Doug Palmer

Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer

TRENTON – There was Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on a television set and Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer listening with deepening skepticism. Palmer, a short-list candidate for lieutenant governor, thought Jindal’s Tuesday night GOP bite-back at President Barack Obama’s federal stimulus speech was especially poor. 

“I think he’s being panned a lot,” Palmer said of the Republican governor who in his remarks likened an aid package to federal bureaucrats haplessly attempting to micromanage Hurricane Katrina relief, and who would refuse a profusion of new federal funds to his state.

“Bobby Jindal’s either hypocritical or he’s putting politics ahead of his responsibility as governor of Louisiana,” said Trenton’s mayor since 1990. “Louisiana especially should welcome aid, and it’s his job to make sure that money is used effectively. Look, we tried the governor’s approach and it’s not going anywhere.” 

Gov. Jon Corzine, right, with senior policy advisor (and former 4th Congressional District candidate) Josh Zeitz

TRENTON – It’s very early, of course. 

But Gov. Jon Corzine at his full-fledged press conference on the fourth floor of the Hughes Justice Center this afternoon, where he was flanked by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and Attorney General Anne Milgram, suggested the déjà all over again feel of Gerry Ford’s defensive posture campaign against Jimmy Carter one day after Corzine’s presumptive chief rival entered the race for governor.  

In that 1976 presidential contest between Carter and Ford, Carter was out in the hinterlands while Ford tracked the sedate and somber steps of good government, immersed in all the symbolic trappings of his office. 

In this case, in the face of repeated Republican put-downs that Democrats with their overt culture of political patronage and government first ask questions afterwards approach, Corzine projected the image of an executive committed to making the engine run as he announced in the midst of a national recession the creation of a new state-supported mortgage foreclosure mediation program.

Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer: Politicker file photo

DENVER - The name of Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer often appears on people’s short lists for lieutenant governor in 2009.

Palmer doesn’t have a problem with that.

"I’m thinking about it," he told PoltiickerNJ.com, regarding attempting to land an under-card position on a ticket with Gov. Jon Corzine.

Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer has endorsed Frank Lautenberg for re-election to the United States Senate.  “I support Sen. Frank Lautenberg 100 percent," Palmer said.  "He has been there for Trenton each and every single day fighting for our city and our residents."

He's not one of the legislative black caucus’s “Nubian queens” that state Sen. Ronald Rice referred to last week, but Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer is said to be highly interested in becoming the state’s first Lieutenant Governor in 2010.

Standing at the poll watch party for Hillary Clinton last night in Edison, Palmer was careful with his choice of words when asked whether he was interested in the position.