BOO!
Posted on 10/31/2004 9:03:06 AM PST by icecold
More than 400 Democrats packed a North Jersey banquet hall last week to get their annual pre-election instructions. They left fired up but empty-handed.
In a scene played out in Democratic precincts across the state, Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas had no more than a handful of Kerry-Edwards lawn signs and bumper stickers for party workers eager to promote their presidential ticket.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
In a scene played out in Democratic precincts across the state, Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas had no more than a handful of Kerry-Edwards lawn signs and bumper stickers for party workers eager to promote their presidential ticket.
He didn't have any money to hand out, either, as added incentive for Election Day workers.
The signs, in fact, are being rationed. And the party's street workers will have to do without the bonus money, a staple of the recent, deep-pocketed Democratic campaigns.
Both are reflections of the listless and penny-pinching campaign that the Democrats have run in New Jersey, a state where victory once was thought to be a sure thing for Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday.
Although Kerry is still expected to carry the state, he no longer is considered a shoo-in. As a result, Democrats are scrambling to get their act together in time to help prevent the state's 15 electoral votes from tipping to President Bush.
Both parties agree that the superior voter-turnout operation in the closing days of the race could determine the presidential winner in New Jersey, where late polls show Bush trailing but still within striking distance of becoming the first Republican to carry the state since 1988.
Many Democrats are worried that the potent get-out-the-vote operation that powered them to overwhelming victories in elections from the presidency to county courthouses over the last several years is missing in 2004.
The Kerry campaign, thinking it had no worries in New Jersey, refused to spend any money there. And the vaunted New Jersey Democratic machine - controlled by the state's lame-duck governor - has been invisible, leaving organized labor and a patchwork of local party officials trying to fill the void.
The state AFL-CIO has dispatched more than 12,000 volunteers to operate phone banks and knock on doors to urge union households to vote for Kerry.
The close polls have served as a wake-up call to labor and other Democratic constituencies, according to Charles Wowkanech, the AFL-CIO president in New Jersey. "Everybody has received the message loud and clear: 'It's a tight race and you can't sit this one out,' " he said.
The Republicans, who can taste an upset in the state, are mounting their most ambitions voter-turnout operation in years.
Energized by polls showing the state in play - and by the surprise recent visits of Bush and Vice President Cheney - rank-and-file Republicans who went through the motions in 1996 and 2000 are enthusiastically working on behalf of the ticket this year.
Bush's two daughters were scheduled to appear at GOP rallies in Ocean, Mercer and Bergen Counties this weekend to help galvanize Republicans in the campaign's final days.
Most Democrats still expect Kerry to carry the state by a comfortable margin. But some in the party are worried that he will win narrowly, which, they say, will hurt Democrats running for lower offices and boost GOP hopes for next year's governor's race.
A number of Democrats say their party, taking a Kerry victory for granted, has sleepwalked through this election season.
"The whole thing has been quiet since Day One," said Tom Giblin, a veteran labor leader and a former chairman of the state Democratic Party. "I've never seen the likes of it since I've been in the business."
Giblin and others say the state party should have begun mobilizing its troops and distributing money to county and municipal organizations for campaign-related activities over the summer. Kerry allies in the state say the national campaign should have supplied some money for lawn signs, bumper stickers and some direct mail, especially after polls showed the race narrowing.
The Kerry campaign, however, decided at the outset that New Jersey would continue its Democratic trend this year and thus decided to conserve its resources for the so-called battleground states. Kerry made no campaign appearances in the state.
It was not until three weeks before the election that the state party began releasing money for voter-turnout efforts. U.S. Sen. Jon S. Corzine also distributed $250,000 for those purposes to various Democratic entities in the state, and some of the state's seven Democratic congressmen are chipping in.
That's a far cry from recent elections, when the party and its candidates ran a virtual gravy train for consultants and others associated with the campaigns. Those efforts, fueled by a few million dollars in get-out-the-vote money, generated massive voter turnouts that translated into substantial victories.
President Clinton carried New Jersey by 17 percentage points in 1996, while Vice President Gore won a 16-point victory in 2000. Democrat James E. McGreevey was elected governor in a rout in 2001, winning by 16 percentage points.
The nearly $6 million raised by Democrats in New Jersey for Kerry this year was sent to other states, and as late as this weekend the Kerry campaign was asking New Jersey to send volunteers to Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.
"The battleground states is where we've had to dump the money," said Wowkanech. "They plotted their course on what the landscape was three or four months ago."
But the decision to leave the campaign in the hands of the state party was made before McGreevey announced in August that he would resign amid a sex scandal. The three-month wait for McGreevey's planned Nov. 15 departure has seemed like an eternity to Democrats who look to the state party for direction and funding.
McGreevey, who still controls the state party organization and bank account, refused to open up the coffers - and then only in what many veteran Democrats consider a minimum way, late in the campaign.
State Sen. John H. Adler (D., Cherry Hill), a cochairman of the Kerry campaign in New Jersey, said the party would be able to overcome those obstacles. He said an unprecedented number of volunteers are working on voter-turnout activities.
Unlike Kerry's effort, the Bush campaign, which also raised about $6 million in New Jersey, has sent $300,000 back to help fund Election Day activities. And state GOP officials, seeking to regain some of the ground they have lost to Democrats statewide in recent years, say they are being inundated with requests from party activists seeking to volunteer.
They could always recycle the ones that they stole from us.
Kathyrine Lopez, on NRO, again today swears that NJ is ripe for the pickin' and that Bush and Rudy oughta meet the commuters at 5:00 tomorrow evening. Can't disagree with that. Ohio is as solid as we can make it.
My dream is for NJ to go to GWB early and start a snowball effect across the country as polls close.
BOO!
Somehow he managed to turn it from a sex scandal into "You Poor Gay Thing, You...."
Bush wins NJ, Kerry can have Florida. Bush needs PA, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, NJ, or CO to push this thing over the top. Wednesday is not going to be a good day, either way. We will of course, be happy with a win, but then the whining, riots, garbage, threats, assaults, burnings, etc start by the socialists. Can we hang on to the Senate? What are the latest Senate predictions? I haven't see much lately.
That's the line that jumped out to me.
is Rudy gonna be in NJ today or tomm?
We win LA, NC, SC, FL, and MN. Most people give us CO, with AK up in the air. The only loss is IL. Probably finish +3 or +4 from where we are now.
Sounds like you could use a chill pill!
At the least they're expecting a one seat pick up in the Senate for the Republicans, but possibly and likely a 3 seat pick up, possibly 4.
Plus four would be nice. Is Coors ahead in CO?
Then we came into town and in the park were 25 to 30 enthusiastic Bush supporters. Traffic was tied up as people were stopping to get free signs.
Absolutely correct. The Republicans here made a few half-hearted calls for him to resign earlier, so that an election for a new governor could be held. The Democrats said no, and that was the end of that. Had this been a Republican, the Dems would not have taken no for answer. They would have kept the pressure on day and night, 7 days week until the governor stepped down and their demands for an election were met.
NJ demonrats are as corrupt as they come. Only in NJ (and maybe San Fran) can you illegally hire a phony "homeland security" consultant, molest him repeatedly, disrespect your own wife so blatantly, and then get sympathy from your constituents. What a fetid pile of poop!
Wouldn't that be sweet, Bush takes NJ and Florida fairly early in the evening and the DemoRats farther west become very discouraged and don't go out to vote! Bush win in California - naw, that too much to dream for?
I don't need a chill pill. I don't sit here and think all is gonna be fine. In my 54 years on this earth, I have seen the last 35 years of democrats doing their evil. They are enemies of the Republic. Until they are defeated, I will not rest. Anything can happen! Last election taught me that. I don't put nothing past those thieves.
Oh, I forgot GA. We will "pick up" a seat in GA, although Isaakson is more liberal than Zell Miller! But at least he caucuses with us, and despite Zell's fire, we must never forget that in 2001, he caucused with the Dems to put Daschle back in the Maj. Leader's seat after the Jeffords defection.
since ny is such a disgrace and can't be turned to gwb everyone in that state should help out in nj
it will be the same as winning ny =)
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