Hard To Imagine A Worse Candidate Than The Governor's Republican Wife
On his sad march to prison, Bob Menendez is trying to cut a deal with the feds— offering his Senate seat in return for less jail time for himself and his wife. The feds aren’t biting; they don’t need to. New Jersey is a fairly safe blue state— not 100% safe, but fairly safe. Trump got 41% of the vote in 2016 and 2020. And the last time Menendez ran— also with criminal charges swirling around him— he beat Republican Bob Hugin 54% to 43%. There’d probably be two ways for the Democrats to lose the New Jersey Senate seat this year— nominate Menendez or nominate the governor’s nepotism thing.
A couple of days ago, Tom Moran pointed out that Tammy Murphy, the nepotism thing who thought she would waltz into the nomination, is getting desperate. “Tammy Murphy,” he wrote, “wants us to believe that concerns about nepotism, and her paltry qualification to serve in the U.S. Senate, are driven by sexism. ‘I’m not sure a male would be asked this question,’ she said at a meeting Morris County Thursday night. ‘If my name had been Tommy Murphy, I don’t think people would have minded. I don’t think anyone cared when Tom Kean ran.’” Big mistake!
It’s a preposterous claim that dismisses legitimate concern about her candidacy with an imperious wave of the hand. And it’s especially galling coming from an administration that has treated women so poorly.
Is Katie Brennan a sexist? She’s the campaign worker whose rape accusation revealed the toxic sexism in the governor’s 2017 campaign, and she’s horrified at the idea of Tammy Murphy sitting in the Senate based on her husband’s influence over the party machines.
Is Julie Roginsky a sexist? She’s the senior campaign advisor who was fired by Murphy after describing the frat-boy atmosphere on the campaign, and was then forced into silence by the governor’s gag order. She’s horrified, too.
How about the women at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility who were beaten and raped by guards, even after the Department of Justice described it all in detail in 2018. If they are offended by Tammy Murphy’s inside lane, are they sexist too?
Murphy pointed to Tom Kean Jr., who was elected to Congress in 2022. It’s true that Kean won because of the name, and we know that because he barely spoke a word during his campaign. Even in office, he remains mute, living off the fumes of lingering affection for his father, the former governor.
But Kean climbed the ladder, step by step, serving in the state Legislature for 21 years before he was elected to Congress. He was well respected in Trenton and served as minority leader of the Senate before running for Congress. Support him or not, he is qualified.
Tammy Murphy is asking Democratic voters to treat her as royalty, to hand her an even higher job as a U.S. Senator, as an untested political rookie.
Her chief opponent, Rep. Andy Kim, is a Rhodes Scholar with vast experience in foreign policy, and was a key player in the successful effort to reduce drug costs for seniors and cap out-of-pocket expenses at $2,000 a year. To win his job, he unseated a Republican member of Congress in 2018, turning the 3rd District blue and securing that gain by winning the two elections since. Support him or not, he’s qualified, too.
Tammy Murphy is not. Her one claim of substance is that she worked hard on maternal and infant health as First Lady, with a focus on closing the racial gap in outcomes. Give her credit for joining that fight— but know that her inflated claims of progress are bogus. We have not improved at all on maternal morality and trail the national average. And the racial gap is as large as ever.
She’s exaggerated her own role in this fight as well. Good work by leaders in the Legislature, many of whom are women of color, was well underway when Tammy Murphy grabbed the microphone and claimed leadership.
It is true that nepotism in New Jersey politics goes way beyond this Senate race. Ask Rep. Rob Menendez, whose path was cleared by the Hudson County Democratic machine, despite his weak qualifications.
But the First Lady is not a credible critic of the practice. Being the wife of the governor has given her unfair advantages because the county machines, keenly aware that the governor has two years left in his term, are lining up behind her like dogs begging for a biscuit. Two county chairs work as lobbyists and have business before the governor. Others have jobs or contracts that depend on him. It is a fundamentally corrupt process that neither Phil nor Tammy Murphy has lifted a finger to fix.
That is why none of the bosses seem concerned about Tammy Murphy’s qualifications, or that she has been a Republican for most of her adult life, switching only in 2014 when her husband began running for governor. Unlike the bosses, Democratic voters are likely to want a fulsome explanation for that.
To dismiss these concerns as sexism reeks of desperation. It’s an echo of Sen. Robert Menendez’s claim that prosecutors charged him with corruption because he’s Latino.
Tammy Murphy is going to have to do better. By dismissing these concerns as sexist, she’s off to an awful start.
And yesterday, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman— remember Pennsylvania and New Jersey share media markets— endorsed Andy Kim. Annie Karni reported that “In an interview, Fetterman said that he was ‘enthusiastic’ about Kim and that Murphy’s political background— she changed her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat only in 2014— gave him pause. ‘One of the most important things is that we have a reliable Democratic vote,’ Fetterman said. ‘We have to run this table in ’24 in order to maintain the majority. But we need to count on every Democratic vote. Andy Kim is the kind of guy we can count on.’ Fetterman said Murphy was likely ‘a lovely woman, but the last time I had to deal with a Republican from New Jersey, that was my own race… I wouldn’t want to risk having someone that might waffle when we have to deliver a solid Democratic vote in a very, very divided Senate like we have,’ Fetterman said. Kim, he said, is a known figure and a ‘distinguished member of Congress who has been working really, really hard.’”
“Right now, 84 percent of people in New Jersey believe that their politicians are corrupt,” he said, calling the indictment of Menendez the “breaking point” for many voters. “At some point, you’re just like, how can democracy function at that level of lack of trust? A lot of people want someone who can just step in on day one and immediately do the job.”
Kim echoed Fetterman’s charge that Murphy would not necessarily be a reliable Democratic vote in the Senate, noting that she switched parties well after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act.
“She voted in every single Republican primary during the Obama administration,” Kim said. “She’s going to have to explain that.”
The race is complicated, in part, because the seat is not technically open. Menendez, who stepped aside as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee after being charged in September with accepting cash bribes and gold bars in exchange for political favors, has denied any wrongdoing and accused the Justice Department of targeting him in a public smear campaign.
He has defiantly refused to resign, though he has not formally announced a campaign for re-election. He is polling at 6 percent favorability among New Jersey voters. Fetterman said: “I don’t really trust polls. Six percent seems actually high for his approval.”
Kim on Thursday was also set to announce the endorsements of six Democratic House members from Pennsylvania: Representatives Dwight Evans, Madeleine Dean, Chrissy Houlahan, Mary Gay Scanlon, Susan Wild and Brendan Boyle.
And who’s supporting the Ms. Nepotism? First and foremost the corrupt machine bosses, but also New Jersey’s two most corrupt members of Congress, Josh Gottheimer and Donald Norcross.
A PPP survey from November, shows the same thing most polls are showing-- Andy Kim way ahead, even if the state's corrupt powerbrokers have all lined up in the Murphy camp.
The governor’s wife represents the very worst of the corrupt New Jersey Democratic Party. Beating her means beating the Machine. Even when it came to the endorsement process for the College Democrats of New Jersey it was all about the stinking corruption that defines the state party. The nepotism thing’s team offered bribes and, when that didn’t work, threats to get the College Dems to not endorse Kim. That didn’t go well and a week ago both the College Democrats of America and its New Jersey chapter released endorsements of Kim.
I see, again and still, that the hater has freedom of speech; freedom to spew ad hominem hate. But I have no such freedom to respond. That pretty much makes DWT no better than meathead who censors what he does not like.
Go ahead and prove me correct again.
I, too, have to respond to the guy “Hiwatt 11” called “Guestcrapper”—and it won’t be easy, because I’ll be doing something I never expected to do: I’ll be defending Hillary Clinton!
Hillary was a “Goldwater Girl,” with the emphasis on “girl.” She was not yet a woman.
She was only 16 during the 1964 primary season, and turned 17—still not old enough to vote—before the November election. (I know the dates well because her birth date and mine are not far apart.)
Thus she was a Republican only during her minority. She became a Democrat as an undergraduate, in 1968—two years before she met Bill Clinton!
Tammy Murphy, on the other hand, was not just a Republican…
There he goes again! Congratulations to guestcrapper for making an extra big ASS of himself today even by his own standards. At the end of its comment below, the guestcrapper says, "nobody at all ever mentioned that $hillbillary once worked for the campaign of barry fucking goldwater." Nobody? Only CNN and MSNBC about 3 times a week each back when she was running for senator and then president, and that nationally circulated Times bio piece, too. But you go ahead, crapper. Dish out your alternative facts that you probably get straight from Kellyanne Conway. What the matter no cable in your troll cave? The Times won't deliver to you?
The democrap party doing what the democrap party does -- try to tell voters who they need to vote for. It works much better in SC. Money has not yet been poured into the race, so it's way too early to tell. But given the recent past, I'd say that the party can and will spend enough to get their shill over the top. I do NOT trust either the independence or the intellect of voters. How could you? After they elected menendez under criminal investigations?
"At some point, you’re just like, how can democracy function at that level of lack of trust? A lot of people want someone who can just step in on day one and immediately do…