Today is the deadline for New Jersey candidates who want to run for Frank Lautenberg’s US Senate seat to file for their primaries. Whatever else Chris Christie did by calling for an October election, he’s made it a fight.
We expect the press will focus on the Republican side. Partly that’s because Steve Lonegan, who may be the only candidate, lost to Christie in 2009, after Christie ripped his fellow Republican for his pro-flat-tax stance. But the press will also be interested because Lonegan fits the storyline of an out-of-touch Republican Party running a Tea-Party type in a blue state.
Even so, we may learn even about the modern Democratic Party. While Christie certainly helped himself by ensuring that Cory Booker’s name — which might get more Democrats out to vote — would not be on the November ballot when he is running for reelection, it’s made the Democratic primary more intriguing.
That’s because the special election allows two of the state’s Democratic congressmen, Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, to run in the primary without risking their seats. And they have said they will.
Here’s where that leaves us. In 2009, Holt was ranked as one of the most liberal members of the House, and he has been endorsed in the past by the New Jersey Education Association — among the nation’s most powerful teachers unions. Pallone, another liberal, has also been an NJEA fave.
As for Booker, he’s liberal on social issues. But he is also an African American mayor who has worked with the free-market Manhattan Institute and supported charters and other reforms anathema to the teachers union. Not to mention calling Obama’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital “nauseating” (before pressure forced him to back down).
Could be a stimulating fight.