Its sponsored by a conservative group, but still rather fascinating given that the sample was 41% Democrat and 25% GOP:
The contest between Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg and Republican ex-Rep. Dick Zimmer is neck and neck, according to a new poll sponsored by the Club for Growth. It’s no surprise coming out of the Garden State, though, where voters never seem to make up their mind until the very end of an election.
In the good news for the GOP side, only 26% of respondents figure Lautenberg deserved re-election - and its good to keep in mind that Laugtenberg was inserted into the 2002 race after Toricelli was bounced from the Democratic nomination for committing the worst crime of all - being at risk of losing a Democratic seat (all that corruption stuff which got him into trouble was nothing, after all; only the risk of loss motivated the Democrats to take the highly illegal step of switching candidates late in the race). Real Clear politics points out that another poll showed Lautenberg up by 7 percentage points…but tied or +7 for the Democrats, its still good news for the GOP that in very blue NJ in a very tough year for Republicans that we’re within striking distance of a major Senatorial upset.
As I keep saying, this is going to be an interesting year - and throw out all those ideas you had of predicting the outcome. Its really all up in the air, from top of the ticket to bottom.
Tags: Dick Zimmer, Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey, Polls, Senate
August 15th, 2008
Perhaps the Democrats are worried they don’t have enough voters for November?
E-Verify (the effective program to keep illegal aliens out of U.S. jobs) now is facing danger in the Senate, as well as the House.
The NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team has been told that Sen. Menendez (D-N.J.) has put a “hold” on legislation to reauthorize the E-Verify workplace verification program. That means the Senate is barred from voting to keep it alive. Without a vote, E-Verify will die in November.
Our understanding is that Sen. Menendez is blocking the most effective tool against illegal immigration in order to get something else that he wants. He will allow an E-Verify vote if he is allowed to give hundreds of thousands of skilled American jobs permanently to hundreds of thousands of additional immigrants.
At a time when skilled Americans and students aspiring to those jobs are finding a depressed job market, Sen. Menendez is insisting on flooding their occupations with even more foreign workers. And if he doesn’t get his way, he will take away the best tool that employers have to keep illegal foreign workers from taking jobs at every rung of the ladder, but especially at the lower-skilled job level.
Our liberals have it that they are the selfless defenders of the Little Guy against Big Corporation but what they fail to understand is that Big Corporation is in many ways just like Big Government. Human life is properly lived at human-scale - smaller communties of people who know each other; bound to a larger community through ties of nationality and affection, but fundamentally looking after their own affairs through family, church and social group. We see in this action by Menedez what happens when people become mere cogs in a socio-economic machine. Menedez wants more guest-workers to please part of his constituency and thus is blocking the enforcement of a law which prevents the ruthless exploitation of illegal immigrants as well as protects the wage levels of legal residents - a lot of people are happy with Menedez’ action: people who are de-facto advocates for illegal immigration, large corporations looking for maximised profits, the national Democratic party which wants hispanic support. Who isn’t happy? The guy trying to have a stay-at-home wife to raise his three children but can’t do it because wage levels are depressed due to the importation of cheap labor. The small business trying to do the right thing by the community but being forced out by his competitors who exploit cheap, illegal labor. The local community suddenly burdened with an influx of people who don’t speak the language, are prey to gangsters, have no insurance (health, auto, life, home) and who use emergency rooms as their primary health care providers. And, of course, the illegals, themselves, who’s skills are not being used to build up their homeland but which are being used to provide a slightly higher corporate profit and a little extra political clout in the United States.
Here, also, we see the arrogance of liberalism - an arrogance bred of the conviction, largely correct, that no one will ever call a liberal to account. Any Republican who points this out? He’ll be called a racist and the MSM will go along with the accusation. Will the people of New Jersey force him out? The people of New Jersey elected him in the first place even though he had ethical troubles going in. Will his fellow Senate Democrats call him to account? The same Democrats who gave William “Cold Cash” Jefferson (D-LA) a standing ovation? Yeah, right.
Tags: border security, E-Verify, New Jersey, Senator Menedez
July 27th, 2008
