In this legislative general election cycle, some incumbents are looking inward and trying to discover the compelling public reason for their own re-elections as most of them face no-hope “adversaries.”
In other cases, certain incumbent political animals have their own built-in challenges and benchmarks that have nothing to do with the propped-up Democrat or Republican on the other side who is already gerrymandered out of contention and yet continues to go through the press release exercises of a legitimate contender.
In the weeks remaining before Election Day, PolitickerNJ.com will profile several “races” per week and identify the real reasons why the respective safety-netted Statehouse regulars even climb off the couches at all to put forward an effort.
We’ll start with LD 33…
It must be hard to be Beth Hamburger running for state Senate in LD 33.
Not only is she a Republican challenger in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, but as the GOP elsewhere tries to cheerlead the agenda of its leader, Gov. Chris Christie, Hamburger faces state Sen. Brian P. Stack, (D-33), of Union City, one of Christie’s biggest cheerleaders.
But whatever message Hamburger tries to advance (we’re guessing it’s less government and lower taxes) was wrapped in Stack’s cocoon of horror the day the GOP put her in Stack’s line of re-election fire.
Whether it’s Hamburger or anyone else who runs in Hudson County, Stack would flame broil that general election GOP challenger 100 times out of a hundred in this Democratic Party stronghold.
Of course, Stack doesn’t care about Hamburger.
Even in a general election, the renegade Democrat’s enemies remain the same and are best defined by the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) and Stack’s next-door rival, state Sen. Nick Sacco, (D-32), of North Bergen.
Cut off from West New York – one of his base towns – during redistricting, and pushed by his own party into a bigger section of Jersey City, Stack craves only the continuing projection of his own power.
Eager to show his HCDO antagonists that he can survive anywhere and even come out on the other side of an election more buffed than before, Stack looks at the November general election as a chance to put up a personal best.
“This general election to us is life and death,” a source close to Stack told PolitickerNJ.com.
In his primary re-election bid, Stack, without any opposition on the ballot, recorded higher turnout numbers in his favor than any other primary candidate statewide.
Again, Stack didn’t care about what appeared on the ballot.
He was thinking about Sacco, as his much heralded political machine humbled his old same-party rival from North Bergen – 16,000 (Stack) versus 10,000 (Sacco) vote totals.
Now, faced with what to him amounts to a general election prop, Stack still has Sacco, and the bigger delineations of the HCDO, in his sights.
He ideally wants to generate another 16 grand vote total to firm up his status as an independent brand who can put monster numbers on the board even when he’s facing the likes of Hamburger.
One potential implication here that particularly frightens Democrats is Stack’s alliance with Gov. Chris Christie. If Stack – who has already called Christie the greatest governor ever – can continue to display the highly productive capacities of his own machine and backs Christie’s re-election in 2013, Hudson’s Democratic Party would sustain concussive political humiliation.
See all of PolitickerNJ’s featured races here
