Bramnick Puts New Jersey Over Party – And Displays Leadership During Crisis
I began writing this column yesterday on April 12, 2020. From the standpoint of history, that date is most significant and highly relevant to the present. It is the 75th Anniversary of the passing of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the greatest wartime president in American history.
There is a special relevancy of FDR’s wartime leadership to the current situation in New Jersey.
The Democrat FDR emphasized the necessity of bipartisan and nonpartisan leadership in wartime. He was fortunate to have a magnificent partner in this regard in Wendell Willkie, the Republican he had defeated in the presidential election of 1940. In fact, Roosevelt during the war went so far as to send Willkie on international travel missions in support of his diplomatic initiatives.
A most significant aspect of Governor Phil Murphy’s leadership during the Coronavirus crisis has been his avoidance of any political considerations whatsoever in his decision making. This is why he has refrained from any criticism of the catastrophically abysmal performance of Donald Trump during the crisis. This also explains his wise refusal to endorse the use of hydroxychloroquine, given the admonishment of Dr. Anthony Fauci as to the lack of evidence of the safety and effectiveness of the drug against the virus and the warnings of Dr. Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association as to the potentially deathly side effects of the drug.
So it is natural that Phil Murphy should seek a Republican partner to support his efforts in the war against the Coronavirus. He has found one in Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick. In a nutshell, Jon has put the interests of the people of New Jersey over Republican political concerns. This is crisis leadership at its finest for which Bramnick deserves fulsome praise.
To put the significance of Bramnick’s laudable crisis nonpartisanship in its proper context, it is necessary to note the respective roles played by Trump and the governors.
Unquestionably, Donald Trump’s willful and wanton negligence throughout the crisis will result in historians giving him the ranking as the worst president in American history, even worse than James Buchanan. His policies left us woefully unprepared to perform the testing that will be necessary prior to any reopening of the economy.
Trump’s ignoring of warnings and subsequent catastrophic inaction, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans, was fully documented this weekend by both the New York Times and Associated Press in outstanding journalistic reports (links follow).
https://apnews.com/6a8f85aad99607f313cca6ab1398e04d
Yet now, Trump is worsening the situation by having the federal government take the leadership role in dealing with the economic issues of the crisis yet deliberately abandoning responsibility to the states to deal with the health issues. This criminal negligence on Trump’s part was described vividly by Tom Rogers today in his column in Newsweek, “Fed Up With Trump’s ‘Federalism.’ Save the Economy but Leave the States to Save Lives? “
So due to the incompetence and inaction of Trump, the northeastern governors in the path of the virus onslaught, all Democrats, namely Phil Murphy in New Jersey, Andrew Cuomo in New York, Ned Lamont in Connecticut, and Tom Wolf in Pennsylvania, are bearing a most onerous burden. They are dealing as effectively as possible with the crisis on a regional basis. And they all find that bipartisan cooperation with Republican leadership in their states is a must.
And that is exactly what Jon Bramnick has provided to Phil Murphy. He has fully supported the basics of all of Murphy’s COVID-19 policies. And where there has been grassroots Republican disagreement with Murphy, such as on the issue of the closure of the state parks (where I support Murphy), Bramnick has refrained from publicly criticizing the governor but has instead attempted to negotiate a compromise solution behind the scenes.
Bramnick’s refraining from public criticism is most significant. Jon Bramnick understands that it is not sufficient for a Republican Party leader in New Jersey during this crisis to simply avoid putting GOP interests over those of New Jersey. He or she must also avoid the APPEARANCE of putting partisan concerns over the interests of the state.
This is a lesson that the vocal GOP critics of Murphy’s COVID-19 policies have forgotten. I do not doubt that most of these individuals are well motivated and are not deliberately putting partisan political concerns above the best interests of the state. The tone of their criticisms, however, gives the appearance of these individuals seeking to derive a political advantage from this life-and-death crisis. This is unhealthy for the body politic in this time of public health danger and will have a paradoxical negative backfire impact on the political aspirations of these individuals.
During his tenure as Assembly Republican Leader, Jon Bramnick has not hesitated to publicly criticize Phil Murphy’s policies and actions in a vigorous, yet dignified and non-ad hominem way. This is particularly true when he has an honest disagreement with the governor on fiscal and development issues. When it comes to the life-and-death COVID-19 issues, however, Jon realizes that public criticism of the governor must be avoided at all costs.
There is talk among the New Jersey political chattering class members that Jon Bramnick may be running for governor in 2021. I am not at this point endorsing any GOP gubernatorial candidate. In my view, such an endorsement doesn’t matter. Barring some unforeseen scandal or malfeasance in office, Phil Murphy is headed towards a well-deserved landslide reelection victory.
To be sure, in the words of Yogi Berra, “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over” and the Coronavirus crisis is not yet over. Yet thus far, Phil Murphy has been a model of superbly competent crisis leadership and management. And as I stated in my very first column at the outbreak of the crisis (link follows), Phil Murphy’s crisis management style is the antithesis of that of Chris Christie – a welcome change for the citizenry of New Jersey.
Yet it must be said that Jon Bramnick has throughout his tenure as Assembly Republican Leader and particularly during this crisis established his fitness for governor. There is a paradox to his possible candidacy. He has magnificently, courageously, and unequivocally repudiated Trump from the inception of the Donald’s candidacy in 2015 – the only prospective 2021 NJGOP gubernatorial candidate to do so. He adhered to this position even when threatened with an independent candidacy for his Assembly seat by two Trumpist supporters in the 2019 election. This makes it virtually impossible for Jon to win a GOP gubernatorial primary. Trump is a virulent cancer that has totally infested the NJGOP.
Yet Jon Bramnick’s repudiation of Trump makes him the ONLY electable prospective GOP gubernatorial candidate in this decidedly anti-Trump state in a general election. Still, one has to wonder why he would want to make a run against a virtually unbeatable Phil Murphy.
One must intensely admire Bramnick for his courage in maintaining his anti-Trump stance. The NJGOP has an extremist lunatic fringe of Trumpist supporters, including an element that actually downplayed the danger from the Coronavirus and opposed the shutdown. These Coronavirus deniers are the medical science equivalent of Holocaust deniers.
In the face of all this, Jon Bramnick has been a model of integrity and principle. He is Phil Murphy’s Wendell Willkie, and for that, both the State of New Jersey and the Murphy administration are most fortunate.
Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.
The conservative estimate for lives saved by the ban of flights to the USA from Wuhan is 750,000. So for a guy who almost assuredly owes his survival of covid19 to Donald Trump, you sure don’t seem very appreciative.