Mike Kelly Dares You To Name One Thing Phil Murphy Did In Eight Years.

As the new year approaches, many outgoing elected officials wonder if they did enough to secure their legacy. They may want to be remembered for a groundbreaking piece of legislation, or a moment where their leadership was a beacon in an unsettling time. Or they may be able to point to a bridge or school campus or piece of infrastructure and say, “I moved heaven and earth to make that happen.” According to award-winning NorthJersey.com columnist Mike Kelly, the term-limited governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, thus finds himself in a quandary come January 1st- nobody can point to a single shining moment and say it has the indelible qualities that define his career in public service. Kelly covered the entire eight years that Murphy spent in Trenton. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program not to praise Murphy, but to bury him- if he can remember anything he did in the first place.

Kelly told host Ken Rosato, sitting in for Larry Mendte, that he will remember Murphy for the consistency of his vanilla-like approach to governing the Garden State: “Isn’t it interesting that Murphy has spent eight years in New Jersey and is leaving as a governor who I am guessing that most people in New Jersey cannot name a single thing that this guy has done. Usually you can name something, you know, about what a political figure does when he or she leaves office- and not Murphy. This is a guy who has kind of just drifted through eight years of issues and problems in New Jersey and, yeah, he’ll point to a few things here or there, but nothing consequential. Meanwhile, the state has just extremely poor rail and bus service, and the roads are deteriorating basically as we speak.”

Kelly also touched upon an issue that Murphy successor Mikie Sherrill will have to address, the rise in driving under the influence cases that stems from the legalization of marijuana: “Take a walk down any street in New York City and smell the secondhand smoke from pot, and this is what I think nobody has really addressed yet. Same thing with driving under the influence. We’ve all talked about driving under the influence of alcohol… but I think it’s really time to take up the marijuana issue as well.”

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