Sleep in it

I would really rather that the GOP not take control of the Senate. I think the Democrat control of that house of Congress has provided the sort of balance that keeps the Federal Government as a whole from lurching, unrestrained, to the Right. (I note, parenthetically, that I feel much the same about not having a Democratic Pres and Congress. Gridlock is bad, but a Frictionless Surface is even worse.)

So, from an outcomes standpoint, I understand and even agree with the Democratic Party of New Jersey arguing that, given Sen. Toricelli’s decision to drop out of the race, they should be able to field a new candidate. You know, one that actually stands a chance of winning.

Just one problem. State law says it’s too late — that candidates cannot withdraw their candidacy closer than 51 days from the election (or something like that). That absentee ballots have already gone out, including to military personnel abroad, is a practical barrier, but it’s really the state election law that is the major roadblock.

Bosh, cries the NY Times, as the issue is argued today before the New Jersey Supreme Court.

The Republicans are likely to argue that under New Jersey election law, it is too late to put another name on the ballot. But legal wrangling over ballot access cannot be allowed to obscure the central issue, which is one of democracy. The guiding principle should be the voters’ basic right to a genuine election. With a month to go before Election Day, there is still time for a spirited campaign.

Those rascally Republicans, pointing at election law as if it should be the basis for, well, how elections are run.

The Times‘ appeal to “democracy” is wildly misguided in this case. As Lileks puts it this morning,

After all, Toricelli didn’t quit because he discovered an eight-pound neoplasm in his small intestine, or had his brain turned into a fine red mist when a marble-sized meteorite from the Oort cloud struck him in a 7-11 parking lot. He’s not even under indictment. He resigned because there was such a bad odor coming from him and his campaign that actual wavy cartoon stink lines were coming off him, and the cameras were starting to pick it up. He was going to lose. So he quit.

Hell, if he’d been swept up by the FBI as an Enemy Combatant and swept into some detention cell somewhere (something I’m sure the Democratic leadership would have preferred, actually), I’d be the first to say that democracy is being thwarted. After all, that’s how autocracies in other countries work, when they want to avoid getting voted out of office by reformers — they just lock up the opposition.

That’s not the case here. Toricelli is not being physically prevented from running, be it by death, jack boots, or even some circumstance which might engender some compassion. No, Toricelli acted like scum, was rebuked by the Senate as scum, but still decided to run, still got the local Democratic party behind him, still got nominated democratically in the primaries, and still was willing to take the chance that the voters might say in November, “Hey, you’re scum. Hit the road, Bob.”

Until, that is, it looked like the voters really were going to say that, and the Democratic control of the Senate was threatened. Now the Dems want do-overs. The Democratic governor has hand-picked a new candidate to replace Toricelli.

Quoth Angelo Genova, the New Jersey Democratic Party Counsel:

The right of the voter to exercize a free and competitive choice is paramount to any technical nicety that might be suggested by a time limitation in a statute.

Ah, those suggestive laws full of technical niceties. I wish Mr. Genova would point out to me which other laws are actually only suggestions, not mandates. I might save on some taxes this year, or get to the office a little more quickly.

The bottom line is that the voters of the state of New Jersey had, and have, a “free and competitive choice.” No outside force came in and said that people could not vote for Toricelli — or even for the Democratic Party. Toricelli made that decision, because he decided he could not win. That he did so at the urging of the state Democrats even makes this more laughable, since it is thus they, and not some “technical nicety” (a/k/a “law”), that are removing the choices in this election.

Sorry, guys. That’s now how it works.

It’s not about democracy. It’s not about fairness. It’s about playing by the rules and living with the decisions you made. You made your bed — now sleep in it.

Even if it means that we’re all liable to have a headache in the morning.