? Chris Christie is leaving office sooner rather than later, owing either to term limits or some change in circumstances at the federal level. All other realities facing New Jersey taxpayers (those of us who are left) will remain unchanged until the NJ GOP, as a sum of its parts, is both willing and capable of defeating a Democrat Party that’s willing to let property taxes rise just to prove a point and regain their hold on the governorship.
Forgive me if I don’t sound too optimistic. I’ve been burned far too often. I’m sure you feel the same way. It’s the reason why you spend inordinate amounts of time online looking at real estate in Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Delaware and Florida.
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