Democrat "Competence" in Morris Township

Morris Township voters, evaluating the candidates for Township Committee, might well consider the recent correspondence sent by one of the Democratic candidates to his Republican adversary. I apologize in advance for language herein employed, but to censor the missive would seriously dilute its impact.

"Its (sic) just stupid to say that the current financial crisis is the fault of President Clinton. Your party leadership is corrupt, shuns intellectualism, can not (sic) govern and is completely incapable of any meaningful self reflection, which is the truest sign of incompetence. The nomination of Sarah Palin is a disgrace of epic proportions.

"On a more personal note, I was hopeful after we had lunch a few weeks ago that the foolishness from your campaign would end. Two days later you posted a letter from Michael Carroll on your web site. Carroll, a man I have never met, said among other things that if elected the first thing I will do is to betray the taxpayers and that I see government as a chance to do well personally while allegedly doing good. My understanding is that you followed up that letter with robo calls to your supporters repeating its contents and asking them to go to your web site to read it.

"Mr. Carroll is of course a piece of shit. He is also a hypocrite. You see, he is an attorney that holds himself out as having an office in my building. He does not actually have an office here, this is just where he receives his mail. I do get to see his mail. It appears his two larger clients are the municipalities of Montville and Mount Olive. That would make Mr. Carroll a republican (sic) elected official who also operates as an attorney receiving work from republican(sic) dominated municipalities.

"In other words, he would be guilty of the exact thing that he rails against in his slanderous letter.

"As for you, I was very clear in telling you that if you continued your negative campaign of lies and bullshit I would take it personally. I do take it that way. Do not confuse my public courteous interaction with you as friendship."

Wow. And this represents the best that the Democrats have to offer?

Leaving the "colorful" language aside, first, consider the chutzpah required for a New Jersey Democrat to raise the corruption issue. How many Democratic legislators have been (figuratively) frog-marched out of the chambers in handcuffs? Given the pending trial of yet another in a long line of former Democratic office holders on corruption charges, and the revelation of a massive, taxpayer-funded slush fund run by powerful Democrats, a NJ Democrat who pursues the corruption angle treads very dangerous ground.

Second, given the massive governmental and fiscal malpractice committed by Democrats in this State over the past seven years, aspersions cast against Republican "competence" are laughable. Under the Democrats, New Jersey residents, for the third year in a row, groan under the highest taxes in the nation. Under the Democrats, our once-illustrious state just finished dead last for business climate. Under the Democrats, taxes have been increased more than five-score times; spending is up something like 40%, and we struggle under a massive pile of Democrat-created debt and unfunded liabilities. Under the "competent" Democrats, the State invested hundreds of millions of pension dollars in Lehman, just before it went bankrupt.

Nationally, the current crisis owes its genesis to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and "community reinvestment" banking rules – Democratic creations expressly designed to increase "affordable housing" by lending to people with problematic credit. They were the darlings of Democrats Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer, and Barney Frank, who, confronted with Republican demands for stricter regulation, famously said that we should "roll the dice" on their solvency rather than undercut their "affordable housing" mission. That gamble came up snake-eyes and the taxpayers lost, to the tune of several TRILLION dollars.

Are the Democrat architects of this disaster the least bit contrite? Don’t be silly. San Francisco Democrat Pelosi had the nerve to blame Republicans. Frank remains unchastened. And after costing the taxpayers trillions, these Democratic creations remain substantially unreformed.

Competence? If the Democrats’ performance exemplifies their idea of "competence", when one of them accuses Republicans of failing to follow suit, such constitutes high praise indeed.

Indeed, one might empirically compare Republican administered towns with their local Democratic counterparts, and draw one’s own conclusions respecting governmental competence. Democratic Morristown v. Republican Morris Township? No contest; case closed.

More fundamentally, it troubles me deeply that a candidate in a political campaign cannot take political criticism without resorting to scatological invective. Then again, when one visits the Morris Township Democratic Committee website, and a clicks on "issues", it produces a blank page. Obviously, lacking anything substantive to talk about, the Democrats resort to potty mouth.

And on a more personal level, I find it most interesting that the candidate – an attorney – apparently has nothing better to do than rummage through my mail. Here I was thinking that attorneys are supposed to keep their cotton-pickin’ hands off other people’s mail. If that’s not downright unethical, it’s certainly obnoxious. (Not that I care overmuch, of course. It just demonstrates the level to which Democrats are willing to stoop.)

(It’s no secret I represent two local land use boards (positions I held well before my election to office, to the extent that matters). And if my billing practices approached those of Democratic firms, and if I then donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to political candidates, I’d be a local issue, too. And justifiably so.)

This "intellectual", "self-reflective", temperate missive from the local Democrat candidate came in response to a letter I wrote contending that when Democrats control a town, they immediately hire a crony Democratic law firm to represent the municipality, at great expense to the taxpayer, and that firm then shovels huge amounts of money into Democratic campaigns. Far from being "slanderous" (the letter, incidentally, never mentioned anyone’s name), these assertions are undeniably true. For an "intellectual" and an attorney, this candidate displays an astonishing lack of care in the use of language. Printable language, anyway.

This, alas, represents the state of the Moveon, DailyKos school of leftist politics and language: one’s political adversaries are not merely mistaken, they’re evil, entitled to no civility, warranting no courtesy, their ideas dismissed with a barnyard epithet. The electorate certainly deserves better.

Confronted by a Democratic candidate, whose level of "intellectual" political discourse would be inappropriate in a locker room, Morris Township voters should seek a candidate with a less colorful vocabulary, a better sense of decorum, and more substantive ideas, to represent them. As it happens, the local Republicans found two: Dan Caffrey and Ray Snyder.