A correspondent raises the question of why Frank Lautenberg is running for re-election in New Jersey. He retired in 2001, citing old age, and only wound up coming out of retirement because Bob Toricelli had to drop out of the race under a hail of corruption charges. Having a too-old Democratic nominee running in a Democratic state in a Democratic-trending year seems to needlessly jeopardize what ought to be a safe seat. Bob Andrews, a lonely nation turns its eyes to you.
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Lautenberg
09 Mar 2008 10:23 am
Comments (36)
As a Garden Stater, let me take a shot at explaining Lautenberg's staying power. First, he has been a yeoman senator tending to the state's interests in not-very-sexy things like transportation policy, probably the single most important federally influenced policy in a state defined by the Turnpike. Second, Dems are very indebted to him for saving us after Toricelli imploded in 2002. Third, there is no big Dem leader with the heft to tell him to step aside. Corzine has been hobbled by his honest [and probably suicidal] effort to deal with the state's structural finance disaster. Menendez is a Senate colleague still solidifying his statewide power. Finally, Frank has a shitload of money.
Like most Dems, I would prefer if Lautenberg would pass the torch and let Andrews and Frank Pallone, a popular Dem in a Republican-leaning district, duke it out for the seat. But, given the above, it ain't happening until 2104.
I agree mert7878. BobN, I agree with you also, Rush Holt is a good choice.
The whole reason Lautenberg came out of retirement in the first place is because he was just completely bored after he left the Senate the first time. Shuffleboard clearly doesn't cut it for this guy. He's going to stay in this time until he keels over. And he's pretty ancient, so... any day now.
I'm with mert7878 on this one. The NJ GOP will have a hard time finding anyone with statewide credibility to run against him and McCain will offer no coat-tails for any of the GOPers to ride on this year.
They had a credible candidate this year who might have made it close: Ann Evans Estabrook, a moderate self-financing businesswoman. She dropped out last week because of a stroke.
Lautenberg's a force of nature in New Jersey politics. The only difference now versus before is he gave up a lot of committee seat seniority when he retired.
i also wonder at lautenberg running again but i wouldn't worry about losing the seat unless he has serious health complications during the campaign. estabrook had the profile of a credible challenger but not the political talents - she left GOP audiences notably unmoved and was losing county conventions even in what should have been friendly territory. the default GOP nominee, joe pennacchio, is energetic but more than a little cheesy and spends more time talking about the virtues of ronald reagan than anything else. he also has no money. i think nj republicans have made a calculation that they can fight against the current for a seat in dc and look forward to serving in the minority there if they win, or focus on a real shot to win back control in the state capitol. stong GOP candidates like US attorney chris christie seem to have focused on the governor's race in 2009. the weakness of the GOP field also seems to reflect respect for lautenberg's strength as a candidate.
RUSH HOLT!!
Simple reason, and the same reason why the Dems ran Corzine as governor:
Lautenberg is worth several hundred million dollars (at least), which he earned from founding ADP. The best chance of avoiding another embarrassing corruption scandal is by running someone who has no need for more money (although even this strategy isn't foolproof -- after all, Corzine gave a six-figure gift to his ex-girlfriend who happens to be the leader of a union that endorsed him).
I'd rather have Rush Holt, Donald Payne (though he is almost as old as Lautenberg), or Frank Pallone than Rob Andrews if we have to pick from the state's congressional delegation.
Why all this discussion of Pallone? He's been in the Congress 20-something years and he's a committee chair, I think. Plus, he had a chance to run for Senate in '02 and he didn't take it because he has no balls. Seems like a nice guy though.
I'd say this thread gives a good explanation for why Lautenberg is still with us (politically, anyway). New Jersey Dems can't agree on a sucessor.
This shouldn't come as a surprise, because New Jersey Dems rarely agree on anything.
Like it or not, Lautenberg is New Jersey politics. As Stan Lee would say, 'Nuff Said. While we're at it, why don't we get the Daleys to stop running in Chicago, the Tafts to stop running in Ohio and the Kennedys to stop running in New England? Besides, if Lautenberg ever has to step aside, he'll just take half of the Turnpike with him (really, he has a big-ass garage), along with some of the Shore and Souther NJ, but nobody cares about Southern NJ.
*ducks*
That Lautenberg might lose to a Republican is way, way down on my list of worries for November. What is "too old" anyway?
BobN made the key points in the first comment. Rob Andrews, who's my Congressman, voted for the Military Commissions Act in 2006 -- when he was running completely unopposed. Tells you a lot about him.
Now, of course, Senator Lautenbergs' ethnicity has nothing to do with why Mr. Yglesias wants him to retire from the Senate.
The thing to remember is that while Lautenberg said he was stepping down due to old age, the #1 reason he quit is that he hated working with Bob Torricelli so much (or so the stories went). That's no longer an issue.
SLC, with that kind of attitude you'll never fit in at "Matt's Jew-hatin' blog's annual Hitler's birthday celebration and Anti-Semitic cookout." Matt leads us all in a chorus of the Horst Wessel Lied and everyone chips in to buy an exploding vest for a deserving suicide bomber. It's Judeophobic fun for the whole family!
Being the Correspondent In Question, let me add that I asked Matt that question after seeing a new Rasmussen poll ( http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_senate_elections/election_2008_new_jersey_senate ) showing one of the two remaining Republicans running within only 8 points of Lautenberg (Estabrook actually trailed him by 10 before she quit because of her stroke). This is too close for comfort. By comparison, Sen. Tim Johnson (despite HIS stroke) now has gigantic 30-point leads over his possible Republican opponents.
Since -- as Matt keeps pointing out -- trying to pick up more Senate seats comes within a hair of being as important this time around as regaining the White House, why take any unnecessary chances? Rush Holt forever!
Reality Man and Devin McCullen misunderstand the nature of Lautenberg. He didn't go into the Senate because he had a passion for politics. He did it because he was super rich and bored. His chief accomplishment in his first Senate career was passing a law banning smoking on airplanes. Then, not able to think of anything else, he retired. Until the Torricelli scandal when the beleaguered NJ Dems (the party of the super-rich) roped him back in.
Re William Burns
I was just zinging Mr. Yglesias a little.
Oh, puh-leese, Fred. Don't be THAT obvious.
"Oh, puh-leese, Fred. Don't be THAT obvious."
Was this supposed to be a refutation of something I wrote here? If so, feel free to explicate. If you think that Lautenberg went into politics because he was passionate about achieving some goals or policies beyond the smoking ban on airplanes, state why you think so. If you object to the "party of the super-rich" characterization, I can understand you don't like it, because it doesn't fit with the Dems' class warfare rhetoric, but it's hard to see how that characterization isn't true. In NJ, the two richest men in politics (by a long shot) are Corzine and Lautenberg, both Democrats. Nationally, most of the billionaires who are politically active tend to be Democrats, e.g., Saban, Soros, Buffett, Turner, etc.
Fred, what "fits with the Dems' class warfare rhetoric" is how people at different income levels vote, which is not really that difficult to look up on any of the polling websites. Shockingly, the higher the income, the higher the percentage of Republican votes, as has been the pattern throughout American history (to say nothing of the history of every other democracy). I can't imagine why; surely the fact that Republicans consistently favor cutting taxes on the upper classes and paying for this (when they pay for it at all) by cutting services for the non-upper classes -- even when this does nothing to stimulate the growth of the total economy -- can't have anything to do with it. It's rather hard to avoid class warfare rhetoric when somebody else has already launched the class war.
Bruce Moomaw,
"Fred, what "fits with the Dems' class warfare rhetoric" is how people at different income levels vote, which is not really that difficult to look up on any of the polling websites."
Like this one? According to the Pew Research Center's polling data, more Americans earning $150k+ identify themselves as Democrats than Republicans. The disparity would probably appear more pronounced if the Pew pollsters had broken this down further by income categories (e.g., $150k-$249,999, $250k-$349,999, etc.). Although the 'working affluent' may skew Republican (e.g., physicians, small business owners, salesmen), the truly rich increasingly skew Democratic.
Ah. My apologies. I can't imagine how I could have made such a glaring mistake. According to that Pew poll, the GOP has had a huge lead among the highest-income 10% of the American people ONLY throughout all American history until 2006, but it collapsed suddenly last year (probably because the particularly rich have become particularly aware over the last year of the fact that the current GOP is a bunch of economic charlatans). Pew specifically states that the very slow previous drop in the GOP's huge edge among the rich since 1995 has been both because more of the rich are nonwhite than before, and because more of the rich have post-grad schooling than before. (As always, being better educated has -- for some no doubt irrational reason -- a tendency to make you more sympathetic with Democratic Party policies.)
In 1995, the GOP lead was 46-25; in 2002, it was 45-28; in 2005, it was 41-28; in 2006, it shrank slightly to 48-38, and then it suddenly collapsed to a 32-31 GOP edge last year. (Pew also notes that most of the sudden drop was due not to an increase in Democrats among the rich, but to a switch from Republicans to Independents, which would seem to provide more support for the Republican Economic Charlatan theory.)
"That Lautenberg might lose to a Republican is way, way down on my list of worries for November. What is "too old" anyway?
Posted by bob h | March 9, 2008 4:31 PM"
"Reality Man and Devin McCullen misunderstand the nature of Lautenberg. He didn't go into the Senate because he had a passion for politics. He did it because he was super rich and bored. His chief accomplishment in his first Senate career was passing a law banning smoking on airplanes. Then, not able to think of anything else, he retired. Until the Torricelli scandal when the beleaguered NJ Dems (the party of the super-rich) roped him back in.
Posted by Fred | March 9, 2008 8:14 PM"
When did I say Lautenberg has a passion for politics? I was being snarky and hatin' on New Jersey, which any good New England boy with a love-hate relationship with the Garden State does. Of course he came back in out of boredom. He's just easy to make fun of because he is so powerful in New Jersey politics that he's become pretty much synonymous with it, but who would want that (like that Onion headline "Gay American Admits to Being Governor of New Jersey"). Who the hell are you, Buzz Killington?
http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Buzz_Killington
"As always, being better educated has -- for some no doubt irrational reason -- a tendency to make you more sympathetic with Democratic Party policies."
While Democrats often have an edge in voters with graduate degrees (likely boosted, as Steve Sailer has pointed out, by public school teachers with easy masters degrees in education, which usually earn them additional pay) they also have an edge in voters who are high school dropouts. Meanwhile, Republicans often lead among voters with undergraduate degrees.
The one criteria that seems to reliably distinguish Democrats from Republicans is, according to Gallup, worse mental health.
""That Lautenberg might lose to a Republican is way, way down on my list of worries for November. What is "too old" anyway?
Posted by bob h | March 9, 2008 4:31 PM"
Rigor mortis?
Er, Fred. Pew specifically said that the Democrats are more popular among that part of the rich business class -- not "public school teachers" -- who happen to have a post-grad education than those who do not.
Reality Man,
"When did I say Lautenberg has a passion for politics? I was being snarky and hatin' on New Jersey, which any good New England boy with a love-hate relationship with the Garden State does."
All well and good, except this isn't true:
"Of course he came back in out of boredom."
And neither is this:
"he is so powerful in New Jersey politics that he's become pretty much synonymous with it"
Lautenberg ran for the Senate the first time because he was bored. He ran again most recently because the party begged him to, after Torricelli had to drop out due to graft charges and the Dem-dominated state supreme court bent NJ's election laws to allow a late substitution of candidates. Lautenberg is neither considered especially powerful in NJ politics nor is he considered to be "pretty much synonymous with it" here in NJ.
I don't mean to be a buzzkill, but your snark would be more effective if it were confined to subjects you knew more about.
And, Fred, what Gallup actually reported is that Republicans are more confident of their OWN mental health than Democrats, which no doubt also applies to people who sincerely believe they are Napoleon.
Bruce Moomaw,
I based my comment on voting patterns by education levels not on a Pew survey but on exit polling data from the last two presidential elections. Those data didn't break down graduate degree holders into members of "the rich business" class versus others.
Fred, when a post ends with "*ducks*" and talks about a Senator storing part of a state in his garage, you might want to consider that something is said in jest. Otherwise, you look like a dork. Remember the kid in college who would give a history lesson at parties in response to jokes? Did you notice that people would walk away because they couldn't tell the difference between sarcasm and putting forth an argument? Were you that kid?
"Those data didn't break down graduate degree holders into members of 'the rich business' class' versus others."
Ah, but Fred, that Pew poll you helpfully pointed us toward explicitly DID.
Since Fred seems to have serious reading comprehension problems, let me actually quote from that Pew poll that he hyperlinked to last night:
"While much of the shifting balance among affluent voters reflects changes in the national mood, two important demographic changes among high-income voters are related to the parties' fortunes. First, members of minority groups constitute a greater share of high-income voters than at any time in the past. The proportion of top-income voters who are black, Hispanic, or from another racial minority background has doubled from 10% in 1995 to 21% today, while the proportion who are white has dropped from 90% to 79%.
"Secondly, a greater share of top-income voters have a post-graduate education than in the past -- 35%, up from 24% in 1995. In general, Americans with post-graduate training are more likely to be Democrats than those with four-year degrees or who attended but did not complete college."
Comments closed March 23, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
It's Rob Andrews, and he wouldn't be the progressive choice among NJ's congressional delegation. Rush Holt, maybe.
Posted by BobN | March 9, 2008 10:52 AM