Barack Obama

New Jersey's congressional delegation voted 8-5 along party lines in support of a House resolution voicing disapproval of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who shouted "You lie!" during President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress last week.  Democrats John Adler, Rob Andrews, Rush Holt, Frank Pallone, Bill Pascrell, Donald Payne, Steven Rothman, and Albio Sires voted yes.  Republicans Rodney Frelinghuysen, Scott Garrett, Leonard Lance, Frank LoBiondo and Christopher Smith voted no.  The resolution passed 240-17.  Seven Republicans voted yes and twelve Democrats voted no.

Although yesterday’s Monmouth University/Gannett Poll showed Chris Christie’s lead over Jon Corzine among likely voters being reduced from fourteen to eight percentage points, there was good news in the poll for the Republican challenger as well.  In spite of an onslaught from Jon Corzine of negative ad hominem television commercials, Christie’s negative personal approval ratings did not increase over the past month.  Furthermore, the reduction in his lead among likely voters was no surprise to the Christie campaign – it was simply the result of the expected return to the Corzine column of Democrat base voters.

There was, however, one very ominous sign in the poll for the Christie campaign.  While Christie leads Corzine among likely voters,  Corzine actually now leads Christie among registered voters by one percent.  This is a significant change from the six point lead the Republican challenger enjoyed among registered voters in July and the four point lead he held in August.

It will be the central goal of the Corzine campaign, through Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) efforts, to get to the polls on Election Day the maximum number of these lukewarm Corzine supporters who presently fall under the classification of “registered but not likely” voters.  It is indeed in the area of GOTV that the Corzine campaign has a major advantage over the Christie campaign, due to the continued state Democratic Party organizational and financial advantages.

New Jerseyans just narrowly favor President Barack Obama's health care plan, with 50% of voters supporting it and 47% opposing it, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released today. According to Rasmussen, 53% nationally oppose the Obama plan.

New Jersey's two U.S. Senators and the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Health subcommitte issued statements tonight following President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress:

New Jerseyan Philip Murphy did not make a very good impression on his first day as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, according to a Congressional Quarterly report.   Murphy, who was a top executive at Goldman Sachs and the Democratic National Committee Finance Chairman, apparently arrived in Berlin last month on a Gulfstream V jet just as the German press "was describing how top embassy posts in the Obama administration were going almost exclusively to wealthy campaign donors."

The "ostentatious top-of-the-line executive jet that left German Chancellor Angela Merkel grinding her teeth over President Obama's gift of ambassadorships to wealthy donors," the report said. 

From CQ:

President Obama has an ambitious agenda. He wants a “bipartisan health care reform package.” Translation: He wants Republicans to support his goal to increase the federal government’s role in health care now so the Democrats’ long-term goal of a single payer government insurance program will be a reality in a few years.

After the raucous town hall meetings members of Congress faced during their recent vacation, the Democrats realize that the country will not now embrace a single payer insurance system; therefore they will go for the incremental approach. A public option now and then later the big enchilada, universal health care.

President Barack Obama has a 51%-43% approval rating in New Jersey, a state that he carried 57%-42% nine months ago, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning.  Obama's local approval rating was at 56%-39% three weeks ago, at 61%-33% on July 14, and at 68%-25% on June 10. 

Getty Images Photo

Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama backstage at the IZOD Center on February 4, 2008 -- Kennedy's final campaign visit to New Jersey.

U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass.) last public power performance in New Jersey occured last year on Feb. 4th on the eve of the Democratic Presidential Primary at the Meadowlands.

He appeared onstage at a rally with Barack Obama and other primary backers of the underdog candidate who would go on to seize his party's nomination and the presdiency.

"We have a candidate for the president of the United States that will inspire a new generation of young people, bring our people together, and face the great issues that we should face in this century, at this time," Kennedy said in his introduction of Obama.

Among those onstage with Kennedy and Obama were former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, niece Caroline Kennedy, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, actor Robert DeNiro, and state Sen. President Richard Codey (D-Roseland).

RED BANK - After weathering a roomful of angry residents tonight who called him everything from "liar" to "socialist" to Speaker Nancy Pelosi "lackey" to illegal alien enabler, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) said he failed to hear an argument to change his mind about the need for a public healthcare option.

'No, I have to be honest, so much of it is misconceptions," Pallone told reporters as 250 residents who attended the first round of this town hall meeting filed out of the Red Bank Middle School auditorium to make way for another 250.

The congressman, who chaired the committee and helped craft the healthcare reform bill which made it through committee on the House side but which the Senate still has not considered, was ready for a third batch of residents at 10 p.m.

Hundreds more lined up outside the school wouldn't make the cut.

"This program is designed not to impact employer-provided healthcare - most people get healthcare through their employer," said Pallone. "It's desiged to address the problems of those who don't have insurance. ...I'm very proud of the bill."

Gov. Jon Corzine, right, with Somerset County Democratic Party Chair Peg Schaffer and Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Franklin Township), left.

SOMERVILLE - When President Barack Obama choppered into Holmdel and stood at a podium with Gov. Jon Corzine as flashbulbs popped, the event went down as a high profile rescue effort by the president of a governor for whom much of the Democratic Party was hitting the panic button.

Today, in a seeming effort to shake off the candidate in distress designation and himself come to the oratorical aid of a president whose own favorables have dipped since his appearance at the PNC Arts Center earlier this summer, Corzine sounded a note of defiant allegiance to Obama.

"Our president is under attack," Corzine told a crowd of 75-100 rain-spattered troops at the opening of the Somerset County Democratic Party headquarters on Division Street. "We need to send him a signal that we're with him. We're not going backwards, we're going forward."

While the governor is running nine points behind GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, the Christie campaign had a week and a half of negative headlines, which may have tightened the race.

"Everything is moving in the right direction," Corzine roared. "Let's keep it going. Things are moving in the right direction, right?"