Is Michael Venezia really supporting Steve Sweeney?

I'm supporting a slate of progressive candidates running in local town elections in Bloomfield. Primary election day is June 10. There are also races for the state assembly and governor.

Canvassing for the Democrats for Change slate in Bloomfield Saturday morning, May 31, I was very surprised to see evidence that party machine State Assemblyman Michael Venezia, running for reelection, is supporting Steve Sweeney for Governor, one of the six candidates competing to get the Democratic Party nomination. Everything I’ve seen for many months has been Venezia supporting Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill who is also running for Governor.

What is my evidence?

I knocked on over 100 doors on Saturday, and in front of at least a dozen of them I found a lit piece for Venezia and his running mate Assemblywoman Carmen T. Morales as well as a lit piece for Gubernatorial candidate Steve Sweeney, one on top of the other or right next to each other. There is no question that someone was distributing both of these pieces together. The day before when I was out door knocking I had seen a young man distributing other lit that, by its orange and dark blue coloration that I observed from a distance, looked like Venezia/Morales lit.

I’ve been around politics long enough to know that, yes, politics can make strange bedfellows. But something like this? A machine Democrat publicly supporting another one for Governor for a very long time but then, less than two weeks before the election, supporting another one via a hidden from view door knocking campaign?

Perhaps I’m just naïve. Maybe this is the way things are regularly done in the NJ Democratic Party. If so, if this is the way of doing things, what I would describe as this cynical way of doing things, it's no wonder that lots of voters are turned off not just to the Trump/MAGA Republicans but to the dominant powers-that-be in the Democratic Party.

And it’s why insurgent candidates like those I’m supporting on the Bloomfield Democrats for Change slate are very much needed.