Monmouth poll identifies Murphy strengths. Can Jack fracture them?
/By Rubashov
According to the Monmouth University poll released yesterday, GOP gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli hasn’t gone viral. Half the electorate still can’t say who he is or what he stands for.
Patrick Murray, who runs the Monmouth University Polling Institute, told New Jersey Globe that the Monmouth gubernatorial poll numbers “bode ill for Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli despite some movement towards the former assemblyman.” In the Globe, Murray explained:
“Ciattarelli needed bigger movement. He needed to dent [Gov. Phil] Murphy’s trust advantage on the number one issue that’s facing the state right now, which is the pandemic – and that has not happened at all.”
A year ago, Murphy faced a great trust disadvantage. He had 8,000 dead bodies directly linked to his catastrophic Executive Order 103 that sent patients infected with COVID into the state’s nursing and veterans’ homes. 8,000 grieving families with 8,000 stories to tell – and the worst COVID record for long term care facilities in the country. Then, to top it off, Murphy’s mentor – the chief executive who had contrived the policy – was battered for both his response to COVID (especially with regards to nursing and veterans’ homes) and his very own Katie Brennan debacle. In the end, Murphy could do little but watch as his former comrade, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, was driven from office.
But Murphy got lucky in that nursing homes responsible for some of those 8,000 casualties brought in a bi-partisan firm with deep Trenton connections to tamp down the interest in a story that should be dominating the news. Those 8,000 dead dwarfs the number lost on September 11, 2001. It is a bigger story than murder rates, gun violence in the state, and young men “of color” being shot by police. That firm, Mercury Public Affairs, received some notice in an ABC News report but it flew largely under the radar.
Together, Murphy and his bipartisan allies successfully shut down any legislative investigation into those 8,000 deaths. Reporters pursuing the story were either run off or fired. Whistleblowers were threatened and lost their jobs. The movement to have county investigations into why those 8,000 people died was systematically derailed.
And while the bi-partisan efforts of Mercury were handling that, Governor Murphy’s overall COVID response was getting a makeover courtesy of another firm, McKinsey & Company. A September 10th Politico story spelled out the details:
The global consulting firm has received more than $26 million to aid New Jersey in its pandemic response, with the bulk of its work dedicated to data collection and health system and supply chain management, as well as the rollout of logistically complicated Covid-19 testing and vaccination programs.
However, one section of the firm’s initial $5.5 million contract — which it submitted to the Office of Emergency Management in April 2020 upon the state’s request — detailed how it could aid in the public adoption of politically challenging stay-at-home orders and restrictions; particularly during the monthslong period when Murphy was slowly unwinding different aspects of the lockdown.
McKinsey’s been the subject of intense scrutiny over the last year-and-a-half as it raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in Covid-19 contracts from state, local and federal agencies. The firm’s also deliberately secretive about its operation; its New Jersey contract stipulates that "McKinsey’s work for NJOEM is confidential and intended for internal use only” and bars the agency from sharing its name or materials without prior written permission.
The firm’s understanding of “public perceptions of the stay at home order, social distancing practices, and other strategies for mitigation of virus transmission” and identification of “what messages may preserve or increase public adoption of social distancing and other mitigation strategies, including following relaxation of restrictions on social and economic activity” would help it deliver a strategy for “change management and communications,” according to the publicly available contract.
In layman’s terms, McKinsey’s contract positioned the firm to help the Murphy administration sell social distancing to the public.
The Politico story notes: “Both the Murphy administration and McKinsey declined to comment on whether the firm made good on the communications strategy it promised in the contract as one its ‘deliverables.’” We wonder if part of that “strategy” was to ignore the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) with regards to turning over information about the Murphy administration’s handling of the pandemic? This lack of transparency has certainly been a prominent feature of the administration’s response.
Still, when you are dealing with 8,000 dead bodies, it doesn’t take a lot to focus attention on it. The Ciattarelli campaign brought the issue up. Ran some digital ads in the summer, but never appeared to make the commitment needed to shake the public’s faith in Murphy on COVID. And this is surprising, because in terms of dead victims of his bureaucracy, Murphy’s record on handling the pandemic is horrific.
The NJGOP is even more at fault. But this could have a lot to do with the tentacles of the Mercury firm, which has as many Christie administration alumni as it has Democrats who worked for Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker. After the Sussex County Board of Commissioners placed a public question on the November ballot that asks voters to demand an investigation of the 8,000 nursing and veterans’ home deaths and a full release of the information withheld by the Murphy administration, it was suggested that other counties and municipalities might follow with similar ballot questions. It was suggested that the Republican State Committee might promote such a suggestion amongst counties and towns with Republican majorities, but the response was tepid and nothing came of it.
Recent polling in Northwest New Jersey suggests this was a lost opportunity. The poll surveyed 700 voters and asked this question, amongst others: “Governor Murphy’s executive orders sent COVID patients into nursing and veteran’s homes. This resulted in the deaths of more than 8,000 vulnerable residents. Republicans have called for an investigation into what happened. Do you support or oppose an investigation into COVID deaths in nursing homes?”
82 percent of those polled supported an investigation, with just 15 percent in opposition. 63 percent strongly supported an investigation, with just 7 percent strongly opposing it. 93 percent of Republicans, 70 percent of Independents, and 62 percent of Democrats supported an investigation. That’s 62 percent of Democrats despite some rather partisan phrasing.
Imagine the impact of ballot questions in ten counties and dozens of municipalities within the remaining counties. Each with its own local victims, survivors, and stories. It would have been impossible to ignore and local Democrats who support Murphy – not to mention the Governor himself – would be reacting daily. The weeklies and local media blogs, social media groups, and such would be buzzing about it – because it is happening on the ballot and because it happened to people. It has an existential quality to it. But it didn’t happen… and Phil Murphy dodged a bullet.
Is there enough time left to mount an effective assault on Phil Murphy and his administration’s record on handling the pandemic? Monmouth University’s Patrick Murray plainly thinks that time has almost run out. In fact, the days left constitute an eternity at a time when people are just beginning to focus. From their commercials it appears the Democrats want to talk about Donald Trump and the consequences of sex. How is that in the face of 8,000 dead? How about an ad that names the names? Tell some of their stories. How about a series of gatherings of remembrance to read out the names in each county, each town, by the local committees in each?
Phil Murphy should not be left to get away with what his administration did. It will only embolden others to act arrogantly and incompetently – knowing that they can safely ignore the consequences. Don’t set it up so they can do it again.
“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.”
Zig Ziglar
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