Conservative Principles Now

As pundits and party leaders look to next year’s Congressional elections in NJ, it appears that freshman Democrat John Adler is the most vulnerable incumbent.  Despite actually calling himself a “conservative” Democrat, his vote for ultra-liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Leadership will render that innoculation strategy suspect, to an electorate that is increasingly alienated from the policies of the current Congress and President Obama. In fact, voters in Adler’s district overwhelmingly favored Republican Governor-elect Chris Christie in the gubernatorial election, and Adler himself faced a tough challenge, despite out-spending his opponent, having a larger base (legislative district and one-time Congressional candidate vs. a small-town Mayor) and running in the best Democratic year (2008) in at least a generation. Assuming current trends, and assuming Republicans nominate a strong candidate, Adler is probably a goner.

At the first debate gubernatorial debate televised by NJN last Thursday none of the gubernatorial candidates proposed a credible plan to deal with the state's high tax burden, runaway spending and projected $8 billion budget deficit for fiscal 2011. Yet all the media attention and buzz by the pundits after the debate has been focused on Chris Doggett's proposed $3.9 billion property tax cut that would be offset by extending the state's 7 percent sales tax.