It's The Day After, The Day After And the Sun Still Came Up This Morning

That's right ladies and gentlemen the sun still rose and a new day has dawned. It's time to forget about what happened Tuesday night and move on.

There is no need to feel sorry for ourselves or cast blame on others, the bottom line is that people were / are upset at the direction the State has been heading and they wanted a change in course.

It's unfortunate though; that those at the bottom of the ship were drowned while many of those who are steering the ship survived the tsunami of disaffection.

Many things can be said about how poorly Jon Corzine ran his campaign but why bother at this point? It was no secret, everyone knew that the governor was going to have a hard time getting re-elected. Many supporter cut their loses early and jump ship before the boat pulled away from the dock, others bit the bullet and stood by his side, hoping beyond hope, that by November 3rd the ship would have righted its course. I admit, I was one of them.

Do I regret my support for Jon Corzine? No I don't, as I wrote in earlier pieces Jon Corzine best represented the values that I believed in; early childhood education, universal healthcare reform and fiscal responsibility are just a few that I believe in.

People mocked me when I spoke of the last one, but it’s true Jon Corzine kept the growth of property taxes to just 3.7 percent in recent years and this year, the school tax levy was 2.65%, the lowest it has been in over a decade. He also provided $7 billion of direct property tax relief to the residents of New Jersey, more than any other in history.

Unfortunately those accomplishments were not enough to convince the residents of the Garden State to give him a second chance. Voters were angry at his failures, both personal and professional, from Karla Katz to his 800% toll amortization plan. When you put that on top of the current economic realities of the state like unemployment and the prospect of an $8.billion budget deficit for next year, the people had had enough.

When you further consider the election results it seems that the candidates at the bottom of the ticket, the local candidates, the ones on the frontlines, where the ones that took the biggest hit for Corzine’s failures and not the members of he State Assembly, where it looks like only one seat changed hands.

In the local Monmouth and Ocean Counties races, on both the County and Township level, from what I can see, you can count on one hand how many democrats were elected or re-elected in Monmouth but not one democrat was elected in Ocean County, many good men and women were defeated and Democrats in those counties are angry. They are angry because the governor did not put any time or resources into these counties and it showed on Election Day. The Governor lost each county by more than 60,000 votes each and it would seem that Corzine lost the election due to his apathy for the angry residents in Monmouth and Ocean, an anger which than carried its way towards local candidates, and Democrats are not happy about it.

I have heard that there is a groundswell of anger beginning to come to ahead and changes are underway to shake up the leadership in both the Monmouth County and Ocean County Democratic Parties because of it.

I say that while change may be needed there is no need to act hastily. Democrats need to step back and understand that while these loses hurt and may have set the local parties back a few years, their loses were not necessarily caused by bad or ineffectual ideas or practices on their parts. All this means really, is that they need to work harder in the future and not take anything for granted.

After all, the world did not end Tuesday night, the sun still rose in the morning and challenges still need to be faced. All that has changed is the day, we still need to make the best of it.