It's clear that the party has no interest in winning this seat, and so this year they have given us Paul Aronsohn, a former Pfizer PR flack.
Admittedly, I'm predisposed to find Aronsohn wanting, since I worked for, and am a friend of, his primary opponent. But since these are dangerous times, and we have a president who wants to give the Secretary of Defense the power to brand ANYONE for ANY REASON as an enemy combatant and deprive them of their until now Constitutionally-protected right to due process combined with a Republican-controlled Congress who gives him everything he wants, one could argue that Democratic control is the only way to stop him.
There's just one problem. Look at the Democrats in Congress. Look at the Democratic leadership. Do YOU think these people are going to stop him -- even if they control the House and Senate?
I vowed in 2004, after John Kerry took his $14 million in leftover campaign cash and got outta Dodge even before all the Ohio votes were counted, even as his running mate was announcing that the ticket would fight for every vote, that I would never, ever again vote for another Democrat who wasn't in it to win; another Democrat who refused to understand what we're dealing with in these Republicans; another Vichy Democrat more concerned with his own career than with serving his constituents.
In 2004, I watched in Iowa as John Kerry and Dick Gephardt pooled their funds to run a barrage of attack ads against Howard Dean to knock him out of the race. And when the time came, I was a good soldier. This year I watched as Chuck Schumer forced Paul Hackett out of the Ohio Senate race in favor of the "party guy." And I vowed never again to further enable this bunch.
In the primary race in NJ, I worked for the campaign of Camille Abate, who got into the race barely three months before the primary, and managed to get a third of the vote, with a ragtag team of highly committed people, running off the party line (which in NJ is as bad positioning as you can get), with 1/6 the money spent by her opponent. 66% is a pretty shabby primary performance for a candidate backed by all the district's party organizations. In 2004, by comparison, Anne Wolfe received 85% of the primary vote.
But when the dust cleared, Paul Aronsohn was the candidate we've been given to vote for if we want to get rid of Scott Garrett.
Garrett is about as odious a Republican as you're going to find. He's been a loyal disciple of Tom DeLay. He's a Christofascist who got into office on sheer name recognition after the retirement of Marge Roukema in 2000. He had mounted primary challenges to the moderate Roukema twice, running as a conservative alternative. But when Roukema retired, suddenly he was running on "I'm just like Marge." In fact, there are many people in this district who still believe Marge Roukema is their representative.
Garrett's voting record is dismal. Most recently, he voted against renewal of the Voting Rights Act and against embryonic stem cell research. This is a Very Bad Guy, who can be relied on to allow George W. Bush to continue to turn the United States of American into the Fourth Reich.
And here in the Fifth District of New Jersey, standing between us and this Bush enabler is one Paul Aronsohn, a dweeby pharma flack who refuses to take a stand on anything.
My previous dealings with Mr. Aronsohn took place in an e-mail conversation about net neutrality. I was concerned because Mike McCurry is one of the public faces of his campaign, and wanted to know if he supported net neutrality, given the fact that the telecom industry's leading lobbyist for HR5252 is helping him raise funds. I was met with a torrent of righteous indignation, accusing me of making "personal attacks", in which Aronsohn said he didn't know enough about the issue to venture an opinion.
"I don't know enough about it" is standard Aronsohn boilerplate, it seems; for he answered a question last night in the same way. In one interview, he has said that he would confer with people he respects to determine how he would vote on issues on which he isn't sufficiently informed. He's not saying he's going to learn, he's essentially saying he's going to take marching orders from Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton and the other hacks of the Democratic Party.
I had prepared three questions -- one on net neutrality, one on Iraq, and one on health care. Net neutrality is moot at this point, for HR5252 will be either passed or rejected by November. Most of the questions were the kind of softballs that made me feel as if I were sitting at a Bush press conference in which just about everyone other than the people I was with were clones of Jeff Gannon and Les Kingsolver -- questions like "How can we help you?" and "Which grassroots organization should we support?" -- and I'm Helen Thomas, the 4'10" Mouth that Walks who's the only one asking the tough questions.
Another attendee at the meeting finally asked him about Iraq, confronting him on an earlier statement that we had to stay the course -- a statement which he denied ever making but which two people have attested he has made. So I asked him about health care in the context of corporatism. You see, Aronsohn describes himself as a "pro-business, pro-defense, moderate Democrat" -- which to me spells C-O-R-P-O-R-A-T-I-S-T.
Here's what I asked:
You've advocated a "national health care summit" that brings together "all stakeholders -- governors, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, nurses, patient advocates, etc. -- everyone except the actual consumers of health care. You are a former employee of Pfizer, and you have accepted campaign donations from them. What assurance do we as your potential constituents have that you will be voting in our interest and not the interest of Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies?
Predictably, Aronsohn waxed rhapsodic about how wonderful his experience with Pfizer was, and about how Pfizer decided while he was there to reach out to the Democratic National Committee, especially with the tide turning against Republicans. He mentioned that the new Pfizer CEO is a Democrat. He brought out his standard biolerplate about "we have to stop pointing fingers", which is Aronsohn-speak for "I don't want to answer your question." As with everything else with this guy, he didn't answer the question, and his response, quite frankly, just confirmed him as just another corporatist Democrat. He didn't even have it together enough to lie to me and say, "I will always put your interests first." Instead, he spouts the DLC corporatist line, which is essentially "What's Good for General Bullmoose (sic) is Good for the USA"
So this is my alternative to Scott Garrett -- a guy who didn't even live in the district until he decided to run for this seat and who is likely to ditch his rental apartment the minute he loses; a Clintonista hack who can't directly answer a question; a guy who refers to his experiences as a Big Pharma PR flack as "public service."
I'm not implying that Aronsohn is a bad guy, and I have no doubt that on some level he believes that what he does really IS public service. But I do get the sense that he is a lot more about Paul Aronsohn's career, potentially a cabinet spot in what he believes will be a Hillary Clinton administration in 2008, than about representing the Fifth Congressional District of New Jersey. Yes, he's better than Garrett -- but is he enough better to cause change in the Democratic Party? I don't think so. I think he is More Of The Same, and that brings me back to the vow I made on Election Day 2004.
So what the hell am I supposed to do in November? Paul Aronsohn is everything that makes me disgusted about the Democratic Party. The way he was chosen by the Bergen County Democrats is everything that makes me disgusted about party politics. I feel it's vitally important that we hold Democrats' feet to the fire and let them know that we will not put up with "Repub-lite" any longer; that we will no longer tolerate their enabling of the Bush Administration. But how are we going to do that as long as we continue to let them give us candidates like this?
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