NJ-SEN: In New Jersey, the Calm Before the Storm
In perhaps the least scintillating of Tuesday’s eight state primaries, New Jersey incumbent Senator Robert Menendez (D) and challenging state Senator Thomas Kean Jr. (R) coasted to their respective party nominations.
Menendez took 84% of the vote over relative unknown James Kelly while Kean Jr., the son of popular former Republican New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, took 76% over the more conservative John Ginty.
While the primary was a yawner, the table is now set for what should be an intense and bitter Senate race over the summer. Kean will focus his campaign on ethics reform and taxes, while Menendez will define his campaign as a defiance of the Bush status quo.
In his acceptance speech Menendez fired the first shot of what will be a summer-long enfilade tying Kean to the Bush administration: “On issue after issue, the facts are clear: Tom Kean Jr. and George Bush are perfect together – perfectly wrong.” Kean shot back in his own speech, “I've got news for Bob Menendez. He’s not running against George Bush, he’s running against Tom Kean.” Oh it’s on.
New Jersey has not elected a Republican senator since Clifford Case in 1972. However a 2006 upset win by Kean, a moderate Republican with strong name recognition, is not out of the realm and would serve as a crushing blow to Democratic hopes of winning back congress.
Elsewhere, the vacant House of Representatives seat in New Jersey’s 13th district will most likely be filled by Assemblyman Albio Sires (D), who easily defeated Assemblyman Joseph Vas for the Democratic nomination. The heavily Democratic 13th district, located on the east coast just across the river from New York City, became open when Menendez was appointed to the Senate in January to replace Governor Jon Corzine.
For those confused, here’s how it works with the 13th district open seat: on November 7, concurrent with the general election, there will be a special election, with the winner to assume the seat from November until the incoming congress is sworn in on January 3. The special primary for that special election was also held on Tuesday and was also won by Sires. No Republicans ran in the special primary, which means Sires will win the special election unopposed on November 7 and assume the seat until January 3. At that time he will most likely begin a full 2 year term, assuming he also wins the general election on November 7 against community activist John Guarini (R), which he most likely will.
The demographics must be pretty bad for the GOP in NJ, though. The Dems should focus (although not solely) on locking up the Northeast/East as well as the GOP has locked up the South. Every Senator from MA, NY, NJ, CT, RI, VT, NH and ME should be a Dem. We need to run against the GOP bogeymen, from Bush and Cheney in the WH, to Rumsfeld and the other civilian leaders on the Pentagon, to Sensenbrenner and DeLay in the House, to Inhofe and Santorum in the Senate, to Scalia and Thomas on the SC. We need to make them as thoroughly discredited and anathema to Northeastern voters as Kennedy and Pelosi are in the South.
June 8, 2006 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink