Rush Holt - Democrat worth supporting for NJ Senate?

[AdamT]

Glenn Greenwald is out with another great new piece today, where at the end he praises Congressman Rush Holt (NJ-D) and plugs that he's running for a vacant US Senate seat in a special election on Aug 13th.

This week in press freedoms and privacy rights: The travesty calling itself "the Bradley Manning court-martial", the kangaroo tribunal calling itself "the FISA court", and the emptiness of what the Obama DOJ calls "your constitutional rights"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/20/press-freedoms-manning-risen


I'm going to write more about this next week, but Rep. Rush Holt is running for the New Jersey Senate seat that became vacant when Democrat Frank Lautenberg died. The special election is on August 13. Holt has long been one of the best members of Congress: a genuine stalwart on civil liberties and privacy and vehement opponent of the crony capitalism that governs DC. A physicist by profession, he's incredibly smart, independent, and unique. Here was Holt on the House floor in 2008 expressing his vehement opposition to the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, the bill enacted with a bipartisan majority (including the support of President Obama) that legalized much of the massive surveillance state that now plagues us:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyv22GEkP6M

The favorite in the race is a typical Democratic establishment candidate, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who will be a loyal party member and is drowning in Wall Street cash. Having Rush Holt in the Senate would be a substantial boost to all sorts of issues that I write about here most.

Here he is in 2007 warning again of the dangers of the surveillance state:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMNix9wYORM



I quick search seems to say he voted against Obamacare, and 2 times for its repeal.

Anyone know anything else about him, good or bad? Seems like a guy who would do us well in the Senate, on at least some issues?

[Krzysztof Lesiak]

The presumptive Republican nominee, Steve Lonegan, seems okay. If this guy were a Dennis Kucinich clone I think he'd be worth backing, but I don't think that's the case.

[TaftFan]

The presumptive Republican nominee, Steve Lonegan, seems okay. If this guy were a Dennis Kucinich clone I think he'd be worth backing, but I don't think that's the case.

Yeah, Lonegan is really good on civil liberties.

[RonPaulMall]

I quick search seems to say he voted against Obamacare, and 2 times for its repeal.

Anyone know anything else about him, good or bad? Seems like a guy who would do us well in the Senate, on at least some issues?

He seems like a decent Democratic Congressman on a few select issues (but absolutely horrible on economics). If you have nothing better to do, I don't see the harm in supporting his candidacy as some kind of educational campaign. Just bear in mind that if you are practical minded, this guy has even less of a chance of winning the Democratic primary than Steve Lonegan has of winning the general election- in other words, no chance. The Dem primary base in New Jersey is made up of blacks, government union employees, and Jews. Holt isn't black, is despised by AIPAC and the Jewish lobby, and although he is a strong supporter of public spending, he's so principled and idealistic about it that he ends up frustrating the union thugs that just care about the bottom line. The guy represents Princeton, which is the only outpost in New Jersey where a guy like him could possibly be elected.

It would be nice if he were the nominee. The Senate would gain a civil libertarian. But he has no shot. Booker will win, and if Booker wasn't running some other authoritarian statist thug with a much better chance of winning would jump in the race and Holt still wouldn't win. NJ is a lost cause. Our best hope is to either cleave it from the union, or cleave ourselves from any union that it forms a part.