Barack Obama

Pa. Governor Ed Rendell today in Asbury Park

ASBURY PARK - The event at the West Side Community Center appeared to lack coherence from the beginning, as operatives with furrowed brows tried to figure out how to get more people burrowed in, while headliner Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell sat in a sedan outside in the rain and Newark Mayor Cory Booker was MIA.

"I told him whenever he needed me, I'd be there," said Rendell, referring to an August conversation he had with Gov. Jon Corzine, who's deadlocked in his reelection bid with GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie on the same day Corzine campaign manager Maggie Moran on "Power and Politics" for the first time blasted independent candidate Chris Daggett, who this past week inched up in a Rutgers-Eagleton poll to 20% behind the frontrunners' 36%.

Whatever the thrills provided last week by President Barack Obama and other Democratic Party luminaries, this particular rainy weekend campaign episode was not looking like the rally that would propel Gov. Jon Corzine into a second term on "the wheels of inevitability" described by Martin Luther King, Jr., in a favorite Booker quotation.

President Barack Obama return to New Jersey on November 1 to boost Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election campaign with rallies at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden and the Prudential Center in Newark.

"The enthusiasm and energy that accompany President Obama's visit are unmatched and we are certainly very excited to have him come back to New Jersey," said Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union), the Democratic State Chairman. "President Obama's on the weekend before Election Day is in the middle of the final push by energized Democrats to make sure we elect Democrats up and down the ticket."

Jon Corzine's campaign still won't confirm it, but U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn) says Obama will be back in New Jersey one more time.

"I think Obama's presence will help in New Jersey significantly.  He's coming back to New Jersey as well," said Rothman, who would only put the date as "before the election."

Getty Images Photo

HACKENSACK – Stumping for Gov. Corzine this evening, President Barack Obama took some direct shots at Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie.

Obama said that Corzine “understood that Pre-K isn’t babysitting – it’s a ticket to a world class education” – a reference to a point Christie made in a Republican primary debate.

Christie's cam[aign today put out a web ad showing struggling New Jersey communities with inspirational Obama speech excerpts in the background, in which the President urges an end to partisan rancor.  Throughout the general election campaign, Christie has remained largely uncritical of the President, sometimes even highlighting cases where the two agree.  But the rhetoric from the president this evening was not mutual.

“Listening to Jon’s opponent, you’d think New Jersey was the only state swept up in the [economic crisis]” said Obama, who did not once mention Christie’s name in his 25 minute speech.  “There seems to be some selective memory about how we got into this fix.”

A Chris Christie internet video released today likens his campaign’s message to President Obama's, while a Jon Corzine web ad from three days ago ties Christie to former President George W. Bush with his own words.

In Christie’s video, titled “Mr. President” and timed to coincide with Obama’s rally for Corzine today, several Obama speeches are cut together over solemn piano music and images of impoverished parts of New Jersey, including Camden’s Transition City, which Christie has raised on the stump.  In the audio clips, Obama calls for an end to partisan rancor, calls the financial crisis a “direct result of the greed and irresponsibility that has dominate Washington and Wall Street for years now” and talks about challenging “the money and influence that stood in our way.”    

“New Jerseyans are still fighting for change,” reads the text at theend of the ad.  

A Rasmussen poll released yesterday put Obama's approval rating in New Jersey rightside up at 53% approve to 39% disapprove.  

In Corzine’s spot – his most watched internet-only ad, at close to 16,000 views – Christie’s comments are cut out and allowed to stand on their own.  At a press conference the Corzine campaign says took place on March 26, 2007, Christie, then the state’s U.S. Attorney, says "Listen, I plead guilty to having raised money for Governor George W. Bush because I thought he was the best person to be President of the United States.”

Shortly before President Obama headlines a rally for Gov. Jon Corzine in Hackensack, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie will make a diner top in the same town.

Christie is scheduled to make a stop at 3pm at the Arena Diner, about two miles from the site of the Obama rally.  Prior to that, he’s holding a “Kitchen Table Tax Talk” – one of several he’s held this week as Corzine has brought in marquee Democratic names – in Paramus.  

The diner stop is scheduled just as doors open for the Obama event. 

President Obama campaigns for Gov. Jon Corzine on July 16 in Holmdel.

The President of the United States will attended a rally for Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election campaign tonight in Hackensack - his second appearance in the state on Corzine's behalf this year.  As the race between Corzine and Republican Christopher Christie continues to tighten, some Democrats think Barack Obama will be back in New Jersey one more time before Election Day.

The Corzine rally will be held at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Hackensack at 5:45 PM.  The President is scheduled to fly into Newark Airport, so expect some traffic delays tonight between Newark and Hackensack.

Vice President Joseph Biden was in New Jersey on Monday, and former President Bill Clinton stumped for Corzine yesterday.  Clinton will be back next Tuesday, attending a Corzine rally at the meatcutters union hall in Little Falls.

President Barack Obama, who will push for Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election at a rally in Hackensack tomorrow, has a 53%-39% approval rating in New Jersey, according to today's Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll.  But 73% of likely voters say Obama's endorsement will have no effect on their vote; 12% say they will be more likely, and 14% are less likely.  Among undecided voters, 78% say Obama won't affect their vote, while 5% say more likely and 14% say less likely.

U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), center, in the crowd today with Assemblyman Joe Egan (D-New Brunswick), left, and Middlesex County Freeholder H. James Polos.

EDISON - Against a landscape of Middlesex County Democratic Party strife, Vice President Joe Biden this afternoon stumped for Gov. Jon Corzine, arguing the international context of the recession, which he said Republican candidate Chris Christie has tried to pin solely on Corzine.

"Jon has said he governed in tough times," said the vice president. "Let's give him the chance to govern in good times."

Deadlocked with Christie, according to most polls, Corzine's handlers want him to repeat a double-barrel message from here until Election Day two weeks from now: remind people that he acted early to blunt the impact of the recession, and that the pro-unon, pro-choice, anti-gun incumbent shares the values of most New Jersey voters. 

Biden was here to amplify that two-pronged argument.

"Isn't it great we have Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House?" Corzine asked the crowd. "Their values are our values, right?"

A New York Times poll of New Jersey residents has President Barack Obama's approval rating at 62%-25%.  But nearly two-third of registered voters (65%) say that Obama’s endorsement of Gov. Jon Corzine will have no effect on their vote.  17% say it will make them more likely to support Corzine, and 16% say less likely.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) has a 38%-22% approval rating, and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) has an approval rating of 32%-22%.