The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Fox News’ Bret Baier , that his “profession is done” if President Trump wins re-election come Nov. 3, and proves the national polls wrong yet again.
Continue reading It is time to launch a federal investigation of the polling industry
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, radio show host
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s tax plan takes another shot at the tri-state area . CNBC has already reported the massive tax increases to New Jersey, and New york residents . According to CNBC some New Jersey residents will be paying as much as 60% in taxes, New York State 58% , and New York City 62% .
Continue reading Biden’s Tax Plan Spells Doom for New Jersey
photo Stormy-Daniels
July 24,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are among those touted as serious Democratic presidential contenders in 2020, but three-out-of-four Democrats think their party needs to turn to someone new.
But according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 73% of Likely Democratic Voters believe their party should look for a fresh face to run for president in 2020. Just 16% disagree and think the party should promote a candidate who has already run in the past. Eleven percent (11%) are undecided.
By comparison, with Clinton seen as a shoo-in for the 2016 nomination, just 36% of Democrats were calling for a new face in that election, but an unusually high 21% were undecided.
Among all likely voters, 65% say Democrats should find a new face for 2020, while only 19% think it should go with someone who has run for the White House before. Sixteen percent (16%) are not sure.
Inside a decimated party’s not-so-certain revival strategy.
DOVERE January 19, 2017
Standing with some 30,000 people in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia the night before the election watching Hillary Clinton speak, exhausted aides were already worrying about what would come next. They expected her to win, of course, but they knew President Clinton was going to get thrashed in the 2018 midterms—the races were tilted in Republicans’ favor, and that’s when they thought the backlash would really hit. Many assumed she’d be a one-term president. They figured she’d get a primary challenge. Some of them had already started gaming out names for who it would be.
“Last night I stood at your doorstep / Trying to figure out what went wrong,” Bruce Springsteen sang quietly to the crowd in what he called “a prayer for post-election.” “It’s gonna be a long walk home.”
What happened the next night shocked even the most pessimistic Democrats. But in another sense, it was the reckoning the party had been expecting for years. They were counting on a Clinton win to paper over a deeper rot they’ve been worrying about—and to buy them some time to start coming up with answers. In other words, it wasn’t just Donald Trump. Or the Russians. Or James Comey. Or all the problems with how Clinton and her aides ran the campaign. Win or lose, Democrats were facing an existential crisis in the years ahead—the result of years of complacency, ignoring the withering of the grass roots and the state parties, sitting by as Republicans racked up local win after local win.
“The patient,” says Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, “was clearly already sick.”
As Trump takes over the GOP and starts remaking its new identity as a nationalist, populist party, creating a new political pole in American politics for the first time in generations, all eyes are on the Democrats. How will they confront a suddenly awakened, and galvanized, white majority? What’s to stop Trump from doing whatever he wants? Who’s going to pull a coherent new vision together? Worried liberals are watching with trepidation, fearful that Trump is just the beginning of worse to come, desperate for a comeback strategy that can work.
Biden in ’92: No election-season Supreme Court nominees
By Sarah Wheaton
02/22/16 04:36 PM EST
Updated 02/22/16 07:19 PM EST
Republicans are delighted that a recently unearthed Joe Biden speech appears to be a strong endorsement of the GOP’s current Supreme Court strategy.
“Politics has played far too large a role in the Reagan-Bush nominations to date. One can only imagine that role becoming overarching if a choice were made this year, assuming that a justice was announced tomorrow that he or she was stepping down,” Biden said on the Senate floor in June 1992, not long after Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination to challenge then-President George H.W. Bush.
“A process that is already in doubt in the minds of many will become distrusted by all,” Biden continued. “Senate consideration of a nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the president, the nominee or to the Senate itself.”
Nearly 24 years later, after C-Span posted the old video, Republicans are offering Biden a hearty second — at least to the part of the 90-minute speech where he calls on the Senate to “seriously consider” not scheduling confirmation hearings and dismissing the potential impact of a short-handed court.
“The precedent of not confirming SCOTUS justices nominated in election years was established by both parties,” the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) tweeted on Monday, with a link to a 2-minute clip of the old footage.
In the aftermath of Antonin Scalia’s death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was quick to say that any nominee to fill the vacancy should wait until after the coming election.
The clips and quotes Republicans seized on, however, ignored a passage buried deep in the transcript where Biden called for a “compromise” pick, much as he’s done in the past week.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/joe-biden-supreme-court-nominee-1992-219635#ixzz410xD3RQl
By Dana Bash, Eric Bradner and Jeff Zeleny, CNN
Washington (CNN)Vice President Joe Biden’s associates are setting up interviews for potential staff positions on a Biden presidential campaign, a source familiar with the process tells CNN.
The interviews come as the political world waits for a decision from Biden on whether he will enter the Democratic 2016 presidential primary.
Biden is set to meet with his top political advisers Monday night — the same group he met with at least twice last week.
Also last week, Biden made calls throughout the week to ask Democratic operatives and officials to work for him if he does enter the 2016 race, people familiar with the conversations told CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/19/politics/joe-biden-decision-president-2016/
By JULIANNA GOLDMAN CBS NEWS October 3, 2015, 2:41 PM
Vice President Joe Biden is nearing a decision on whether to run for president, and it could come as early as within the next seven to 10 days, according to three people familiar with his deliberations.
Two of those people said he is leaning toward entering the race. Still, they caution that family considerations remain the overriding concern and would be the reason he doesn’t run. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, has said that should the vice president launch a bid for the Oval Office, “of course” she would “be on board.”
Even if Biden decides to seek the Democratic nomination before the party’s first debate on Oct. 13, he likely would not participate, sources told CBS News.
They said he’d need time – perhaps a couple of weeks – to put together the foundations of a campaign and raise money looking ahead to several ballot deadlines. States like New Hampshire, Texas and Florida have deadlines beginning in November.
Biden has been weighing a White House bid for the last few months, with several Democratic fundraisers even pledging their support should he launch a presidential campaign.
Some donors who have met with the vice president in recent weeks told CBS News they came away with the impression that he was going to run.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-could-decide-presidential-run-in-next-week/
By Theodore Schleifer, CNN
shington (CNN)Vice President Joe Biden fares better against top GOP candidates in hypothetical general election match-ups than Hillary Clinton, according to a new national survey.
The Quinnipiac University poll, released Thursday, also shows Donald Trump smashing the GOP presidential competition garnering 28% support from registered Republican voters in the 17-member field. The real estate mogul’s closest competitor is retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who tallies 12%.
Just 7% said they would vote for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a record low since November 2013.
Those results show just how far both Trump — now the Republican front-runner — and Bush — the old one — have come. Bush led national polls for much of the first half of 2015, but was quickly dislodged by Trump, after he announced his presidential ambitions this June.
Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida both are tied with Bush at 7%, the polls shows, with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 6% and former tech CEO Carly Fiorina and Ohio Gov. John Kasich tied at 5%.
“Donald Trump soars; Ben Carson rises; Jeb Bush slips and some GOP hopefuls seem to disappear,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the survey. “Trump proves you don’t have to be loved by everyone, just by enough Republicans to lead the GOP pack.”
And Trump certainly isn’t loved by everyone, the survey shows. About 1-in-4 GOP voters say they would never vote for Trump, topping the field. Bush comes in second with 18%.
Clinton still leads the Democratic race at 45% support from registered Democrats, followed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at 22% and Biden — who is currently mulling a 2016 bid — at 18%.
But Biden, currently sporting the highest favorability rating among any 2016 candidates polled of either party, tops Trump 48% to 40%, compared to Clinton, who beats Trump 45% to 41%. Biden also beats Bush, 45% to 39%, compared to Clinton, who beats Bush 42% to 40%.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/politics/donald-trump-jeb-bush-poll-quinnipiac/index.html
As the vice president edges toward a presidential run, is he banking on further public disclosures to discredit the frontrunner?
YONI APPELBAUM
AUG 26, 2015
As Joe Biden edges closer to a presidential run, there’s no shortage of theories as to what he’s up to. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has built a commanding lead in the national polls, giving Biden little apparent space to gain traction. Perhaps he’s counting on the early-primary state of South Carolina to provide a critical boost. He might be banking on appearing as a stronger general-election candidate than any of his potential rivals in the primary race. Maybe after spending the past 42 years of his life running for elective office, he just can’t stop.
But there’s one intriguing theory that has so far garnered little attention: What if Biden knows something about Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton that the rest of us don’t?
After jumping to what seemed a prohibitively large early lead, Clinton has stumbled in recent months. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, hardly the most charismatic politician, has emerged as a viable challenger, generating enormous enthusiasm on the campaign trail, and surging ahead in polling averages in New Hampshire.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/joe-biden-hillary-clinton-email/402448/
August 25, 2015, 10:12 am
By Jesse Byrnes
President Obama has given Vice President Biden his “blessing” to launch a 2016 bid for the White House if he chooses to run, a senior Democrat told CNN on Monday.
Obama and Biden met for a private lunch at the White House on Monday, where the president gave Biden the green light for launching a 2016 bid, CBS News also reported.
While Biden does not need Obama’s permission, the president made it clear to Biden that he would not stand in the way or advise him against running, the senior Democrat told CNN.
https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/251876-obama-said-to-give-biden-his-blessing
Aug 22, 2015 7:51 PM EDT
Vice President Joe Biden’s meeting Saturday with Senator Elizabeth Warren doesn’t necessarily mean a Biden-Warren ticket for 2016, but it showed Democratic party activists and donors how seriously he’s pondering a late run for president.
The private, surprise session between the vice president and Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat once seen as Hillary Clinton’s strongest challenger for the nomination, comes at a pivotal point in the contest.
After his son Beau’s death in May from brain cancer, Biden has been shifting from not ruling out a run against Clinton to a posture in which he and backers are strategically, if mostly behind the scenes, testing his viability in early voting states and among uncommitted, major Democratic donors.
While Clinton remains the frontrunner, with support from key donors and organizers locked down, mounting concerns about how she’s handled questions about her use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state have increased support for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist who many in the Democratic establishment believe can’t win a general election.
Warren supporters comprise an energetic and significant element of the Democratic base. Clinton, who also understands Warren’s importance in the party, met privately with her last December.
