Leonard Lance

Today New Jersey's congressional delegation is made up of 7 Democrats and 5 Republicans. Not one of the Democrats is being seriously challenged for reelection-- in fact two, Bill Pacsrell and have no opponents at all. Two of the Republicans, Frank LoBiondo and Don Payne, have no opponent at all. Other Democrats have only pro forma opposition.

Last cycle Peter Jacob was another official candidate of the Democratic Party who the DCCC adamantly ignored. The Democratic Party establishment in Kings Landing sure didn't like anyone getting behind Bernie, the way Peter did!

Yeah, that's Sean Duffy on the right... helping wreck America with impunityFunny how elections focus the minds of politicians-- or at least elections where there is real opposition.

Yesterday NJ.com posted a piece about the bigly renewed interest of Democrats to run against GOP healthcare flip-flopper Leonard Lance. Lance backed TrumpCare in committee, was pummeled with harsh criticism in his central New Jersey district, and then did an about face and voted against it Thursday.

Hey, who does the candidate recruiting around here?As everyone knows by now, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy pulled their TrumpCare proposal off the floor of the House for the second-- and final-- time yesterday. Good riddance to a bill that basically no one liked except Ryan himself and some fellow Ayn Rand devotees.

Republican Christopher Smith was elected to Congress 37 years ago, in 1980, age 27. He had been a Democrat but switched parties in 2 years earlier and ran against crooked Democrat, Frank Thompson, who had been convicted of taking bribes in the Abscam scandal. The Democrats have coveted taking the district back ever since-- but have been highly unsuccessful in ever getting anywhere near doing so.

How many suburban congressman besides Issa will live to regret backing Trump?I have a part-time job-- congressional recruiting. It's voluntary and it's GRUELING. In between the time I wrote "congressional" and "recruiting" in the last sentence, I had a 30 minute conversation with a top recruit for a swing district. He's run before. He hates the DCCC. Everyone I talk to hates the DCCC. The DCCC screwed him over.

Six people were murdered in a 72-hour period in Newark in late August. In the same time frame, in Bridgeport, Conn., 13 people were shot at a house party. And one man shot another man to death in a Minnesota park in some kind of dispute. And on and on and on. No surprises here.

While Hillary and Bernie fine-tune their respective approaches to combatting Trump in the general election, it isn't just presidential candidates who will be running against him. Yesterday, Al Franken (D-MN), who won't be up for re-election until 2020, sent out a fundraising e-mail slamming Trump.

NJ-05 sits on the entire northern border of New Jersey with New York, from the Hudson River in the east to just outside of Port Jervis in the west, and the entire northwestern border with Pennsylvania from Milford through the Delaware Waiter Gap and beyond my old home in Stroudsburg. It's an affluent R+4 district in blue New Jersey. Over 70% of the population is in northern Bergen County's suburbs and towns like Paramus, Hackensack, Teaneck, Mahwah and Lodi.