According to the Associated Press in a June 4, 2013 report, \u201c(New Jersey) Gov. Chris Christie is perhaps the nation’s highest-profile Republican \u2013 but that\u2019s no guarantee the seat held by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg will switch to GOP hands.\u201d\u00a0 The AP goes on to suggest, in an agonizingly twisted sort of logic, that, \u201cIn fact, it\u2019s that profile that could help preserve the seat for the Democrats.\u201d\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n
As liberals and Democrats see things, \u201cChristie has two key decisions: Whom to appoint to fill the seat in the short term, and when to let voters have their say on who will fill it until the term expires in January 2015.\u00a0 There are layers of political calculations involved, along with possible legal complications.\u201d<\/p>\n
Legal complications?\u00a0 What legal complications?\u00a0 Everyone knows that, when Democrats run into \u201clegal complications\u201d they simply shop for an unprincipled Democrat judge who will pat them on the head and assure them that everything will be alright.<\/p>\n
According to the AP, Democrats reason that, \u201cChristie, widely considered a possible presidential candidate for 2016, needs to decide whether to appoint someone who will merely keep the seat warm \u2013 or someone who will seek to keep it in the 2014 election.\u00a0 He also needs to decide whether a Democrat or a Republican is best suited for the seat\u2026 If Christie picks a Democrat, it may not play well with Republican presidential primary voters, who could see him as disloyal to his party.\u00a0 But if he picks a Republican, he risks upsetting voters who chose a Democrat for the seat, and a moderate Republican may not help him much with that group, either.\u201d<\/p>\n
But then the AP goes off onto some very thin ice, pointing out that, \u201cNew Jersey has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.\u00a0 And it hasn’t had one serve there at all since 1982, when Republican Governor Tom Kean appointed Republican Nicholas Brady to finish the term of Democrat Harrison Williams, who resigned amid scandal in the last year of his term.\u00a0 Lautenberg won the seat later that year and remained in the Senate until his death, except for a brief retirement in 2001 and 2002<\/em> (emphasis added).<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n The AP fails to mention how Republicans have failed to win a Senate seat in New Jersey in the past forty-one years, and low-information voters may not recall how Frank Lautenberg managed to return to the Senate in January 2003 after retiring in January 2001.\u00a0 Allow me to refresh a few memories.<\/p>\n There once was a Democrat from New Jersey named Robert \u201cThe Torch\u201d Torricelli.\u00a0 A former member of Congress, Torricelli was elected to the Senate in 1996, winning the seat vacated by former NBA basketball star Bill Bradley.\u00a0 However, during his campaign for reelection in 2002, it became known that Torricelli had been the recipient of expensive gifts and cash payments from a Korean businessman named David Chang.<\/p>\n Chang was owed a large sum of money by the North Korean government, to which he had shipped cargoes of wheat. \u00a0And when he was not paid in full he sought help from Senator Torricelli.<\/p>\n Chang told prosecutors of delivering quantities of cash to Torricelli at his home in Englewood, New Jersey, along with expensive gifts such as a big screen TV, suits, ties, watches, and works of art.\u00a0 In return, Torricelli agreed to pressure the North Koreans to pay Chang the millions he was owed.<\/p>\n All of this became known during Torricelli\u2019s 2002 reelection campaign.\u00a0 And when Chang was quoted in a WNBC news report as saying, \u201cMy mistake was I met Robert Torricelli. \u00a0I do not consider him a Senator. \u00a0I consider him a master criminal,\u201d Torricelli\u2019s poll numbers nosedived.<\/p>\n Finally, on September 30, 2002, just 36 days before the November election, Democrats could see the handwriting on the wall.\u00a0 Convinced that Torricelli would lose to his Republican challenger, Douglas Forrester, Democrats convinced \u201cThe Torch\u201d to call it quits.<\/p>\n But that created a major problem for Democrats\u2026 one of those \u201clayers of legal complications\u201d that the AP referred to:\u00a0 New Jersey law prohibited candidates from withdrawing from a political race at any time within 51 days of the election.\u00a0 Even Democrats can count; their one-vote majority in the U.S. Senate hung precariously in the balance and they were already 15 days past<\/em> the legal deadline for withdrawal.<\/p>\n But Democrats never allow a minor complication like the law to stand in their way.\u00a0 And when Republicans challenged the notion that Torricelli could withdraw from the race at that late date, Democrats just laughed.\u00a0 With a majority of Democrats on the State Supreme Court, they knew they wouldn\u2019t have to do a lot of \u201cjudge-shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats argued that decades of state court decisions put voters\u2019 rights above filing deadlines and other \u201ctechnical guidelines.\u201d\u00a0 Putting partisan political considerations above the law, the Court agreed with the Democrats, saying that voters deserved the \u201cbroadest possible choice of candidates\u201d and that there was \u201cstill time to print and distribute new ballots to absentee voters.\u201d\u00a0 Other than that bit of political practicality, overruling the considered judgment of the peoples\u2019 representatives, the high court did not explain its reasons for rejecting the GOP appeal.<\/p>\n Two prominent Democrats were mentioned as replacements.\u00a0 One of those, Congressman Frank Pallone, declined to enter the race, citing \u201cfamily reasons.\u201d\u00a0 He did not specify whether it was the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, or Pallone family that he had in mind.<\/p>\n The other prominent Democrat mentioned was former senator Frank Lautenberg.\u00a0 And since Lautenberg had been standing around twiddling his thumbs since retiring from the Senate in January 2001, he was suddenly the \u201cman of the hour\u201d and Doug Forrester was the \u201codd man out.\u201d\u00a0 New Jersey Democrats proceeded with the Torricelli-Lautenberg \u201cshuffle\u201d and Lautenberg soon found himself back in the United States Senate, seated alongside Democratic luminaries such as tax-cheat Tom Daschle (D-SD), Robert \u201cKKK\u201d Byrd (D-WV), \u201cSearchlight\u201d Harry Reid (D-NV), and his New Jersey colleague, Jon Corzine, who later had the misfortune of misplacing $1.6 billion in depositor funds as CEO of MF Global.<\/p>\n So, welcome to the Democrat meat-grinder, Doug Forrester.\u00a0 The Associated Press appears to have forgotten why New Jersey hasn\u2019t elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1972.<\/p>\n Among the most prominently mentioned Republicans who may run to fill Lautenberg\u2019s unexpired term are State Senator Tom Kean, Jr., son of former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean; Congressman Chris Smith; and former Governor Christine Todd Whitman.\u00a0 And while the Associated Press and other liberal media see little chance of any Republican winning the seat, let us hope that they are underestimating the seething anger of the American people at the growing number of scandals in the Obama administration.\u00a0 There are lots of Democrats in New Jersey.\u00a0 Surely, some of them must be capable of putting love of country above love of party.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to the Associated Press in a June 4, 2013 report, \u201c(New Jersey) Gov. Chris Christie is perhaps the nation’s highest-profile Republican \u2013 but that\u2019s no guarantee the seat held by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg will switch to GOP … Continue reading