The Bergen Record and the Star Ledger, NJ's largest newspaper, have endorsed Democratic challenger Roy Cho for election to the 5th District seat in Congress. OK, the editorials spent most of their column inches on what's so wrong with incumbent Scott Garrett, but they make that point viciously.
The Record editorial starts off wistfully remembering Garrett's "pragmatic conservative" predecessor Marge Roukema, but the Star Ledger goes straight for the "12 monotonous years" of a "retrograde culture warrior" and "pint-sized government monomaniac" (I think they missed a hyphen there, though Garrett is certainly physically diminutive as well), "an ideologue from the rattletrap Far Right long before the Tea Party was ever conceived."
A third paper significant in the district, The Jewish Standard, was left with no choice but to issue a rare endorsement, because Garrett declined to field questions with Cho in an event sponsored by The Standard, the Bergen County NAACP, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey.
This is not to say that Roy Cho should be elected by default, but incumbency shouldn't be entirely a bed of roses. Cho doesn't have a record to run on or against, though Garrett keeps trying — on how many school-board elections has he stayed home? did he continue to vote in Manalapan after he had leased apartments in New York and Hackensack? — and most recently, mailing a blood-colored flyer claiming "Roy Cho's votes" would keep the federal government awash in red ink. But of course Cho hasn't served in a voting role in government yet, so those votes are merely inferred from associating Cho with Pres. Obama and Nancy Pelosi. And the Record says questions about Cho's votes as a citizen — the subject of a robocall from "William" that tried to suggest voter fraud using the words of a Garrett operative as if they weren't simply quoted in a Star Ledger article — "a red herring on the part of Garrett's campaign."
And clearly, in the thinking of these editorial boards, Garrett should be running from his own, Congressional, voting record. The Star Ledger makes it a lengthy litany, remembering for starters that he's the guy
- who advocates oil drilling off our shoreline;
- who was against reauthorizing the Americans with Disabilities Act;
- who was against extending unemployment benefits during the crash of 2008;
- who was against making gasoline price-gouging a crime;
- who was against prescription drug benefits for seniors; and
- who was one of only 11 people in Congress to tell Katrina victims to fend for themselves.
(see the editorial for links to these stories)
Both of the papers have missed a bit what Cho does know about government. During law school at Georgetown, he worked in constituent services for N.Dakota Senator Byron Durgan. He told the
Record board that his first priority for legislation is transportation. That comes from working inside (in a nonpatronage job) the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the body that oversees the whole connection across the Hudson River, vital to both New York City and New Jersey. But the
Star Ledger explicitly recognizes the big difference between the candidates: Garrett just wants to stay put, being a Congressman as he has been all this time. Cho wants to govern, and has some ideas about how to represent the people of northern NJ.
Wed Oct 29, 2014 at 1:31 PM PT: Another major paper, in what may be Garrett's best base, in Warren County, has also endorsed Roy Cho: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/...
Among other points, the Express Times says Cho "is looking for ways to generate economic activity and put people to work, whereas Garrett would slash funding and let the states figure it out."