Hope in Chaos: The Case for Caring About CD2
Ask Me About My After-Empire Angst
Throughout South Jersey, the feeling is almost palpable, the after-empire angst. The Norcross machine is not dead but weakened. The South Jersey grassroots, including South Jersey Progressive Democrats, played a starring role in weakening the machine through many years of organizing– and that work continues.
But because the machine is weakened enough to be a neutralized threat, the Democratic state party has walked away. Departing with them are organizations like NJ Working Families. For these establishment entities, the likelihood that the machine will slowly die of its wounds is victory enough. The war with Norcross seems to have been the point, not the thornier work of altering power relations. Meanwhile the machine keeps making the same decisions to stay insulated and shut out new voices. The creation of a Steve Sweeney Policy Center feels like a retreat into a keep.
Adding insult to injury, the Democratic establishment shepherded through the rejiggering of legislative districts in a way that gifts the Republicans with growth opportunities rather than empowering the progressive wing of their own party in South Jersey. Smelling blood in the water, the SJ GOP is busy organizing — holding happy hours and breakfasts out in the community, collaborating across county borders.
The Case for Caring About CD2
With these worries in mind, I’ve been thinking about CD2. Progressives can learn from elections in this district if they are willing to broaden their work and challenge received wisdom. Of NJ’s 12 congressional districts, it is one of only two that have a Republican House rep, one who began his political career as a machine Dem before going full MAGA. Urban, rural, shore town, suburban: CD2 is all of the above. Perhaps above all, CD2 is working class. CD2 has one of the lowest median income of the 12 NJ house districts and the lowest college graduation rate.
These stats matter because they speak to the reality that most CD2 residents will never be part of the donor class. Without the ability to tithe to politicians, can they ever count on politicians to serve them, to even see them? The party has already conceded this district to the Republicans but by the numbers CD2 is far more competitive than the other Republican NJ house district, CD4. CD2 went blue for Obama–twice! Perhaps the real reason the state party is walking away from the South is because the Governor won re-election despite losing six out of the eight Southern counties.
Of course this is not just a state conversation but a national one too. Can the Democratic party survive without the working class? Engagement cannot happen from on high even if that’s more comfortable for white collar power holders and organizational leaders. Working class Dems will stop showing up at the polls while other working class voters will rage vote for the Republicans. Though their policies harm them, Republicans do what Democrats repeatedly fail to do–acknowledge that a giant segment of society lives in the space between poverty and a white collar middle class lifestyle and that in between space is a valid space to live.
“Abolish the Line” is Not Enough in South Jersey
In statewide progressive spaces, talk of the ballot line has dominated conversations. The Good Government Coalition of NJ initiated a Better Ballots Campaign that includes public education to inform voters about the way in which their ballot is rigged to give incumbents a measurable head start in every race. Their work has alerted NJ voters to the way in which their ballot differs from ballots in every other state in the nation and keeps power deeply entrenched, often to the detriment of progressive policies. While GGCNJ has headed up public engagement on this topic, NJ Working Families has initiated a lawsuit on this issue and created a website cataloging candidates who lost their elections while running off the line.
This year there will be no line in most of CD2. In most of the district, the names of all candidates running for Congress will simply be listed with no preferential placement. Is this the machine turning over a new leaf, deciding to act fairly? Perhaps. But the fact that machine did not unanimously endorse a candidate right out of the gates as they did in the last CD2 race might also suggest a lack of investment in supporting any candidate who isn’t one of their own. Jeff Van Drew, after all, was formerly one of their own.
“When the Party Walks Away, That’s When the Organizing Begins”
New Jersey, of course, deserves a ballot that is on par with the rest of the country and does not give loyal incumbents a clear advantage. But even if the lawsuit won tomorrow, sweeping top down change wouldn’t remedy the political landscape in South Jersey. Only organizing can enact the change that’s needed. Lawsuits can be a tactic in organizing strategy but not a substitute for the work itself. Only organizing can build a movement that can advance campaigns and support candidates. And if party and organizational support are going to be largely absent, it is going to take time and a lot of work to build the movement.
If the bad news is that a better ballot is no silver bullet for South Jersey, the good news is that the work ahead is the work progressives know how to do. The machine and the maybe almost as exclusionary Democratic establishment may have the funding and infrastructure advantages but progressives have the passion and talent for movement building. Whether the machine sits on its hands in CD2 or really does let the public lead, there should be space for us to engage. This power vacuum we’re living in is disorienting — disconcerting even. But it’s an opportunity too if we are committed to doing the work to take the party back for the people. Fighting for the place we call home is worth it.
