When a colleague was thinking about doing a series of articles about the 2009 elections to see how many Democrats we could replace before the mid-term elections of next year, I offered my help with some of the research. Before I could complete that research and her article was published successfully, the health care plans were released and the focus had to be changed.
After reading the last line of Sarah’s Facebook entry regarding Chris Daggett, I asked my colleague if I could use just the section from the research about the three primary candidates in the NJ governor’s race. She agreed.
In case you don’t know why Mr. Daggett would be trying to spread the lies Sarah is discussing, (see her latest entry on her Facebook page or on the Sarah Writes page of this blog) I want to provide the results of what would have been a very good article had it been completed.
The plan was to take each of the candidates and condense their talking points into a paragraph. From the working copy of the research page, I have borrowed this information:
Chris Christie and Kimberly M. Guadagno – Republican
Main Talking Point: Reform the Government. He plans to do this by eliminating the Legislature’s conflicts of interest, loopholes to strengthen laws banning pay-to-play, and demanding greater transparency and accountability from government officials. Highlights from Mr. Christie’s plan to cut taxes are to provide property tax relief, providing an across-the-board cut for all taxpayers, an additional cut or tax credit for New Jersey-based small businesses, and reducing the corporate business tax rate. He is pro-life and wants to reduce abortions in New Jersey through laws such as parental notification, a 24-hour waiting period and a ban on partial-birth abortion. Mr. Christie is opposed to same-sex marriage but has no issue with sharing contractual rights. He indicates that if a bill were presented to him to legalize same-sex marriage, he would veto the bill and support a constitutional amendment on the ballot to be decided by the voters.
Jon S. Corzine and Loretta Weinberg – Democratic
Reading the information provided on the websites of the other candidates, I get the impression that the incumbent, Mr. Corzine, is not a particularly popular candidate at this time. I would consider his main Talking Point to be “a forward-looking, progressive agenda”. From reading his website, I gather that he thinks very highly of the “international acclaim” he brought to New Jersey after signing legislation allowing civil unions for same-sex couples, and repealed the death penalty. Corzine has also signed into law initiatives designed to give the uninsured better access to healthcare services, and a measure making New Jersey the third state in the nation to allow workers to take paid leave to tend to a personal or family emergency. These are all fairly popular achievements with some of his supporters, but he does have a large group of detractors who seem to focus on these same issues.
Christopher J. Daggett and Frank J. Esposito – Independent for NJ
If you want the candidate you support to be a strong environmentalist (on the Green Party side) Mr. Daggett is your candidate. He has a comprehensive plan to tighten ethics rules and to reform government including eliminating pension and health care benefits for part-time elected officials and expanding pay-to-play rules for all levels of government, including school boards. If he has a single Talking Point, I think it would be energy. He has received the Sierra Club endorsement among others. Mr. Daggett seems to be firm on education reform by announcing a plan holding teachers more accountable by eliminating lifetime tenure and abolishing a controversial “back door’’ policy allowing failing pupils to earn a high school diploma.
Many people are not aware that this is the first election in the State of New Jersey for a Lieutenant Governor. They haven’t had one until now. That in itself is interesting to me. I don’t know why they have decided that they need one now, but that is none of my business and I have no intention of “going there”.
Suffice to say the fact that Mr. Daggett uses much of the Green Party platform for many of his energy plans is reason enough for me to suspect his Independent candidacy. Many people are not very fond of a Green Party reference these days, and it could be that the New Jersey voters feel that way.
If I remember correctly there have been several incidences where radical behavior on the part of the Green Party caused fear and intimidation. Perhaps that is the reason Mr. Daggett has chosen to use a different political label. That is only my opinion since I live miles from New Jersey and have no personal contact whatsoever with Mr. Daggett or his campaign.
Maybe Mr. Daggett is trying to find someone to blame for his sagging poll numbers and is appealing to all the people who are frightened of Sarah Palin and the support she carries with the Conservative people of the United States. Maybe he thinks that by invoking Sarah’s name in an attempt to keep her opinions out of New Jersey politics he will avoid the same fate the Republican candidate did in the race for US Congress from NY-23.
Mr. Daggett, if that is the case, I have one thing to say to you. “Be careful.”
There is a larger Conservative voting base than you are expecting, and while you may have fooled some of the New Jersey voters into thinking that you are Conservative in some areas, you won’t fool Sarah Palin. By attempting to use the same Alinsky Rules for Radicals that the Democrats have used unsuccessfully against her and the Conservative voice of America, you may just write your own political epitaph.
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UPDATE: 11/2/09
My first thought was to ignore this in order to keep from continuing the beating once the man is down. That is exactly what I would do under other circumstances. But this time it involves Sarah Palin, and I will not let it pass without at least a comment.
Late last night, I saw a statement released by the Daggett campaign. Not the candidate – the one who opened his mouth in the first place – his campaign.
“A Daggett spokesman acknowledges that Daggett’s claim on MSNBC was incorrect.
“She never contacted us asking us to drop out,” Daggett spokesman Tom Johnson told ABC News.” This quote came from a note put out by George Stephanopoulos under the headline “Palin Smacks New Jersey’s Daggett for False ‘Drop Out’ Claim.”
The statement from Dagget spokesman Tom Johnson and the article continued:
“Someone wrote mistakenly on a blog that Sarah Palin asked Chris Daggett to drop out of the race,” said Johnson.
Kevin Gass, a volunteer traveling on the Daggett campaign bus, heard the incorrect Palin item, assumed that it was true and twittered about it from the Daggett campaign bus.
It turned out that Palin, who endorsed third party conservative Doug Hoffman over liberal Republican Dede Scozzafaza in the 23rd congressional district of New York, had not called on Daggett to leave the New Jersey governor’s race. All she had done in an October 27 Facebook post is urge voters to back Chris Christie, the Republican Candidate, over Jon Corzine, the incumbent Democratic governor, and to give money to the Republican Governors Association.
[…]
Johnson said that neither Daggett nor anyone in the campaign knew that the Palin claim was false until the former Alaska governor wrote about it on her Facebook page, prompting reporters to contact the campaign.
“We didn’t know it was inaccurate until Palin put this thing out,” said Johnson.
“It’s a big ado about nothing,” he added. “We’re getting more attention for this than for our detailed plan to cut property taxes by 25 percent.”
There are two things wrong with Johnson’s statement, both coming at the end of the quote.
In the first place, they didn’t know it was inaccurate but they didn’t hesitate to publicize the lie. This is not uncommon where Sarah Palin is concerned. This seems to be what most people consider “normal behavior.”
The second inaccuracy is, “It’s a big ado about nothing.”
Oh, really? Is that what you call spreading a lie about another person? If that is so, I need to correct the last few words of the article I posted yesterday: “…you may just write your own political epitaph.” I must revise that statement to read, “…you and your campaign spokesman may just write your own political epitaph.”
I think the people of New Jersey deserve a governor who doesn’t tell lies about influential people and then belittle their actions as “a big ado about nothing.” I urge New Jersey voters to run – don’t walk – to the polls tomorrow and vote for Chris Christie.
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