New Jersey will have a new Senator after Wednesday, and it is urgent that Newark Mayor Cory Booker take over the seat of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg.
Booker is seen as a rising national star, who would do a lot of good for the middle class and the poor of his home state, which has not elected a Republican Senator since it gave Senator Clifford Case his last term in office in 1972. Case was an outstanding Republican Senator, a liberal Republican who built up an enviable record in his 24 years of Senate service.
New Jersey is a state which deserves a man of Booker’s caliber, and he is leading in the polls by about 12 percentage points, but the Tea Party is making a vigorous challenge to Booker in the person of Steve Lonegan, a businessman and former Mayor of Bogota, New Jersey.
Lonegan would help Ted Cruz, Rand Paul. Mike Lee, Marco Rubio and other Tea Party types in blocking progress, and refusing any cooperation with other Republicans, increasing the civil war that exists in the GOP. His statements and viewpoints are totally unacceptable for a state in the Northeastern United States, with many residents working in New York City or Philadelphia.
Lonegan is having Sarah Palin, the former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee, coming in to campaign for him this weekend, and that is, in itself, enough reason for New Jersey to reject Lonegan, and elect Booker, as a leader who will do a lot of good for New Jersey, and become a figure of national stature, including a possible Democratic Presidential candidacy in the future.
Cory Booker seems like a genuinely nice guy. But the fact that he defended Mitt Romney and Bain Capital in last year’s election campaign is one example that illustrates his love of the financial industry makes not enthusiastic and very trusting of him.
I’ll go ahead and say this: Cory Booker will win that U.S. Senate seat from New Jersey. In fact, I think the Republicans getting the blame for the shutdown—in these latest of polls—are immediately striking here in the fall of 2013. (It’s a long way off until November 2014. History is against a president’s party flipping the opposition-party-controlled House with a midterm. And I’m not placing any bets yet. But the Virginia governorship race should—despite latest Republican officials’ reported efforts to purge voters—end up flipping from Republican to Democratic. That would be against the grain, in the fact that the one-term-limited governor elections in the Commonwealth have been a pattern of resulting in victory for the party opposite an incumbent president since the year 1977. In coming back to Cory Booker, I’ve seen polls indicating he’ll win by over 10 points. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up closer to 20.
I want to note this about midterms.
Reason why they often go against a president’s party is because the participation is about 26 to 30 percent less that that of presidential elections. Best comparison is the House, because all 435 members are on a schedule of elections every two years.
The party that turns out better for a midterm will be more likely to yield victory. (Whatever that amounts to. It still didn’t stop Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton, who lost same-party control of both houses of Congress with the second year, 1954 and 1994, with winning re-elections, in 1956 and 1996.)