Let’s Elect Phil Murphy for Governor, Friends!
I have to be completely honest. It would take a whole hell of a lot for me not to vote for the Democrat in any given election. I am of the firm belief that someone is going to take that spot, and I’d prefer that person lean in my direction — because that means they are going to be easier to push in the direction I want to go.
Disclaimer out of the way, let’s talk about Phil Murphy, the Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey.
On paper, he’s everything we’re supposed to dislike in our Democrats. He worked at Goldman Sachs for over 20 years. He was the ambassador to Germany, and apparently he’s originally from Massachusetts. He’s got that shiny, wealthy elitism that has fallen out of favor among us, the unwashed masses. And with dilettante wives yelling on Instagram about how they earned that Hermes scarf you ungrateful miscreant, I can sort of understand why.
Except that Phil Murphy, by everything I could find on the internet, seems great. With voter suppression and the full frontal assault on Planned Parenthood that makes up federal health policy at the moment, it’s no small thing that he has been endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey and Let America Vote. He has in fact promised not just to make up the $7.5 million Governor Christie cut from Planned Parenthood, but to increase their funding. And his platform includes efforts to increase access to voting, including same day registration, automatic registration at the Motor Vehicle Commission (I will never not call this the DMV — stay tuned for scenes from Virginia), and online voter registration.
Most of Phil Murphy’s positions are fairly standard for the current Democratic party — he plans to push back against efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act; he supports legalizing marijuana, bail reform, and ending discriminatory practices like mandatory minimums; he has specific plans for common sense gun control; his platform also includes specific supports for LGBT New Jersey residents and immigrants; and he wants to build a clean energy economy.
His most interesting policy proposal, however, is the creation of a state bank. You can read more about it here or here if you’re interested in the details but basically Murphy argues that a state bank would keep money in New Jersey instead of allowing the bigger and often foreign banks to use New Jersey capital to provide loans to projects elsewhere. The bank would provide student loans, small business loans, and infrastructure loans, and any profit that the bank makes would go back to the New Jersey budget. There are concerns of course — that taxpayers would bear the brunt of any defaulted loans, and that the complexities of setting up a financial institution would get mired down by politics. My favorite concern is what Politico frames as “the transactional nature of New Jersey politics” which is a subtle way of saying the state could still be run by the mob and do you want to give the mob a bank.
Okay, I know, not the time for New Jersey jokes.
From what I can tell though, the state bank is an interesting policy solution to financial insecurity and building up a robust local economy. I am quite clearly no financial policy expert but I look forward to seeing the (fingers crossed) Murphy administration explore it further.
It’s difficult for me to envision a state that wants to elect the Lieutenant Governor of the Chris “Don’t Give a FUCK” Christie administration, especially given the bribery and corruption scandals and the approval rating that makes Trump’s look downright positive. But I’ve only been living in New Jersey for about 16 months and I only signed up for Matt Friedman’s New Jersey Playbook two days ago as I started researching for this post.
Phil Murphy is not, perhaps, the Democrat that is going to solve our left/leftist divide in the Democratic Party. His ties to Goldman Sachs are way stronger than Hillary Clinton’s and we all saw what that did to her political career. His policy proposals tend towards intersectional market based solutions — policies that recognize injustice and seek to dismantle it, by ensuring that people who have been oppressed by systemic injustice get an extra leg up and that the laws which enshrine injustice have been taken down.
He is also on the board or committee of several organizations such as the Center for American Progress, the NAACP, and 180 Turning Lives Around, an organization dedicated to ending domestic and sexual violence and providing shelter to victims. His running mate, Sheila Oliver, was the first and only black woman to serve as Assembly Speaker and who has deep roots in New Jersey politics.
Platforms aren’t policies, they are wish lists, and perhaps I’m too likely to be taken in by a practical, multifaceted plan, but to me Phil Murphy seems like a candidate who hasn’t gotten caught up in the 2016 relitigation and the back and forth nonsense about economic policies verses identity politics — he recognizes that both are important and inextricably linked. Do I like a little more revolution in my politics? Sure. Am I a little tired of white men? Absolutely. But all that aside, I think Phil Murphy has genuine goals of improving people’s lives, and I think his policy proposals will do it. And since that is the whole purpose of politics in the first place, I think we’ve got a good one.
Plus Republicans are like half a second away from having enough governorships to pass a Constitutional amendment. So help me god, New Jersey, if you do not show up on November 7th to elect Phil Murphy. So. Help. Me. God.
