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KINNELON, NJ – The retired high school social science teacher, dressed in a light blue polo, stood up at City Hall while holding a notebook to say what he meant to his first congressman, Mikie Sherrill. "Thanks, Sherrill representative," Gary Schraft began. "We appreciate what you are doing to make this district a much better district. And we congratulate you for holding these public meetings because our last congressman refused to welcome them. Many people last week in the compact crowd applauded and applauded during the evaluation. Sherrill let the ovation soothe. "I feel a but come, "she said with a smile.
She was right. But the but was less a question and more a warning. Schraft invoked the name of an unfortunate Congressman from this region who won in 1972, defended Richard Nixon in 1973 and lost in 1974. "And President Trump, and many people believe him, is 10 times worse. than President Nixon. Schraft told Sherrill. "That's why we would really like you to support, like many other members of Congress, an impeachment investigation."
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This drew another roar of approval, and again Sherrill let the noise disappear. And in that moment of relative calm, in this predominantly Republican district of the 11th Congressional District of New Jersey, a district that had not voted for a Democrat for three and a half decades before voting for Sherrill the year last, the low, firm voice of a woman floated at the back of the room.
"Do not do it, Sherrill."
This is the political divide that has emerged for centrists like Sherrill. Throughout the month of August, as legislators spent time at home during the parliamentary recess and Trump's often-irregular behavior only intensified, moderate Democrats received increasingly urgent calls from from their more liberal voters. As the majority of Democrats in the House have said do it, Sherrill firmly said do not wait yet. Last month's story focused on whether Sherrill and his peers can withstand the pressure.
Sherrill and her colleagues from the district, more than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or one of the other members of the title "The Squad," allowed Democrats to regain control of Capitol Hill's lower house, and Sherrill won not only a perfect victory. Adapted biography (naval helicopter pilot, former federal prosecutor, mother of four children), but concentrating on less sexy subjects on the laser, which nevertheless favors a more bipartite agreement (taxes, health care, infrastructures). This deliberate approach facilitated a delicate and necessary balance in which Sherrill appealed to a group of ardent Democrats, activated by the magnificent election of Trump, of course, but also to a sufficient number of independents and Republicans more leisurely outstanding. The voters to his right were as responsible for his victory as those to his left, and they have the same say as to whether or not he remains in his seat.
At this point in her term, she has more and more signs that she can and will: no one is currently committed to running against her – neither a GOP hope nor a main opponent. The forecasters are watching his neighborhood as Republicans have occupied for 34 years and now consider it "probably democratic" or even more to win. "Sherrill", according to Kyle Kondik Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, "is not really vulnerable."
So, eight months into his congressional term, Sherrill looked at Schraft and spoke at the microphone, noting that the brand was a parent, a lawyer, a soldier who became a legislator.
She recognized the anger and anguish of people. She said that she shares them. Then, she pivoted to the heart of her wait-and-see attitude: "We now have about 29 investigations underway," which is widespread, and "when you investigate, you get as much information as you can. We always get information. "
And she continued toward her conclusion. Work on many other urgent issues and on other committees – the Armed Services Committee of the House, for example – should also be continued. "Because Congress does not want just have a supervisory responsibility, "she said. "He has the responsibility of being in tune with people. That's why I took the position I had. "
This case of careful patience did not arouse screams, or even grunts or moans, but a new wave of applause.
After City Hall, I found Schraft, the professor of social studies, and his wife.
He was dissapointed. "She dodges the problem," he said.
"But you're going to support her, anyway, no?" I asked him.
"Well, we will vote for her," he said.
This is something I have heard over and over again from voters like Schraft in this district. Sherrill is frustrated to varying degrees on this front – but it is almost certain that it is not so bad, so they will pay for it with their vote. There is just too much at stake
The next afternoon, at the back of the car a staff member, after a meeting with BASF's office staff at Florham Park, then a tour of the small Morristown airport with chefs from Corporate and local mayors (one Democrat and two Republicans), said Sherrill I'm talking about his prisoner of war training in the navy on top of a mountain in Maine, when the day-to-day temperature fell at 65 degrees below. The forty or so men she was with were snuggled to keep her body heat. She was the only woman. She had frostbite. It seemed dangerous. She told me that she was blindfolded and was tied to a helicopter that had been spilled in a giant water tank. She had to swim to go out. It seemed dangerous.
"I guess I do not feel that pressure," she said.
If she perceives a danger, she suggested, it is not in her district with which she feels "fairly well aligned", but on the political field in the broad sense. She played a key role in how last year's Democrats got their main support against Trump, and losing next year, she said, giving up all ground in this bitter fight would be disastrous.
"If this president is re-elected, we need the House of Representatives. I think it was very bad for this country. And I think the only point of support right now is the House. And so I do not take this responsibility lightly. "
***
The impeachment buzz slowly builds in northern New Jersey. As late as the end of May, when I attended Sherrill Town Hall in Bloomfield, a much more liberal district of the district, the subject was hardly discussed. The first time I heard about that night was the end of the meeting and one of Sherrill's best-known constituents had asked her about it. Jack Gavin, a 59-year-old computer professional, is tall (he's already told me that he's five feet tall 17) and wears a beige knit vest, a bushy white beard and pocket-sized editions of the Constitution. His blue Subaru Forester has a license plate that says "FACTS" and is covered with bumper stickers, including one that says, "Make the bad man go"
On this particular Sunday in a college auditorium, the redacted report of special advocate Robert Mueller had been out for a month. On the basis of this reading, the Republican representative of the time, Justin Amash of Michigan, had concluded that Trump's actions respected the "threshold of indictment". Gavin basically asked Sherrill how late he was. "What will it take?" He said. She wanted, she told him, to hear from Mueller – it would not happen for another two months – and she also wanted to be able to read "the full report, unredacted".
"I think we're in a good position right now," Sherrill told Gavin. "I think what we are doing right now is what we need to do."
However, in August, more and more progressives in the eleventh perceived this position as unacceptable circumspection.
"We are writing with your constituents with increasing fervor and an alarm on the lack of urgency," Laura Valente and three other residents of Nutley said in a letter to Sherrill dated Aug. 1. She called Sherrill's statement after Mueller's testimony "lukewarm". Laurence Tribe, Law Professor: "Waiting for the results of the many ongoing investigations, is to risk linking our country's fate to the whims of an authoritarian leader." He begged Sherrill "to do what you can only do for us "-" bold, decisive support for the impeachment procedure. "It was signed by 128 other voters of the same opinion. It was a good start to the month.
The following week, at Sherrill District Headquarters in Parsippany, Valente and the other letter writers met for half an hour.
"I told him that while growing up, studying history, I had always imagined that I would have the courage to have hid Anne Frank or to have crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. "Valente said," and that moment has come. in the history of our nation, call again this courage. "
Valrente recalled that Sherrill had responded that his likely acquittal in the Senate would have emboldened Trump and would constitute an implicit and unprecedented endorsement of his conduct. She would change her mind, said Sherrill, said Valente, if and when the majority of Americans supported the impeachment, which continues to not be the case.
After Sherrill had expressed similar sentiments in the middle of the month in "The Daily", the popular New York Times balcast, a man from Parsippany reproached him in a letter to the editor of a local publication. "You have already exercised the commands of a US Navy helicopter. At any time, your commander could have put you in danger, putting your life in danger, your future and, basically, all that you currently have – all for the benefit of your country, "he wrote. need at least a bit of that same courage now. "Representative Sherrill, stand in the way of autocracy and defend the rule of law when you return to Washington."
The scene was prepared for what had happened three days later at the Sherrill town hall in Verona. Valente was there. She held her hand up but was not called.
Towards the end of the evening, she turned to the people around her, she said.
"If I start singing," Impeach now, "she tells them, will you follow me?"
Their singing lasted about 10 seconds – watch it start in about 10 minutes – and they held placards saying the same thing, and Sherrill remained motionless, smiling, her hands clasped calmly. She heard them – "about four people in a city hall of 150 people," she told me later – but that's not all she heard. "Other people said," Calm down, you're wasting time, "she said with a laugh," So it was not like the whole room had adopted that, like, oh, you know, forks mentality."
Yet, with the subject on hold, a different woman asked Sherrill to explain her position again, and she did it again.
"If we do not defend enough the American people and if, for the moment, I do not think we can do it without more, the president will be acquitted," she said. two the branches of our government that have declared that his behavior is acceptable and that is how we want our president to act. We must be incredibly thoughtful. She said that a "dividing line" would be for her if Trump and his administration ignored the final decisions of the courts. Until then, however, she reiterated her belief in the prudence of restraint. "I think," she said, "we are conducting a very solid investigation and I think we are doing the right thing."
I went to four of his town halls this year. Each time, I am reminded that the issues raised by Sherrill in 2018 are the ones that matter most to most people here. Despite the recent resounding demand for dismissal, much of what it has heard at these public forums has been devoted to gun control, climate change, price prescription drugs and the arduous daily journeys on deteriorating bridges, tunnels and roads. and property taxes, election financing and the infuriating number of automated calls – a range of issues that are not at all in the news by cable, but which constitute the unbridled backbone of any active public sector (or non-functional). In my opinion, whatever the value of it, Sherrill has been a fairly quick study, becoming more familiar with every appearance to say what she means and how she wants to say it.
And at Kinnelon, from my place in the front row, I watched her answer Schraft's question about dismissal, and found her clinical to the point of being practiced. It was different, however, when he was asked about gun control. Sherrill is as constitutionally measured as politically moderate, but she has become unusually moved. She did not cry, to the Andrew Yang, but her voice was angry and perceptible. She focused on the bipartisan bill that she co-sponsored calling for a universal background check and decried a repulsive Republican Senate. She quoted a United States today she recently wrote with Democratic Representative Jason Crow of Colorado. She praised New Zealand's fast-moving shares after a single mass shot. And she told the story of a schoolgirl who was afraid to change schools because she did not know "in which cupboard to hide" in her new school. "How are you?" She said sharply to the crowd. "How do we live and normalize this level of violence in our communities? I do not think it's acceptable, and I am fighting hard to stop it. "
During this one – hour adventure, she did what she almost always did. She began by reciting "The Pledge of Allegiance". She paid tribute to the veterans of the region. She pronounced the word "bipartisan" with an almost comical frequency, which people noticed and said that they liked her well. The most turbulent appeal of the evening was by far that of a seventh-grade student asking what could be done to get politicians from different parties to get along and work together. The Republican mayor of the borough has been declared "starstruck" by Sherrill.
I looked at the man on the other side of the room, the blue blazer standing against the wall, arms crossed, studying Sherrill and the dynamics of the room, I could not help but wonder what he thought.
***
Keith Dakin, a Republican, thinks to run against Sherrill. Late the next night, I met him at the Sheraton Parsippany Bar, which looks like a castle and hosted the Sherrill Victory Day last November. He is sitting in front of his seat. Aged 53, Dakin is a divorced father of two middle-aged sons who works in the irrigation sector and who has never been a candidate for a job. He and I talked for two and a half hours until the bartender turned on the light. Reduced to size, the argument in support of his notional offer is that Sherrill is not far enough from the left to be a democrat.
Sherrill, for example, is wary of Medicare for all, arguing instead for further improvements to the health care system as a whole. Just like Dakin. "I'm not that different," he says.
He is also interested in universal background checks and common sense firearms. "Good," he says. "I am a moderate Republican."
"We are a two-party system," he tried to explain. "I do not think Mikie Sherrill aligns with one or the other." Maybe he detected on my face my confusion. "What she's doing – you can call it awesome by moving and appealing to Republican voters," he said, "but these are Republican voters, is not it?" this not? "
He spoke to me about a conversation he had had with three voters after the Kinnelon Town Hall. "Two women approached me," he said. "What's your name?", Keith Dakin, hoping to present at the conference. if you can not take a stand on gun law and health care right now, you have no chance because we are leaving with it. "
I asked what he said in response.
"I did not really have the opportunity. She's sort of far from me, "Dakin said.
"Maybe I will lose," he conceded.
"If she changed sides, I would get out of the race right away, even before I get in," he added.
"If you're a leftist democrat," he said at the end of our time together, "you're not with Sherrill."
I'm not so sure.
Nat Arkin, 93, asked the very first question at Cedar Crest's retirement home in Pompton Plains last week. "The Mueller report was published four months ago," he said. "I know you are opposed to dismissal now, and I would like to know: if not now, when?" Sherrill answered as she answered. "I was not completely satisfied," Arkin told me later. In the last campaign of Sherrill, who worked in the country's Democratic club, Arkin gave her money, was telephoned by phone for her and wrote to the editorial to help her. And he voted for her. And he will vote again for her. "In hell, I would not vote for a Republican at this point in my life, with what's happening in the country," he said.
When I spoke to Laura Valente, the woman who wrote the letter to Sherrill and met her in her office fanned the chants at Verona City Hall. the house is on fire, I asked if she would still vote for Sherrill next year. "Well, Yeah, "she says." I mean, it's the full blue whoever mentality right now, because of the existential threat. "
And then there is Jack Gavin. When I first met him in January, he handed me buttons that he pulled out of his vest pockets – FACTS, CHANGE, ETC. – but it also sounded an infinitely pragmatic note. "She has to work in the district," he said. "She can not, what's the word I'm looking for?" "She can not disenchante her supporters at each end." But the people to her left are, in my opinion, so grateful for this tremendous improvement. I never expect it to be perfect, I never expect to agree with it 100%. "
I usually see him on my trips to Sherrill District. I did not see him last week. I gave him a call.
"I left him a little slack," Gavin said. "On removal … less."
He wishes that she join the list of Democrats in the House calling for (as her bumper sticker says): MAKE THE BAD MAN. If anybody overawed her, he said, he would look at her. For the moment, will he vote again for Sherrill?
Gavin did not hesitate at all.
"I would go for it rather than for any Republican I can conceive of," he said. "Abraham Lincoln is dead."
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