InsiderNJ slumped on a stool in a Jersey watering hole watching the traffic snarled in the miniature, dysfunctional downtown, observing the insistence of New Jerseyans to simultaneously occupy oversized automobiles on undersized streets.

“This cycle’s been a nightmare,” the Democratic Party source on the other side of the table admitted, referring to the machinations connected to the Nov. 7^th general election.

Really?

To the naked eye, it hasn’t looked like much.

It’s looked a little like the ultimate oversimplification of existence, as Democrats hammer Republicans with abortion and Republicans hammer Democrats with parental notification, details be damned.

Not that politics has to be deep necessarily, but the cycle feels like calculated reductionism, an intentional curtailment to preserve only that segment of the voting population impassioned by either abortion or schools.

“I get it,” said the source, “But under the surface it’s contained a lot of drama.”

Ah, interesting.

Here sat a New Jersey political insider actually acknowledging the world beyond that tiny cocoon of messaging dominating the cycle’s legislative contests.

He recognizes the essential complexity of things, and the potential interference of the following: the Democrats’ passage of a budget roughly $20 billion more than the last budget submitted by Governor Chris Christie in 2017; the Republicans’ failure to choose a speaker for the U.S. House of Representatives and the party’s ongoing apparent fear of both Fox News and former President Donald J. Trump; the meltdown into gold bar absurdity of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ); and the developing war in the Middle East, between Israel and Hamas; not to mention the fast-accelerating 2024 presidential contest and the impact thereon of Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden.

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