A lot of astounding things have happened in New Jersey politics this year, but perhaps the most astounding is what’s happening in the campaign for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Cory Booker:
Nothing. Or at least nothing on behalf of the party establishment.
The filing deadline for the race is Monday of next week. Usually by this part of the election cycle, the party bosses are casting about frantically for some multimillionaire to make a run. When this Senate seat was up in 2008, they settled on the scion of a Spanish-food family, a guy so uninterested in the race that he refused to cut short his Colorado ski vacation to return to his Manhattan apartment for his campaign kickoff in New Jersey.
After that guy and a fellow gazillionaire pulled out, the race was reduced to a three-man field that included Murray Sabrin, the libertarian Ramapo College professor who’s made several entertaining but unsuccessful runs for statewide office.
The nominee turned out to be Dick Zimmer, a moderate former congressman from Hunterdon County who lost by a moderate margin — as moderate Republicans always seem to do.
That’s not likely to be the case this year. The field is packed with people the media are likely to characterize as extremists. As a doctrinaire libertarian, Sabrin certainly fits that bill. But in the absence of an establishment favorite, Sabrin (see his endorsement by Ron Paul here) actually has a chance of winning the nomination. Granted, it’s a small one. But he won the endorsement of the Middlesex County Republicans at their convention Saturday. In the five-way race that’s shaping up, Sabrin’s chances look about as good as the next guy’s.
RW Note: I spoke to Murray over the weekend. He is really charged up. The man is spending an incredible amount of time and energy on his campaign and he remains solidly libertarian--no waffling. Murray's thinking is that if he raises enough money, this will put him ahead of the pack of other nominee candidate and show Republicans that he should be the nominee. None of the others seeking the Republican nomination have money raising abilities, so Murray has a very good shot. If he gets the nomination, then the Murray Sabrin-Cory Booker show begins.The debates will be hardcore libertarian against a crony interventionist, what great fun and great exposure for libertarian ideas.
The New Jersey GOP won't let this happen in a million years or for all the fat sandwiches at Rutgers.
ReplyDelete"NJ Star Ledger: Murray Sabrin Could Win in New Jersey"
ReplyDeleteSure, and I could fly to the moon if I could just flap my arms hard enough.
The article excerpt provided here only says he has a chance of getting the Stupid Party nomination. No way does Sabrin beat the conventional Prog-bot hack Cory Booker. New Jersey is a deep blue state where most voters are Evil Party automatons. The ruling elites of the Evil Party tell them who to vote for and they respond in the typical Pavlovian fashion. If Sabrin gets the Stupid Party nomination the Demoncrat political machine (and it's multitudinous media lackeys) will obfuscate, lie, misdirect and propagandize until all that is left of poor Murrays reputation is a pile of ashes.
Never give a sucker an even break and never put your faith in the mythical wisdom of voters, especially in New Jersey.
I really hate to troll this guy, I am sure he really is a committed libertarian, but in your interview he outlined a very non-libertarian immigration policy- one that would boost up the military industrial complex on the border and was quite anti-freedom.
ReplyDeleteSomeone remind me of Ron Paul's policy on immigration. Ron's policies weren't always "perfectly libertarian." Was his similar to Murray's?
Agreed on your take of Sabrin's response on immigration. I was hoping for a follow up question on that.
DeleteFrom what I remember, Paul has commented that immigration was one of the issues he has changed positions over the years. I think earlier he was pretty much an open borders guy (and against birthright citizenship), but has modified this position a bit because of the burdens created by the welfare state.
Just wait. The SECOND he gets accused of "racism" he's done. Good luck all the same.
ReplyDelete