Interesting and certainly timely to see this post asking for bloggers to help take down Scott Garrett as I have been thinking of a few ways to do this, and what is needed.
There really are two main thought processes here - the first is what I will call "Garrett Watch" which is to take stock of and follow his votes, actions and other things that can be used against him. This would consist of documentation (like the "Retire Garrett" site but maybe more along the lines of "dumpmike"), as well as a long term effort to get OpEds, LTE's, calls to radio shows, etc. in order to spread the word of Garrett's more extreme of his already extreme votes and views.
The other is more of a "data collection/analysis" approach, which I will explain more below:
For starters, there needs to be a broken down understanding of this district. There are (I believe) four counties represented and they are pretty different in terms of demographics and priorities. We need a more targeted approach, at least for each county.
Data MUST be available that would give voting breakdowns by county, age, income, etc. as well as other types of information that would be helpful (unrelated to voting).
We have more than a few months to compile this as well as figure out what data is good for us - (e.g., clubs, political contributions, etc.) and once we have it, we can update it accordingly.
This would be immensely valuable to any campaign and there is no reason why, with what we have here, we can't do this.
Hell, since I was going to do it anyway, I'll take the lead or coordinate it.
Back to the first part - there was already a vote in the House (HR 6), which had a few parts to it.
It should be noted that Garrett voted AGAINST the "pay as you go" for earmarks - so this should be positioned as him being against control of the budget, for pork barrel spending and someone who is a "borrow and spender". Let's start branding him appropriately.
The other noteworthy vote was in favor of an amendment which failed that dealt with granting the minority party more rights and reforms. Sounds good on the surface, until you realize that the Democrats tried on numerous occasions to get a "Minority Bill of Rights" passed in prior Congresses but the republicans WOULDN'T EVEN LET IT COME TO THE FLOOR.
Paint Garrett a hypocrite and an obstructionist here.
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You see where I am going with this. There is no reason that NJ-5 should have Garrett as it's representative. There is more than enough ammo to take him down in 2008. Add to that his ties to Abramoff and his solid status as a rubber stamp for Bush's failed occupation of Iraq and we are off to a real good start.
I will keep this up with respect to his voting record as I see things, but please -- if anyone wants to post something on this, or sees something and wants to pass it along -- do not hesitate to contact me.
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Garrett must go. Let's make sure it happens.
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