What's behind Gov. Phil Murphy's 'aggressive' winter storm prep this week?

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Reading angry tweets to Phil Murphy for handling of NJ snowstorm NorthJersey.com assignment editor Matt McGrath reads some of the angry tweets sent to Phil Murphy during Thursday’s snowstorm.

Shell-shocked Gov. Phil Murphy is now determined to keep the snow off the roads over the next two days — and keep a political storm in the Statehouse from engulfing his administration.

Murphy and his "storm Cabinet" vowed Sunday night to take an "aggressive" posture in the face of two feeble "clipper" weather systems expected to sweep through the northwest corner of the state over the next two days.

He was clearly hoping to avoid a repeat of last Thursday's debacle, in which a larger-than-expected winter storm paralyzed portions of the state with snow and sleet, causing more than 1,000 vehicle accidents and turning the afternoon commute into a white-knuckled odyssey for hours on end.

"Are we being more cautious and more aggressive? Did Thursday contribute to it? The answer would have to be yes,'' Murphy said in a conference call with reporters. "The state got clobbered and many people got clobbered. And that is still very fresh in our minds."

Murphy also got clobbered in the court of public opinion. Thousands stranded on impassable roads vented their anger, accusing Murphy of being poorly prepared and slow to respond.

The reaction on social media was furious and vicious, and lawmakers of both parties, seeking to avoid the backlash, began wagging their fingers at Murphy.

Assemblyman Anthony Bucco, R-Morris, asked Assembly Transportation Chairman Daniel Benson to hold hearings on the state’s poor response.

“The state’s response was miserable,” Bucco said in a statement. “At only 14 miles from home during my commute last night on Route 287, GPS told me it would take another hour-and-a-half to get there. I never saw a single plow.”

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Benson, a Mercer County Democrat, sent a letter to Murphy requesting that members of the committee be “personally briefed on the poor handling of Thursday’s snowstorm prior to the public release of the postmortem.“

State Sen. Joe Cryan, D-Union, called on Murphy's office to review the state's response and implement "appropriate and necessary changes" to prevent a repeat of Thursday's slow-footed response.

Murphy denied that his new aggressive — and chastened — posture was an attempt to cool the outcry in the Legislature. "It has not come up in one conversation and has not crossed my mind for one second,'' he said. "It has literally nothing to do with that."

Yet the bipartisan backlash portends a larger problem for the rookie governor. Murphy's administration is about to be turned upside down by a separate investigation into its closed-door response to Katie Brennan's allegation that she was sexually assaulted during the campaign.

The administration did not spring into corrective action until after the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy story detailing Brennan's allegations. The hearings are set to begin in early December. Murphy has hired a former state Supreme Court associate justice to conduct his own investigation.

The new aggressive approach to the storm follows a similar path.

The salt trucks and the wreck-clearing crews and plows are all on red alert this week, only after Murphy officials were cornered by a public relations fiasco. Murphy promises an after-action report on his administration's response to the storm, but his response to most crises is an after-the-fact mopping of the mess with a promise to do better next time.

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The legislative backlash also points to what should be much more of a longer-range concern for Murphy. It suggests that lawmakers simply don't fear him. They don't fear the threat of any political repercussions for speaking out, as they did when Christie ruled the Trenton roost.

Lawmakers kept their heads down, fearing that the thin-skinned and vindictive Christie would mock them in public or veto their bills or block patronage appointments of some their allies. Christie imposed a reign of fear, but it kept his own party in line while most Democrats cowered.

Murphy is a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, whose role required him to make friends, not enemies. He is relentlessly upbeat and civil yet frightens no one. It is one reason he was dealt a humiliating setback in the budget negotiations with legislative leaders of his own party.

And other promises, like recreational marijuana and a minimum wage increase, are crawling at a slow-motion pace.

Christie, meanwhile, joined the pile-on, complaining on Twitter about his own abysmal commute during the storm. Murphy's staff reacted angrily to Christie's "potshots," but on Sunday, Murphy refused to inflame the squabble.

Asked if he thought Christie was "trolling" him on Twitter, Murphy, a former diplomat, said, "I have no idea," but he was going to be in a charitable mood since Christie's official portrait was expected to be unveiled Monday night at Morven, the former governor's mansion in Princeton.

Yet no one is in a charitable mood in Trenton for Murphy. The honeymoon has long since ended.

More storm coverage

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Blame game: Murphy blames poor storm response on forecast

Inch counts: How much snow did North Jersey get Thursday?