No, the governor doesn’t matter
My favorite “Far Side” of all time featured a family of goldfish standing outside their fish bowl, which was engulfed in flames.
“Well thank god we made it out in time,” the daddy fish said. “Of course now we’re equally screwed.”
Kind of feels that way in New Jersey, doesn’t it? We got out of the flaming fish bowl that was Chris Christie, and now we’re stuck with Phil Murphy. A Democrat now, a Republican before, still equally screwed.
Which begs the question: Does it even matter who the governor of New Jersey is, or will we remain screwed no matter what? I vote with “screwed no matter what.” Really feels that way, doesn’t it? We had eight years of Christie, which promised to be better than four years of Corzine, and (spoiler alert) it wasn’t. By the time Christie was done, his approval rating was almost countable on two hands. Murphy rides in, and we expect Things To Change, and they’re changing, but no one likes the direction we’re headed. So what’s going to happen next? A Republican will win in 2021 and the fish bowl will be set aflame again.
So is there anything we can do?
Well, we can try something we haven’t tried for almost two decades: Put the Republicans in charge of the legislature. The Democrats have held the legislature since 2001, and not for nuthin’, but the state has gone downhill since then. I’m not saying the GOP could magically turn it around, but at least we can say we tried.
So yeah. Maybe the governor doesn’t matter. But maybe the legislature does.
Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian. He can be reached at jedelstein@trentonian.com, facebook. com/jeffreyedelstein and @jeffedelstein on Twitter.