Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we prove it every week. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends. Here, they discuss the week’s events with editorial page editor Tom Moran.
Q. Thursday’s debate left Democrats in a state of panic. While Donald Trump offered a familiar torrent of false statements, President Biden’s inability to clearly express his thoughts was striking. How badly will Biden be hurt?
Julie: Let’s not sugarcoat this. This was an awful debate for Biden, one that raises anew concerns about his age and ability to govern for another four years. In fact, it was so bad that about fifteen minutes in, I had to walk out to a different room because I couldn’t stand to watch what was happening to the president. Biden will be hurt by this and the only question is how much. If I were in his shoes, I would immediately get on the road, hold rallies in every swing state and show some energy to prove that this was one bad night. Otherwise, I fear the narrative will be permanently baked in, if it is not already.
Mike: This was an unmitigated disaster for Biden and Democrats. Biden had one goal, to show he is still up for the job, and he failed. Personally, I cannot believe those closest to him, those who love and care abouthim, let him run. He is not the same person as 4 years ago or 10 years ago as VP. If he voluntarily served one term as president after two terms as VP and 35+ years in the US Senate, he would have gone down in history very favorably, and would be treated with great respect from both sides right now. Instead, he risks going out as a failure or a punchline because no one had the courage to tell him not to run.
Q. Is there any chance Biden can be convinced to step down from this race, and allow the party convention in Chicago to pick a new candidate? What would it take to convince him?
Julie: Biden believes he is the only candidate to beat Trump because he has done it before. There is some merit to this. The next logical runner-up is Kamala Harris, who is also deeply unpopular, so her candidacy would face resistance at the convention. But if delegates pass over Harris, they pass over the first Black woman who could be president, which is a huge rebuke to Black women, the backbone of the Democratic Party for at least the last 55 years. And do we really want a Democratic food fight for the nomination, when we should be training all our firepower on Trump?
Julie: The only way this could work is if Jill Biden goes to her husband, tells him that it’s time to go, and asks him to anoint a successor publicly, which would go a long way with party leaders. Having said that, some ambitious governor or senator will jump in anyway, so there will not be a placid coronation. The bottom line is this: If Biden is not out by next week, Democrats need to stop the bedwetting, prop him up and remind voters all day and every day that even an ancient Biden is better than a convicted felon who will lead our nation into autocracy.
Mike: There is zero merit to Biden’s argument now. Not only is not the only candidate who could beat Trump, he is probably the only one that would lose to Trump. Sometimes, politics is simple. Right now, the country is mad and wants someone new. Compared to Biden, Trump is someone new. Compared to anyone else, Trump already had his chance, and the someone else would be fresh and new. If Democrats truly think Trump is the threat to democracy they profess, it’s time to speak the hard truth to Joe Biden and ask him to step aside. The delegates at the convention are pledged to Biden. This is not the 1800′s. He is the nominee unless he chooses not to run.
Q. Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York became the first member of the left-leaning “Squad” to be ousted from office, losing the Democratic primary decisively to George Latimer, the Westchester County executive. The race was marked by huge spending against Bowman by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, along with active support he received from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Is the Squad losing juice, or is this a blip?
Julie: Pundits are trying to imbue this particular race with a wider meaning that it just doesn’t have. First, Bowman was a particularly flawed candidate, who voted against a Democratic infrastructure bill, pulled a fire alarm in the Capitol and then lied about it, and focused too much on national and international concerns, instead of his own district. That was never more evident than when he did a rally in the South Bronx and talked/cursed about how his opponents don’t represent South Bronx values, which is all well and good, except that he conveniently forgot that he, too, does not actually represent the South Bronx.
Julie: Bowman’s rhetoric was not just anti-Israeli. He defended keeping up a mural of Minister Farrakhan, a notorious antisemite. He said that reports of Israeli women being raped on October 7 was “propaganda,” which begs the question of why some progressives are so ready to believe all women, unless they happen to be Jewish women. He decided to convene a meeting of clergy in his district on Shavuot, which he must have or should have known would preclude rabbis from attending. He asked a rabbi for a picture to prove that he was “friends with Jewish people.” Even before AIPAC spent any money in this race, Bowman was trailing his opponent by 17 points. He is a uniquely bad politician who misunderstood his district. That’s not on AIPAC or the Squad. That is squarely on him.
Mike: The Democratic Party, at least in New York, has not gone completely nuts and far left. Mayor Adams was not the farthest left candidate and is a former cop implementing the same policing policies brought in by Giuliani and continued by Bloomberg. He beat some crazy left candidates. And throwing out Jamaal Bowman is a step in the right direction for the party and the country. He looked to be melting down in a fit of anger and profanity toward the end, even with stalwart socialists AOC and Bernie helicoptering in to show support.
Mike: I forgot about the fire alarm. Weird. Both parties rejected the extremes this week. In Utah, Republicans nominated a center-right candidate for US Senate over a far-right, Trump-endorsed candidate, just like we did in New Jersey. This also happened in congressional races in Colorado and South Carolina in GOP primaries where Trump-endorsed candidates lost. Not every clone of Trump or Bernie can replicate the appeal each has.
Q. Legislative leaders and Gov. Phil Murphy have agreed to a budget that raises spending by 4.2 percent and plugs a $1 billion budget gap at NJ Transit by hiking taxes on the state’s 600 largest companies, which will now face the nation’s highest tax rate, at 11.5 percent. Thoughts?
Julie: Hard to have thoughts on a budget that none of us has had a chance to read.
Mike: Increasing the state’s business tax to the highest in the country is a disastrous policy idea. Disastrous. This class warfare against business probably sounds good in focus groups but it’s hurting real New Jersey families. Look at the record over the Murphy years. New Jersey had 22 Fortune 500 companies headquartered here when Christie was governor. We are down to 14. New Jersey has the 5th-highest unemployment rate in the country.
Mike: Honeywell moved its HQ out of state. ExxonMobil moved a research facility out of state, costing 600 jobs. Walmart moved a distribution facility out of state and cut 200 jobs. Prudential cut 200 jobs. Bristol Meyers Squibb cut 900 jobs. Siemens cut 500 jobs. LabCorp laid off 200. Pfizer shuttered a campus costing 900 jobs. Nestle and Nabisco have closed factories. These terrible policies have consequences. Real New Jersey residents lost their jobs and now may have to move their families. Enough with the class warfare. This is a bad decision.
Q. The budget includes another $220 million set-aside for StayNJ, a property-tax credit for seniors earning up to $500,000 that is championed by Speaker Craig Coughlin. Still, that’s a fraction of the $1.2 billion annual cost the Treasury estimates the state will face if the program actually gets off the ground in 2026, as Coughlin hopes. Given the worsening structural deficit, is Coughlin dreaming?
Julie: The one thing to know about Craig Coughlin is that he speaks softly but carries a big stick. There has not been a budget battle that I can remember where he didn’t get his one big priority funded. I am confident that he will figure out a way to get this done – maybe not at existing levels but at some level.
Mike: Giving tax breaks to seniors is a win, always has been, always will be.
Q. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop took direct aim at two county Democratic chairman who work as lobbyists in Trenton – Kevin McCabe of Middlesex County and LeRoy Jones of Essex County, who also serves as state chair. Is Fulop right when he says this represents a “clear ethical conflict” and charges that they are “either lying to their clients or lying to the public”?
Julie: In my experience, you win big races by addition, not subtraction. LeRoy Jones and Kevin McCabe chair two of the largest Democratic counties in the state. I can speak with much more experience about Middlesex than Essex, because I worked with Kevin McCabe for a very long time. He is successful not because of the line but because he has built one of the strongest organizations in the state through hard and methodical work. In all the years I worked with him, I never saw him threaten an elected official, ever. People don’t follow him not out of fear. They follow him because he is a good leader who has flipped Republican towns and made Middlesex an indispensable part of why Democrats have been resurgent at the statewide level over the last decade.
Mike: Many county chairs on both sides of the aisle make their livings around politics or government. What matters to the county committee members who elect them is their track record of winning, picking the right candidates, and delivering at the local and county level. Many county committee members appreciate the influence their chairs have in Trenton or on statewide policy and politics due to their day jobs. Jones and McCabe are good at what they do. Republicans would like to have a few more county chairs who can deliver votes for candidates the way they can.
Q. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican lawsuit that attempted to bar the federal government from contacting social media companies over alleged disinformation, which the suit claimed were coercive and amounted to censorship. At what point does a call from the White House amount to bullying, or even censorship?
Julie: That is an excellent question and I suspect the answer is like that old adage from Justice Potter Stewart about pornography: You know it when you see it. The federal government, like the rest of us, should have the right to contact anyone about anything. On the other hand, my contacting Facebook to complain is a little less threatening that the White House doing it, especially when the president has the ability to sign executive orders, promote legislation and otherwise make life a living hell for those who defy him. Just imagine what a vengeful President Trump will do with this court decision if he is ever allowed back in the White House.
Mike: Social media companies should not be above questioning from the government. No other businesses are exempt, so why should they be. In fact, major communications companies like television and radio have even higher standards of government scrutiny and regulation, so social media companies who profit handsomely off the division their products sew, are not above hearing questions.
Q. Finally, Bill Spadea, the 101.5 shock jock who is running for governor, wants to keep his radio show on the air but is facing scrutiny from the state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission, which may rule that the show would be an in-kind donation from the radio station. What do you think? Is this legal for him to stay on the air? Is it fair?
Julie: I am not a lawyer, so I can’t speak to the legality of 101.5 giving Spadea four hours of free airtime every day. It seems like a massive in-kind contribution to me, which is why every time one of my former colleagues at Fox News even contemplated running for something, he or she would immediately lose his or her contracts. But we can whine and complain all we want about whether it is fair or ethical and it won’t matter to Spadea or to Townsquare Media, his employer. The only thing that matters is whether it is legal and by the time that question winds its way through the courts, Spadea’s campaign will be long over.
Mike: The Spadea camp and every other Republican camp knew this question would be immediate. Spadea would not be a statewide candidate if not for the popularity of his show for the past decade, so no one on either side can question the overall value of the show to his public profile. If this was a federal election, there would be zero chance he could stay on the air without the station giving equal time to his opponents. Democrats in Trenton have gutted ELEC’s authority recently, so we will see if they rule the way the federal government obviously would. I will add this -- ratings and ad revenue must be quite good for 101.5 to not simply concede the way FOX and most other networks do when an on-air personality considers a run for office. I guess that’s a good problem.
Editor’s note: This version of Friendly Fire has been modified to correct an overstatement of the cost of StayNJ. The original combined the cost of StayNJ with the cost of the Anchor rebate program for a total of $3.5 billion. StayNJ will cost $1.2 billion a year, Treasury says. Other estimates run higher.
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A note to readers: Mike and Julie are deeply engaged in politics and commercial advocacy in New Jersey, so both have connections to many players discussed in this column. DuHaime, the founder of MAD Global, has worked for Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and President George W. Bush and is currently consulting Senate candidate Curtis Bashaw. Roginsky, a principal of Comprehensive Communications Group, has served as senior advisor to campaigns of Cory Booker, Frank Lautenberg, and Phil Murphy. We will disclose specific connections only when readers might otherwise be misled.
