One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them…until the federal court snatches the ring and tells the Democrats to knock it off.
When Tammy Murphy declared her candidacy for the senate seat currently occupied by Bob Menendez she set off a sequence of events the thought of which, mere months ago, would have woken New Jersey’s Democratic party bosses in a cold sweat. Tammy bulldozed her way into the campaign buoyed by the support of her husband and the Democrat county bosses who control the ballot. Cue a successful court challenge from Andy Kim and in a blink the source of the party’s ability to control the ballot, the county line, is gone. At the very minimum for the primary and maybe for good. Fingers crossed.
It’s hard to overstate how big of a deal this is for Jersey politics. The county bosses were the gatekeepers. They controlled the ballot so If you wanted to run for office you had to kiss the ring. Without the ability to curate the ballot like a wine list, the bosses lose a big wet chunk of their power and candidates who were reluctant to play ball before have a chance to run for office without a fealty pledge. To me, that seems like an unequivocally positive thing, but you’ll still find some folks who denying the party the ability to force feed voter the candidate of the party’s choice will lead to chaos! Chaos I tell you! Democracy overload, mass hysteria! Every other state in the union has managed to survive without the county line, I think we can too.
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