Incompetents Electing Incompetents

I don’t mean to be mean, but if the shoe fits… wear it.

For some unknown reason, uneducated and uniformed voters in various parts of the country continue to elect corrupt and/or incompetent officials to govern them. Sometimes, this inexplicable behavior goes on for decades if not generations.

Here are just a few examples…

Camden, NJ – I was born in West Jersey Hospital on Mt. Ephraim Avenue in Camden, NJ to parents who grew up in the Cramer Hill and Fairview sections of town. Fortunately, my parents had enough common sense to get out of Camden while the getting was good. However, the first house Deanna and I owned was just 12 blocks from the Camden border and when I ran for Congress in 2008 and 2010, I campaigned in Camden because it was in my district.

That means that I know a lot about the city that sits across the Delaware River from Philadelphia PA… and is just as corrupt.

Since 1973, Camden has had 10 different mayors – all Democrats – and four of them have been indicted starting with Angelo Errichetti in 1981. Errichetti, who also served as a State Senator, was caught up in the Abscam scandal that took down U.S. Sen. Harrison Williams (D-NJ) and six congressmen, five of whom were Democrats, along with three Philadelphia city councilmen with D’s next to their names. Despite emphatically denying the charges against him and refusing to resign from his dual positions, Errichetti was convicted of federal bribery and conspiracy charges, and sentenced to six years in prison, of which he served 32 months.

Next in the corrupt Democrat pipeline was Arnold Webster, who served as mayor from 1993 to 1997. A year after leaving office, he was indicted on federal corruption charges. Unlike Errichetti, Webster pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to six months of house arrest and ordered to repay over $20,000 that he had stolen from the city’s school board.

Webster was succeeded by Milton Milan, who took corruption to a whole new level. During his first and only term as mayor, Milan was charged with 19 counts of official corruption and was convicted on 14 of them including laundering $65,000 in drug money; staging a break-in with his former business partner to illegally collect insurance money; accepting $30,000 to $50,000 in bribes from the Mafia; using campaign funds to pay for a vacation to Puerto Rico; receiving two vehicles and thousands of dollars in free work on his home from city contractors; and authorizing the shakedown of a $5,000 political contribution from the city's public defender.

For his crimes, the judge sentenced Milan to the maximum penalties allowed under federal sentencing guidelines: seven years and three months in prison minus time served, and three years of supervision. The judge also barred Milan from running for office and required him to pay $14,761 in restitution.

Just 10 years later, Dana Redd was elected Camden’s second woman mayor. Like Errichetti before her, Redd also served as a State Senator but not simultaneously, although she did take advantage of a grandfather clause that allowed her to continue serving on the city council while in the senate. Also, like Errichetti, Redd was indicted in 2024 on racketeering charges (her trial is pending).

FOUR indicted mayors within 50 years and yet, Camden voters continue to go to the polls and elect (and re-elect) one corrupt Democrat after another… and not just corrupt, but incompetent. To no one’s surprise, Camden consistently ranks as one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in America. Currently, the poverty rate in Camden stands at a whopping 28.5%; with per capita income listed at just $20,043 and median household income coming in at only $40,450.

There is a reason why Camden’s population has fallen from a high of 124,555 in 1950 to just 71,100 today… its lowest since the 1890 census. The common denominator during Camden’s precipitous decline over the past 75 years has been a series of inept Democrat mayors.

The same goes for the following big cities: St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Memphis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Stockton, Albuquerque, Indianapolis, San Bernardino. According to the BBC, these are the 11 Most Dangerous Cities in America… and all but Detroit have Democrat mayors (after being elected three times as a Democrat, Mayor Mike Duggan of Detroit switched to Independent in 2024 to run for governor).

Other large metropolitan areas that pop up on the most dangerous city lists include Birmingham, Houston, Denver, Milwaukee, Orlando, Baltimore, Atlanta, Stockton, New York, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Little Rock, and Las Vegas. In case you’re wondering, not one of them has a Republican mayor.

Let’s leave the inner city and head to the governor’s mansion. Using financial data compiled by Moody’s Investors Service, the State of Connecticut generated a 50-state comparison of state debt as a percent of state gross domestic product (GDP) and revenue as of September 2024. Topping the list was, as you may have expected, Connecticut at 103.8% … followed closely by Hawaii (95.8%) and Massachusetts (90.2%). Rounding out the Top 10 “underwater” states were New Jersey, Washington, Maryland, Rhode Island, Illinois, Mississippi, and Delaware.

Guess what? Every state but Mississippi has a Democrat governor.

In July 2024, the CATO Institute put together a map that showed the sum of state bond debt, unfunded pensions, and other unfunded post-employment benefits (OPEB) as a percentage of state gross domestic product (GDP). Only four states had liabilities that outpaced GDP by more than 20%. They were New Jersey (31.5%); Connecticut (29.0%); Vermont (20.6%); and Illinois (20.5%). The only Republican governor in the mix is Phil Scott of Vermont, who isn’t exactly a conservative.

Finally, Fitch Ratings released a report in November 2023 on state long-term liabilities. Once again, the winners – I mean the losers – were the Democrat bastions of Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii and Delaware.

And so, my friends, the conclusion is clear. If you want to live in one of the five most indebted states in terms of economic burden, buy a house (or rent an apartment, because houses cost too much) in CT, NJ, IL, HI, or DE. Or better yet, move to California, which is $559 billion in the red, or New York, which was $355 billion in debt as of 2022. Add in local government debt and California owes $1.6 trillion to its creditors or $125,000 per household.

I guess the “Golden State” isn’t so golden after all... and I blame Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Newsom’s predecessor Jerry Brown, and the rest of the leftist loonies that have destroyed California’s finances while being caught with their pants down amidst the worst wildfires in state history. And yet, if the past is prologue, California voters – like their Progressive compatriots in other blue states – will continue to elect and re-elect Democrats to statewide office.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink… especially if all the fire hydrants are dry.