This calls for my second Casey Stengel quote in less than a week:
The secret to being a successful manager is to keep the players who can’t stand you away from those who haven’t made up their minds yet.
Scott Goss has a fascinating story which, unfortunately, he has butchered again. More on that in a sec, but first the lede:
Senate leadership (that’s Dave McBride and Nicole Poore, for those of you not up to date on your miscreants) is calling a caucus for the day after the General Election to choose the Senate leadership team. It is possible, even probable, that the same is taking place in the House, but the story is so poorly written that it’s impossible to tell for sure. Goss writes that the House is doing the same thing, but he only quotes two Senate members and one Senate candidate in the article. If it’s true, we can add career miscreants Pete Schwartzkopf and Val ‘Our gal PAL’ Longhurst to the list.
Unfortunately, Goss has used passive verbs without ever identifying who is calling for the caucus or caucuses. “…(A)re being asked to choose their future leaders”, and “…are being called to Legislative Hall” are the phrases that alleged journalist and blogging critic Goss uses. How about just telling us who the fuck is calling for the caucuses? Is it both the House and the Senate? Is it both the D’s and the R’s? I mean, Jeezus.
(Deep cleansing breaths). There are only two reasons why leadership would push for this: (1) they’re trying to put pressure on those not even elected yet to commit to supporting them; and (2) they’re seeking to forestall any challenge to their positions. That’s it. Let me just say that it’s unconscionable for leadership to implicitly threaten those who are in close races for office. IMHO, that in and of itself should disqualify them from being in leadership. Unfortunately, what you have is a House leadership team that has governed its caucus through intimidation for years, and a Senate leadership team whose incompetence is only exceeded by the corruption of its Senate Majority Whip, who has her transactional eyes on yet another prize.
I can’t recall this tactic ever being employed before. The unwritten tradition is that the legislators talk to each other informally at Returns Day and get a sense of who might want to run for what. A caucus generally follows a couple of weeks later. There’s no hurry. As long as the caucuses have elected their leadership by the time the General Assembly convenes, everything’s fine.
Dropping this stink bomb onto its members and would-be members just days away from the election is political malpractice. Bryan Townsend said it best:
“We are less than a handful of days away from one of the most critical elections in our country’s history,” said state Sen. Bryan Townsend, D-Newark, who is facing a challenge by Republican Daniel Kapitanic. “I think everyone’s focus should be entirely on that and anything that distracts from the campaigns is unfortunate.”
What’s unfortunate is the fact that the legislative ‘leaders’ responsible for this have their positions. Get together, take some time to talk it out, and then replace them.