November 2, 2021

This CNN headline seems like it's trying to portray the Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey as the underdog: It feels like pre-spinning a feared defeat.

"Phil Murphy tries to become first Democratic governor to win reelection in New Jersey in more than 40 years."

IN THE COMMENTS: Balfegor has a sound interpretation that I want to sign onto:
I mean, [that headline is] what it leads with, but it also notes:

Murphy's lead over Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli in a number of late polls appears to be at or near double digits,

I don't think it's pre-spinning a feared defeat in New Jersey at all. I think it's trying to set up a counter-message against a feared defeat in Virginia, where Republicans do seem to have a good chance. If Republicans win there after Democrats won by 10 points in 2020 (much of the civil service living and voting in Northern Virginia), that would be a shocking reversal. But if you can counterprogram by saying Democrats beat a 40 year trend to win in New Jersey, it might help guard against demoralisation heading into 2022....

Right. The idea is to make Murphy's victory seem amazing. 

42 comments:

mezzrow said...

It's good to have hope as long as you understand that it's the hope that kills you.

It would add to the entertainment factor. When does the gradually transition to the all at once? Stay tuned.

Readering said...

Headline feels like AA providing clickbait to her Trumpist readership.

Achilles said...

You can only "mail-in" so many ballots.

Drago said...

Readering: "Headline feels like AA providing clickbait to her Trumpist readership."

Headlines that accurately reflect what is happening and then drawing reasonable conclusions based on prior performance are not much appreciated in readering-ville and will no doubt constitute significant charges against Althouse when the time is right.

wendybar said...

Murphy murdered more elderly in Nursing Homes than Cuomo did...but he wasn't on every TV show bragging about what a great job he did killing them...like Cuomo was. Murphy sucks. He is waiting until after the election to mandate Covid so NJ will be shutting down fire stations, hospitals and Police stations if he wins. So Progressive!! (Not to mention how much illegals get here because it is a Sanctuary state, and they seem to have more rights than we taxpayers here do anymore....)

Yancey Ward said...

Given the voting methods in place, it would be a huge upset for the Dems to lose either race today. Murphy will win easily. Youngkin in VA will be well ahead at 11 p.m. tonight, but will be behind by 3% or more by tomorrow. I have seen this movie before.

Balfegor said...

I mean, that's what it leads with, but it also notes:

Murphy's lead over Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli in a number of late polls appears to be at or near double digits,

I don't think it's pre-spinning a feared defeat in New Jersey at all. I think it's trying to set up a counter-message against a feared defeat in Virginia, where Republicans do seem to have a good chance. If Republicans win there after Democrats won by 10 points in 2020 (much of the civil service living and voting in Northern Virginia), that would be a shocking reversal. But if you can counterprogram by saying Democrats beat a 40 year trend to win in New Jersey, it might help guard against demoralisation heading into 2022. Of course, Virginia is within the margin of error according to the polls, so who knows how it turns out.

tim maguire said...

NJ polls have been drifting right along with VA's. But not far enough (and there aren't as many of them, so the significance isn't as clear). It would be at laest as big a shock if a Republican won the NJ race.

tim maguire said...

Readering said...Headline feels like AA providing clickbait to her Trumpist readership.

How distressing it must be for you that there are people in the world who don't think like you, who don't take their marching orders from you. How did America ever go down this weird path to freedom of thought? Something must be done about it, and the sooner the better.

cubanbob said...

The NJ electorate is too stupid to vote anything but Democrats. They are Turkeys for Thanksgiving or Queers For Palestine. However there are NJ taxpayers, not all that are that stupid and lots of those are leaving the state thereby concentrating the stupid like in NY and CA.

Kevin said...

Shorter CNN: People from New Jersey keep finding they don't like Democrat Governors.

wendybar said...

Speaking of CNN and "journalism"....THIS is a must read https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/how-journalism-abandoned-the-working

Drago said...

Achilles: "You can only "mail-in" so many ballots."

I disagree. I think the democraticals/LLR-leftists can "mail-in" as many as they will need...and if it takes until Friday to get enough in, well, there are plenty of John Roberts-approved democratical judges who'll go along with that.

BillieBob Thorton said...

NJ voter turnout in 2017 was around 37% more or less,I think this election will hinge on turnout. There are a large number of angry voters here who are tired of Murphy. The election is closer than the polls indicate.

Ann Althouse said...

"Headline feels like AA providing clickbait to her Trumpist readership."

It's not so much that I want to feed conservatives as it is that I want to interrupt the self-pleasuring of the left.

I really can't stand either side, but I find the right more pathetic, the left more smug, and that accounts for whatever seems off from neutral around here.

MadisonMan said...

Murphy's lead over Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli in a number of late polls appears to be at or near double digits
What sloppy writing! Appears?
A separate argument could be made on whether the polls are correct, but the lead they show is there!

rcocean said...

No hope for NJ. They love their odd corrupt Democrats. Even when they R's win its some pathetic cucks like "Christie - I support Hillary and Biden - Todd Whitman. Their Senator was found innocent of bribery by some technicality, and NJ promptly re-elected him. LOL. I guess you can't get any worse than that, unless its Massachutes, where you can leave a woman to die, and the Democrats just yawn.

Temujin said...

Except that there are only 15 Republicans in the State of New Jersey, so one would think it's not even going to be close.

If I can say that without appearing too pathetic.

Maynard said...

I want to interrupt the self-pleasuring of the left.

Very interesting choice of terms here.


really can't stand either side, but I find the right more pathetic...

Well of course you do. The Right have never been fashionable in your world.

Richard Dolan said...

"Right. The idea is to make Murphy's victory seem amazing."

Yes, and it's CNN so no surprise. But who is the audience for that spin? Anyone paying even the slightest attention knows that NJ is a heavily Dem-dominated state. In state-wide elections, they only elect a Rep when the last round of Dems really screwed up so badly that the 'throw the bums out' effect takes over. Same in NY.

Even CNN's shrinking audience is unlikely to see anything amazing in Murphy's win, not that such realities will deter the spin-meisters.

wendybar said...

I think murdering elderly in Nursing homes is pretty pathetic myself, but what do I know??

MrEdd said...

"I really can't stand either side, but I find the right more pathetic, the left more smug, and that accounts for whatever seems off from neutral around here."

Well, which definition of "pathetic" are using? "1. arousing pity, especially through vulnerability or sadness" or "2.
miserably inadequate; of very low standard."

Do you pity people on the right for their vulnerability or sadness, or do you simply think they are miserably inadequate?

As your contemporary, a 60's and 70's liberal, jaundiced by 40+ years of civil litigation into recognitionof the opportunistic venality of virtually everyone and including all politicians, I can certainly admit that I feel very sad for our citizens and for the vulnerability of the country. I do not feel miserably inadequate, especially when I consider the incompetence shown by the events of the last several months.

And, as to the left, of the options in the definition of "smug", "having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one's achievements", which does the left have, excessive pride in themselves or in their achievements?

Any pride in their "achievements" seems seriously misplaced.

Kai Akker said...

---I really can't stand either side, but I find the right more pathetic, the left more smug, and that accounts for whatever seems off from neutral around here.

I will NOT insult our hostess. I will NOT insult our hostess. I will NOT.....

But she sure wants to insult her commenters, all across the spectrum.

Sebastian said...

"The idea is to make Murphy's victory seem amazing."

The meta-idea is always to portray things in a manner that serves Dems and the left, the axiom from which all situational theorems are sloppily derived.

Enlighten-NewJersey said...

New Jersey has no major television stations or any decent major newspapers. Taxpayers are abused in this state, but I suppose they are in the minority. Things have to get really bad before people stop voting the "D" and decide to vote for change. I stay in NJ to help aging parents who will not move. Therefore, I am a compassionate conservative living in a blue state hell.

Sprezzatura said...

Ha ha.

The point is that the media we don’t like is terrible.

It doesn’t matter what twists of speculation need to be concocted to get to that point.

Shameless is cool.

Static Ping said...

New Jersey is a tough nut to crack. The northeast is essentially New York City west - Jersey City is literally across the water from Manhattan and Brooklyn - producing a similar effect to what DC did to northern Virginia. The largest city is Newark with its very high African-American voting block and tends to vote 90/10 D, despite the fact that there have been decades and decades of bad, not to mention corrupt, Democratic governance in Newark. There's also the matter there is a trend of the people who would tend to vote Republican getting annoyed and leaving.

It does not help that New Jersey really lacks a cohesive identity, other than being the butt of jokes. It is a city dominated by two huge cities - New York City and Philadelphia - neither of which are actually in New Jersey, and most of the cities of note in New Jersey are part of the metropolitan areas of those two cities. You even see it with the sports which have a pretty obvious north/south divide. If you were redrawing the state borders today, I suspect New Jersey would be split in half assuming their were not dedicated to using natural borders.

doctrev said...

"I'm an independent thinker who relies mostly on WaPo and the NYT" would be seen as out-of-touch by Marie Antoinette. But I suspect her legacy was mostly colored by Jacobins who didn't outlast her for long, so I can also afford some pity points for Althouse.

Drago said...

adSs: "Ha ha. The point is that the media we don’t like is terrible."

No, that wasn't the point. But that's the "point" you feel more comfortable taking on, so you simply replace the real one with your preferred one.

You wouldn't happen to be a speechwriter for Terry McAuliffe, would you?

Daniel12 said...

If you can within hours interpret the same headline in completely opposite ways, I don't think the word "right" applies. (Except in political conspiracizing.)

Laslo Spatula said...

"I really can't stand either side, but I find the right more pathetic, the left more smug, and that accounts for whatever seems off from neutral around here."

The right can be frustrated by you, but the left despises you.

And neutrality depends on the patience of others.

“I loved something I made up, something that's just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes—and not him at all.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

I am Laslo.

gadfly said...

Incredibly, Gov. Phil Murphy proudly but falsely proclaims New Jersey top-ranked as the Safest State in the nation. Actually it is ranked 11th by a Credit Score website called "WalletHub." WalletHub has the same problem as Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli whose name is unrecognized by voters. Worse - a profane Democratic video makes fun of Ciattarelli's objection to swearing.

gadfly said...

Incredibly, Gov. Phil Murphy proudly but falsely proclaims New Jersey top-ranked as the Safest State in the nation. Actually it is ranked 11th by a Credit Score website called "WalletHub." WalletHub has the same problem as Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli whose name is unrecognized by voters. Worse - a profane Democratic video makes fun of Ciattarelli's objection to swearing.

Butkus51 said...

looks like Youngkin won. I fully expect to wake up tomorrow to his loss.

meep said...

While I still expect Murphy to win, I am really surprised that the NJ election is this close. I thought a Dem winning in NJ was an easy lift, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Dems have gotten too lazy.

Or maybe these races got nationalized, and I didn't notice it. Because I didn't even know who the Republicans running were (not that I'm in NJ).

Clyde said...

As I told a friend this morning via text, along with a meme of Carrie with blood dumped on her and the caption "Let's Go Brandon!":

Bloodbath in Virginia, where Biden* won by 10% last year, as the racist Republicans also elected a black woman as Lt. Gov. and a Cuban-American as AG. And in sky-blue NJ, it's a dead heat between Ciaterelli and Murphy. Biden* won big there a year ago.

Now all races are local and feature local issues, but the fact that the Dems have lost so much support in a year says a lot about how people are feeling about the direction of the country. Yes, local issues but also people getting their first chance to weigh in on Biden*. Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin. He has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

One bad issue won't kill them, but when EVERY issue is bad for them, this is what happens. They have pissed off a lot of people about a lot of things. The tribe has spoken.

RMc said...

Murphy trails by a few thousand, but there's still about 12% of the vote to be counted. (I'm guessing the uncounted votes are in places like Newark, and you know what that means...)

Ever notice it's always the inner cities that get counted last? You'd think cities would be *easier* to count than spread-out rural areas, wouldn't you? But that's not how it works, apparently...

BillieBob Thorton said...

Still tied in bright blue NJ. The county we live in went 74% for Jack. The President of the NJ Senate (a dem and also president of the NJ iron workers union) almost lost to a truck driver who spent $200 on his campaign. Seven counties flipped from blue to red. Even if the murph ends up winning it's a bad night for the dems here in the Garden State.

Kai Akker said...

Nice hearing some of those NJ details from BillieBob Thorton. I feel so cruelly neutral that I don't enjoy them, of course. But obviously many find the Democratic Party of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Jobiden a little too pathetic for them to keep handing over their votes and money to such people. Some of them might even be re-thinking their faith, in light of that reality. What thinking person could abide such lawlessness and deceit, after all? The absence of any ideas -- for decades, now -- could be frustrating, I imagine.

tim in vermont said...

"Well, which definition of "pathetic" are using? "

It wasn't really clear, was it. She is going cruelly neutral on 'pathetic.'

Paul said...

I hear the reason the NJ election is in limbo is because the preprinted mail ballots from China are stuck on a ship in San Diego Harbor...

Ian Argent said...

It's worth noting that the reason this was a historic Democratic victory (first Dem governor re-elected since Brendan Byrne) is because either: Massive Tax Increases (Florio), or *stupid* (astoundingly so) scandals.
All of the Pubbie governors have gone two terms (even Christie)