Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Dems Firing Up the Engines

So, PoliticsNJ is reporting that Camille Abate is planning to announce her candidacy to seek the Democratic nomination to take on Representative Scott Garrett. She and Paul Aronsohn sparred last year, and she scored an impressive 34% of the Primary vote spending next to nothing compared to Paul, and campaigning for an extremely short amount of time.

While the Dems are still waiting on Paul's announced intention to announce, they'll get to take a second look at Camille. Here's what she had to say to PoliticsNJ (Anne is Anne Wolfe, who some have speculated will also jump in).

“Anne’s withdrawal left a very moderate Democrat as the only alternative,” Ms. Abate said. “I am convinced that we need a strong voice in Washington to speak out against the war in Iraq and the assault on civil liberties by the Bush Administration and to fight for working and middle class people who have been shouldering enormous burdens as a result of Bush's misguided policies and a complicit Congress. This time I intend to win the Democratic nomination and unseat Scott Garrett in the general election."
While the "very moderate" part of the quote could actually help Paul in the general election, with barely over 10,000 people voting in the Democratic primary in '06, it could help Camille. She's also been very busy explaining her views on things through her CAJA Institute.

Paul hasn't been quite either, he's kept his website going, putting out press releases and such. Paul got an Op-Ed published in the Record about the disabled community, to which Camille responded, and then Paul put up a follow-up piece on Blue Jersey. He's also been campaigning for Democratic Sussex County Sheriff candidate Wayne Yahm.

It's safe to say the fun has begun on the Democratic side.

Unless the moderate and classic conservative Republicans that Garrett loathes throw him out; and in spite of the fact he single handily has taken one of the highest tax paying Districts in the nation to the bottom of Congressional influence; Garrett could be tough to beat. Gerrymandering is a natural advantage and one distinct advantage is Garrett's cash on hand: Paul has roughly $17,000 and Camille's at $13,000, as Garrett's sitting on $238,144.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Camile is too far to the left to play in the 5th. I found some of her tactics to be very bush league last year, suing Aronsohn for libel and protesting at a West Point graduation on Memorial Day. There is a time and a place for a protest and a graduation is no place to do that. Those men and women are going off to serve and don't need to see protesters. If you want to protest, get a permit and go to the White House. And Abate's recent piece in the editorials took one of Paul's primary platforms last year and twisted it, that platform being veteran's affairs. Aronsohn's father is a WWII vet, so it was very insulting. Abate, simply put is too extreme and is as far to the left as Garrett is to the right. As John Gardner said, "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." Abate fits the bill on both acounts.