Democratic senator ducking debate

Assemblyman Jamel Holley said Senator Joseph Cryan is ducking debates.

“He’s dodging. He’s ducking debates because he’s afraid to talk the issues that Democrats really care about most,” said Holley campaign spokesperson Samuel Bishop, of the incumbent who has been in office since 2003. “He can no longer deliver, and he can’t be bothered to show up.”

“Our campaign has reached out to Senator Joseph Cryan’s campaign twice in the last three weeks to invite him to participate with Assemblyman Jamel Holley in a public debate for the benefit of the voters in the 20th District,” said Bishop. “We offered to engage with them on format and location. The response: NONE.”

“Unlike our opponent, we strongly believe that the voters deserve to hear from us on the important issues. They deserve to analyze our records and conduct while in office,” said Bishop, a former Roselle councilman. “For our opponent to totally ignore this invitation tells us all we need to know.”

“Why would a near 12 year in office legislator be afraid of a public debate?,” Bishop asked. “Could it be that he does not want the voters to know that he has amassed an abysmal legislative record in all that time? Or perhaps he may not want to discuss something he has amassed quite a bit of: taxpayer funded jobs for 9 of his family members.”

Bishop said the invitation still stands.

The strategy is not new but it has not always worked out well. While Cryan was the state Democratic Party chairman, the League of Women Voters said that Governor Jon Corzine refused to participate in a prime time televised debate against Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie.

Corzine lost, although there has been speculation that Cryan threw the election in order to avoid federal prosecution for accepting illegal campaign contributions from charitable organizations that received government grants.

Jason Krychiw, a member of the Union County Democratic Committee and vice chair of Progressive Democrats of New Jersey who dropped out as a senate candidate, had said, “Working people deserve a champion who will fight for them at all costs,” and that “the Cryan political machine has failed Union County.”

Cryan has not participated in a candidate debate since he first ran in New Jersey’s 20th Legislative District almost 20 years ago. He skirted fair and open confrontations when he was challenged in 2011 and 2015, as well as when he ran for Union County Sheriff.

“At a time when working families in Union County are facing a historic crisis, Joe Cryan is playing the same old political game,” said Krychiw. “He’s holding down a political patronage job in an entirely different county while raking in tens of thousands of dollars to his campaign from corporate PACs and private prisons. After 20 years in elected office, Cryan has lost touch. He’s only focused on his own power.”

While he may want to avoid being held accountable for feathering his own nest, Cryan could also be afraid of the optics of a debate that make him look like the epitome of while male privilege as he being challenged by an African-American legislator.

“A white male Democrat seeking re-election in a party that purports to be diverse and yet buttresses three white males in the main seats of Trenton Leadership, Cryan addressed the large white male power concentration in his party,” wrote Max Pizarro, New Jersey’s most prominent political news blogger. “Democrats have backed two Goldman Sachs guys for governors in 2005, 2009, 2017 and 2021, while shying away from staunchly supporting a woman in 2013 for fear of offending then-Republican Governor Chris Christie.”