Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Thoughts On Booker's Special Primary Election Win

It's been a week now since Cory Booker won the Democratic special primary election for the chance to succeed the late Frank Lautenberg to become the next U.S. Senator from New Jersey. If you have followed this blog you'd know that I supported Booker's opponent Frank Pallone.

I supported Frank Pallone because he is my congressman and I like him very much. He gets a bad rap from those that reign over Middletown because he is a Democrat. They like to portray him as weak and a "do nothing" member of congress even though he has represented the Northern Monmouth County Bayshore region amiably since 1988 in congress. And when Hurricane Sandy devastated the area, he was there to make sure that Middletown residents in Belford, Leonardo, Navesink, North Middletown and Port Monmouth, along with those from Keyport, to Sea Bright to Long Branch got there fair share of relief from the federal government in their time of need.

Pallone winning the primary was an extreme long shot but nevertheless he put up a good fight against Booker, but the Newark Mayor won the primary running away with 60% of the vote (Pallone came in second place with 20%).

Pallone's loss was bittersweet. On the one hand I am slightly sadden, he would have made an excellent U.S. Senator. On the other, he now won't have to resign from his seat in Congress and he will still be representing the residents of the 6th Congressional District, of which I am happy about.

During the last few days of the campaign Booker's opponents did there best to tarnish and sully his squeaky clean, superhero image. None of it did much damage to Booker but it will add some ammunition to the guns of his October 16th challenger Steve Lonegan. Short of  a 20 megaton bomb however, Lonegan doesn't have much of  a chance against Cory Booker.

Booker should easily cruise to a 15 point victory over Lonegan and then head down to Washington for what should be a very long time.

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