New Jerseyans aren’t always civil, but it’s still possible for a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican to have a rational and pleasant conversation about politics in the state. Dan Bryan is a former senior advisor to Gov. Phil Murphy and is now the owner of his own public affairs firm, and Alex Wilkes is an attorney and former executive director of America Rising PAC who advises Republican candidates in New Jersey and across the nation, including the New Jersey GOP. Dan and Alex are both experienced strategists who are currently in the room where high-level decisions are made. They will get together weekly with New Jersey Globe editor David Wildstein to discuss politics and issues.
Mikie Sherrill announced her candidacy for governor on Monday by saying, “Let’s be the state that builds more housing, fixes the economy, and makes life more affordable for hardworking New Jerseyans, from health care to groceries to childcare.” How did Sherrill’s launch go, and how do you handicap the Democratic field of candidates right now?
Dan Bryan: To state the obvious, Mikie Sherrill’s campaign had a very good first week. Her announcement video was spot on, laying out her case with strength, compassion, and urgency. The agenda she put forth feels authentic to who she is as a person, not a candidate, and it lines up with the priorities of New Jersey’s Democratic primary voters. And she followed it up with a strong week of fundraising and endorsements from groups like LiUNA and Emily’s List. Her announcement generated more buzz than any to date.
Does Congresswoman Sherrill enter this race as the favorite for the Democratic nomination? No doubt. But there is still a long way to go, and in a six way race, anything can happen. No one should be crowning any candidate, or taking anything for granted.
Alex Wilkes: I agree with Dan that she emerges as a favorite, but with some tough competition hard at her heels.
The video was slick and I’m sure made with all of the endless amounts of money that being a Democrat can buy you, but I actually thought the launch had sort of a rushed feel compared to some of the others (though still not as weird as the Ras Baraka casual press conference drop in).
For one, there was no in-person event with the pomp and theater people have come to expect. What is this – 2020? We’re still doing virtual announcements? LiUNA couldn’t have dispatched several hundred people to show up somewhere?
Second, there was the matter of her incorrectly identifying which plane her grandfather had flown during the Second World War in the video. Is that a critical, campaign-ending error? Of course not. What it does speak to – in my estimation – is that this may have been a rush job. It’s the kind of thing that would’ve normally been fact-checked by the team if it had been part of a more comprehensive launch.
Maybe I’m wrong, and I don’t pretend to know for the Democrats how important it is to announce before and/or during the League of Municipalities. Did they feel like Josh had a lot of momentum they needed to cut off quickly? I just wouldn’t like being in the position of feeling like my hand was forced (if that’s what happened).
Does Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal as the attorney general-designate take some of the steam out of critics of Donald Trump’s cabinet posts? And with Republicans controlling the Senate, are confirmations of his other nominees — including Pete Hegseth — inevitable?
Alex: Yes. While I have long told candidates that the laws defying political gravity only apply to Donald J. Trump, I think after this election, he has the momentum to put people into place who will shake up Washington. The people have given him that mandate, and I think that gives some early cover to nominees whose personal issues might otherwise derail a nomination. In the case of Gaetz, however, this was coming down to a unique showdown between the nominee and his former colleagues with whom the animosity was simply intolerable. Pam Bondi will make an excellent Attorney General, take the job seriously, and follow Trump’s mandate to clean house.
Dan: Matt Gaetz’s Attorney General appointment was certainly the least defensible of the bunch, but there is still plenty of abject shame to go around.
Maybe now we can focus on Pete Hegseth, whose history of assault against women is more troubling by the day.
Or Tulsi Gabbard, who was reportedly placed on the TSA’s Do Not Fly list.
Or RFK Jr., because of the many RFK Jr. things.
Having co-wrote some of Governor Murphy’s Gaetz jokes at last year’s Gridiron Dinner, I am relieved to see Gaetz’s nomination crash and burn so quickly (I wouldn’t fare well in the gulag). But America is far from out of the woods.
Gannett’s New Jersey newspapers appear to be in deep trouble, with daily print paper circulation down between 89% and 96%. But the Bergen Record’s executive editor, Dan Sforza, told the New Jersey Globe this week that they “have no plans to cease print operations,” like the Star-Ledger, and that “any speculation otherwise is irresponsible misinformation. It seems like Sforza is plating the fake news card, but my question is this: is it irresponsible to Gannett’s shareholders to continue to pretend like nothing is wrong?
Dan: I am in no way rooting against the Bergen Record. It was our household newspaper growing up, and I still have fond memories of reading the sports section over cereal.
But let’s be honest with ourselves – other than the logo, the print product that Gannett puts out now has no resemblance to the Bergen Record of old. I have no idea how much longer Gannett will keep printing them for, but I can’t fault anyone for canceling their subscription.
The shame is that there are still good reporters, columnists, and editorial writers at the paper. But I’ll never forget my meeting with a newly-appointed Editor in Chief back in Governor Murphy’s first term. We sat down to meet and I asked him what his focus was in the upcoming year. He paused, looked at me, and said “I just hope we’re still here in a year.” (That person, despite doing a phenomenal job, is now gone.)
So whether or not the “Bergen Record” is still being printed, much like the Star Ledger, the print edition ceased to exist in any real way many years ago. I value and appreciate the hard work all of the remaining employees still do, and hope Gannett starts doing the same.
Alex: This is a simple issue of supply and demand. If you make a good product, people will want to buy it. Some might say it’s an apples to oranges comparison, but I think that Elon Musk’s transformation of Twitter into the free speech Mecca of “X” shows that there is a real appetite for uncensored information.
I still think (with some tweaks) that the traditional model can respond to that need. Our crazy election with twists and turns every day showed that people still cared about deeply-sourced, investigative journalism. People may have found their way to those stories through social media, but what’s the difference to a publisher who’s getting their revenue through clicks?
The main problem with the traditional media here is that they became too complacent and too willing to turn a blind eye to stories that went against their worldview. We saw how Governor Christie’s administration produced talent that quickly got exported out of state once we went back to Democratic one-party rule and publishers and editors apparently felt like there would be no scandals worth covering (ha!). Fast forward to 2021 and 2024, and we had papers without the resources to cover impending political earthquakes here that could have been just as informative to a national audience as the on-the-ground reporting from other big and influential states was.
This isn’t the 1960s anymore where a few guys get together in a room and tell us what’s newsworthy. Adapt or die.
Facing voters on November 5, Clark Mayor Sal Bonaccorso entered into a plea agreement with state prosecutors on corruption charges in October, but a Superior Court Judge couldn’t squeeze this onto her busy calendar, so voters re-elected him without the chance to know that he’d privately admitted to committing crimes he’d publicly denied. Some people say — me included — that this is an inadvertent form of election interference because we’ll never know if voters would have made different choice if they’d had all of the facts. Is it?
Alex: Talk to Phil Murphy and Nick Scutari about why the judges are so busy!
Dan: It’s hard to call this election interference when voters knew the severity of the charges before him well in advance. Anyone willing to look past the charges is likely to look past an admission of guilt.