We finished the last 45 minutes of the debate. Higher education was discussed. Fulop made the point I did about... [View all]

...in my previous thread on watching the debate, about Rutgers expenditures on football taking precedence over education, so I credit that.

It made me feel better about Fulop, but I'm still not going to vote for him.

That really bothered me, football taking precedence over real education; I want to throw up every time I pass that Rutgers football stadium, which happens a lot, since I work in that area. My son - a top student in his high school - was offered money from every school to which he applied - except Rutgers. They made a big point at the engineering accepted students event about how lucky he was to be accepted at Rutgers, but didn't offer him a dime. When we met with the head of the materials science department, he told us there was nothing he could do about that. As it is, he was offered a nearly full ride at a better school, but it pissed me off that our State University more or less compelled him to go elsewhere, so we could build saunas for football players. We need engineers more than we need CTE victims. (My son will not be coming back to New Jersey, which is interesting, because when Phil Murphy was running for Governor, he made noise about keeping our best students in New Jersey. It's personal for me, of course, but I can't help that my personal issues resonate with me.)

Energy was discussed - without answering the question asked by the questioner - and I appreciated that.

Three Democrats mentioned nuclear power favorably, with respect to rising energy bills, all - and Democrats are kind of locked into this representation of solar as a solution to costs (which in my view it isn't, solar drives costs up, not down) - Sherrill is the only one who didn't come out in favor of natural gas. She may be for it, but it wasn't the first thing out of her mouth. That counts to me. I believe it was her who pointed out that PJM, our grid, is dependent on coal burned in West Virginia and pointed out that was unacceptable.

Fulop made the point that any gas plant built will be designed to run for 50 years, and I appreciate that. It is bullshit to state that gas plants are "transitional." (There is no "energy transition," but that's another point for another forum, still what we do in New Jersey matters.)

I will probably vote for Sherrill as things stand. She referenced extreme global heating, albeit calling it by the euphemism "climate change," that is still widely used but is inappropriately weak. She referenced her upbringing which involved being a woman and being told by her father what she could not do, only to go on to do it anyway. To me, that counts. There is a war on women in this country, and as a man, I want women to hold power to fight it.

They are all good candidates, and any one of them will be a fine governor, certainly better than any Trumpist asshole the Repukes put up.

I still need to do more research before deciding.

One thing is certain, I will vote in the Primary, and make the hard choice right or wrong, and come November, I will vote Democratic no matter who our candidate is.