The Republican State Committee is running a countdown clock on its website – 9 hours, 59 minutes, 12 seconds, 11 seconds, 10 seconds and so on – “until We Take Back New Jersey.”

Trouble is, virtually no one in New Jersey believes that.

Least of all, the grand high exalted leader of the NJ GOP himself, Gov. Christie.

Sure, the governor over the past two weeks has been making the headline-grabbing statements that even with a new Democrat-leaning legislative district map Republicans are poised to “make history” in tomorrow's mid-term elections.

But that history even if it is made is nothing like the moon-landing, earth-shaking variety.

Still, the first-term governor insists it would be historic even if his party doesn't pick up a single seat in the Democrat-controlled Legislature; so long as Republicans don't lose any.

This is because only once in the past half-century has the party of the sitting governor not lost seats in a mid-term legislative election.

The only one who bucked the odds and made history himself by adding seats from among his party, Christie pointed out, was former Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey, who picked up six seats working with a map redrawn to Democratic advantage in 2003.

In his self-proclaimed bid to make history tomorrow, the governor hit the hustings today, campaigning the old-fashioned Jersey way at the Suburban Diner in Paramus joined by LD 38 Republicans whose big prize would be unseating Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Gordon.

And Christie's sanctioned a half-million dollar TV ad buy on behalf of candidates running in districts 38, 2, 7 and 27 featuring the message “The New Jersey comeback has begun.”

In the LD 38 ad, Christie -- dressed in a suit and tie and framed in an official-like setting that's framed by the American and state flags – talks directly to the camera with the occasional video overlay of sign-wielding kids and adults with homespun messages like “Increased aid to our schools” and “More jobs” and “Lower taxes.”

But the commercials are more about the governor's Trenton agenda – the property tax cap, public worker pension reforms, school and small business aid – than the candidate they're supposedly pitching for. In the LD 38 ad, for example, Senate candidate and Bergen Freeholder John Driscoll gets all of 5 seconds at the 30-second spot's tail end and even then he's got to share the Christie spotlight with just a picture of him on a poster board as the governor intones: “We're not done yet. Send John Driscoll to Trenton to help me finish the job.”

He also made a stop today in LD 18, where Republican Gloria Dittman is engaged in a long-shot challenge against Senate Majority Leader and possible 2013 gubernatorial hopeful Barbara Buono.

Democratic State Committee Chairman, Assemblyman John Wisniewski calls the governor's work on behalf of Republican candidates “a half-hearted attempt to show the flag at the Eleventh Hour.”'

He says Christie's more interested in bolstering his national image than he is in attempting to bolster his party's numbers in the Legislature.

“Two days ago he was in Mississippi campaigning,” the Democrat chairman said in an interview. “Maybe he thought we drew Mississippi into District 1 (in Cape May)?”

Wisniewski charges the “governor's policies are geared to obtain for him exposure nationally in conservative circles and don't do anything to better the life of the average New Jerseyan.”

The Democratic chairman's also getting a kick out of sketching out his own historical record to match the governor's. He's added to Democrat talking points the past few days in noting that Christie owns “the smallest percentage of Republican legislators in both houses in 100 years.

“He's not going to increase that, so he's lowering expectations.”

Wisniewski says voters headed to the polls tomorrow “are going to say that the people of the state of New Jersey want a Democratic Legislature as a check against the extravagant policies of Gov. Christie.”

The policies Wisniewski points to are first-year budget-balancing cuts the governor made to Homestead Rebates, school aid and municipal funding; all of which he says led to increased property taxes.

But the governor needed Democratic votes to put those policies over the top.

So Carl Golden, the longtime press secretary for the state's most popular governor, Republican Tom Kean, and later for Republican Gov. Christie Whitman, has a different spin.

He calls the Democratic chairman's slams on the governors policies “disengenuous” because it took Democratic votes – in some cases from legislative leaders – to pass them.

“The Democrats have a numerical majority,” Golden says. “But Christie's got the working majority.”

And he says as long as the alliance between Christie and Democratic party leaders in the north and south holds, that calculus isn't going to change.

To Golden, tomorrow's election with its predicted record or near record-low turnout won't be a referendum on the governor or Democrats who control the Legislature.

“There's no real driving, overarching theme out there for either party,'' Golden says.

“I don't think it means a whole lot,” adds the old political warhorse.

“Now, in 2013, when the governor and the entire Legislature are on the ballot,” he added, “that can truly be called a referendum on the governor and the Legislature.”

It's an election where Christie may well find himself back in LD 18, the jumping off point for a Sen. Buono for governor campaign.

And that TV ad the governor's running in LD 38 in Bergen County?

Well, if the GOP clips off the last five seconds, it could think about recycling it in all-important Bergen in that upcoming gubernatorial election year.