NJ Democrats and Republicans Trade Wild Insults Online [AUDIO]

It’s an accepted fact of life – Jersey democrats and republicans are constantly bickering and criticizing each other – but with only a few weeks left before a new state spending plan must be adopted, the rhetoric and insults have been ramped up – especially online in a never-ending flood of emails.

Democrats have been sending out messages lately, denouncing the Jersey Comeback as a myth, posting pictures of Governor making funny faces and referring to Christie as a “liar, liar, pants on fire.”

Last week they sent out a picture of a pair of pants engulfed in flames, and the only comment in the subject box was – anybody got a fire extinguisher?

Republicans have also been sending out their own emails, referring to democrats as jokers and liars who are obsessed with raising taxes.

Peter Woolley, the Director of the FDU Public Mind poll says “both sides have gotten a lot more practice and they’re getting better at it..the budget is coming to a head…which means both sides are forced to work together, and really we’re in the time of the year when the big crunch is on – everybody wants their way and has their own ideas about how the money should be spent – which is why from now right through the end of the month, and sometimes into July, you get these very sharp attacks by republicans on democrats and democrats on republicans.”

He points out even though the general public may not see most of this stuff, “email makes it easier than ever to distribute your attacks to a wide ranging audience directly – you don’t have to go through the newspapers- you don’t have to have a press conference… people get a lot of emails- so if you want any chance of people reading it rather than deleting it, it’s a good idea to be entertaining, to be clever…many of the people who work in the legislative leadership offices and the Governor’s office are very clever…they’re insiders, they’re smart, and a lot of these guys frankly enjoy the fight- so they’re very capable of making your emails entertaining and informative.”

Woolley adds “they put this stuff out because they want to shape the debate- and the debate is shaped by the questions that reporters ask in part -they certainly do want to throw a little gasoline on the fire of public discourse…you can expect the deluge of emails to slow considerably by the end of this month, and then we’ll enter a quiet period until Labor day when of course the Presidential campaign and the conventions – democratic and republican conventions are going to inundate you once again…with the firefight between republicans and democrats.”