Ingrid Reed

As the campaign for governor intensifies, both Governor Corzine and Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie have begun throwing some not-so-subtle personal jabs.

The latest example is a television ad Governor Corzine released yesterday.  More than a few observers and bloggers noticed the double entendre – whether intentional or not --when the voiceover says that Christie “threw his weight around” as U.S. Attorney to avoid traffic tickets and points on his license.  

Corzine spokesman Sean Darcy indicated today that the campaign did not intend for the comment to be taken literally.   But state Sen. Bill Baroni, who grew up overweight and lost 130 pounds 15 years ago, said that he “immediately” recognized a reference to Christie’s girth in the Corzine ad.

“Tens of thousands of New Jerseyans like me battle weight,” he said.   “To make reference to that in such a blatant way to distract from a discussion about the issues? We’re better than that.”

Corzine also got personal by launching a web ad accusing Christie of doing a favor for a fellow former U.S. Attorney who declined to prosecute his brother.  

But it has cut both ways.  Throughout the campaign, Christie has focused on portraying Corzine – who grew up in rural Illinois and moved to New Jersey in 1975 -- as not just out-of-touch, but out-of-town.  His campaign released a Web ad replaying a Corzine statement about the “Garden State Expressway”, which does not exist. 

Read More >

TRENTON -- Independent gubernatorial candidate Christopher Daggett wants to institute a "luxury tax" on wealthy self-funding political candidates, a jab at Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, who spent more than $100 million of his own money to finance his political career.

Daggett suggested a 33% tax on a candidates' who raise more than twice the amount at which publicly-financed candidates are capped (currently $10.9 million for the general election), which he said might be constitutional, as opposed to limiting how much candidates could spend. .  The receipts would then be distributed to the other candidates proportional to how much they raised.

The proposal is based on Major League Baseball's policy on teams that outspend a pre-set cap, but even Daggett was not sure whether the idea would actually hold up.

"I don't know if it would pass muster, but I think we need to do anything we can to limit the impact of money in politics.  If you can level the playing field so that people can't come in and just buy an election, I think that is all the better for democracy," he said.

Ingrid Reed, director of the Eagleton Institute's New Jersey Project, said the idea would likely run into problems upon implementation.

"The problem with that is the Supreme Court has ruled that it is against Freedom of Speech to say how much people can spend," said Reed, who supported the New Jersey's Clean Elections program until federal court decisions in other states caused legislators to withdraw the program for at least this year.  "It's good to have discussions about this, but it might be an idea that requires some more thought."

The proposal was the most novel part of Daggett's own ethics plan that he rolled out today at the State House, in which he proposed a number of reforms, some of which have already been attempted or proposed by his two major party opponents: a complete ban on dual office-holding; a ban on wheeling; ending pensions and free health coverage for part-time officials; a three year waiting period on lobbying for former elected officials; and an expansion of pay-to-play rules.

Read More >

Chris Christie’s selection of Kim Guadagno for lieutenant governor does not appear to be a geographical choice, according to Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

“This is one of those do-no-harm choices,” said Murray.  

The traditionally Republican Monmouth County has become increasingly competitive in recent elections, but Christie was widely assumed to have it easily in his column come November – especially in light the fact that Republican presidential candidate John McCain carried it over Barack Obama last year.

“She doesn’t come to the table bringing votes with her. It might pump up his margin in Monmouth County a little, but that’s not what he needs to make sure he wins this election,” said Murray. 

Read More >

To get a true picture of where the New Jersey gubernatorial race stands right now, analysts and pollsters say you need to look past the horse race poll numbers and focus instead on some of the recent suveys' underlying questions.

While the head-to-head match ups demonstrate a clear trend of Republican Christopher Christie consistently leading incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine, they're malleable this early in the campaign, and fluctuations in that number- whether swings or incremental changes - should be taken with a grain of salt.  Voters, for the most part, do not start paying attention until September at the earliest.

"That's why the campaigns are paying attention to all the stuff underneath that: the favorability rating, the issue ratings," said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray, whose organization, along with Gannett New Jersey, is releasing its own poll on Thursday.

What's clear is that Governor Corzine faces enormous political problems, and that the public is clearly in an anti-incumbent mood.  But there is still time - especially given Corzine's huge monetary advantage - to close the gap with Christie.

In the Quinnipiac University poll released today, Murray said the most important number is the 40% of voters who don't know enough about Christie to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him.  Although Christie's favorables remains net positive, there's plenty of room for his unfavorables to increase.

"That 40% who don't know Chris Christie hanging out there in this poll, that's got to leave his campaign worried," he said.

Read More >

With the budget passage, state Supreme Court Justice Barry Albin’s renomination and Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie’s testimony in DC, the last five days were important for the race for governor.

So which candidate won the week?

According to three expert political observers, Gov. Jon Corzine won on points, but not by enough develop a longstanding advantage in the race.

“Maybe Corzine is a little bit ahead, but I don’t think it’s the kind of game that’s going to stick. There are too many things out there, and are people really paying attention to what happened this week?” said Ingrid Reed, Director of the Eagleton Institute’s New Jersey Project.

Read More >

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie had to come out and directly address issues relating to the way he awarded federal monitoring contracts, according to three non-partisan political analysts.

The question, however, is whether Christie snuffed out growing media attention that has questioned his command of the issue that is supposed to be his strong suit: ethics.

Christie yesterday opened himself up to any question reporters had about allegations of cronyism and pay-to-play from his opponents and political commentators.  At issue was his appointment of David Kelley, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to a federal monitoring contract; $23,800 in donations to his campaign from the law firm Stern & Kilcullen, which he had earlier appointed to monitor the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; and the one-and-a -half year old story about awarding of a federal monitoring contract with $27 to $52 million to his former boss, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

"It wasn't going to go away.  He has to tackle them head-on because he can't be seen to be ignoring them," said Peter Woolley, a pollster and political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  "And they're still not going to go away, because the campaign tactic book dictates that you always hit somebody in their strength.  So if his strength is integrity, or at least that's what the public's perception of his strength is, then the tactic book says that's where you have to tear him down."

Read More >

For different reasons, both Democrats and Republicans have had a difficult time recruiting candidates in some key legislative districts this year. 

Some Republicans say they're having the best recruitment year in recent memory, with Governor Corzine's anemic poll numbers giving hope to the long beleaguered minority party.  But the GOP has had a difficult time recruiting candidates in two districts that were expected to be the most competitive in the state. 

Less surprising is the Democrats' failure to field their top choices in District 2 in South Jersey, where they hoped to play offense against two freshman Republican incumbents. 

"I think that economic challenges of getting a message out, as well as the challenges of public services, are unique to any candidate," said Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan (D-Union), who's also an assemblyman.  "Certain situations make it more difficult."

Read More >

In his 2005 gubernatorial bid, then-U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine had the whole-hearted support of New Jersey's biggest environmental groups, who called his campaign platform "one of the most comprehensive" ever outlined by a gubernatorial candidate.   

"We were the first to publicly endorse him," said New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel. 

This time around, that is far from certain.

"I think Corzine has aggravated and frustrated the environmental community at large," said Tittel. "I think that in a lot of ways, peoples' patience has kind of run out, partially because a lot of things that he committed to doing really haven't gotten done. Part of it has also been that a lot of little bad things have happened."

With the national and state economy in shambles, residents concerned with their property taxes and state workers' unions rebelling against money-saving measures, the environment will almost certainly not be the foremost issue this election cycle.  Tittel acknowledges that, but doesn't think that it relegates his cause to the back burner, especially since it's tied into the economy by President Obama's green jobs plan. 

The announcement this week that former Commissioner of Environmental Protection Christopher Daggett, who held posts in the Kean and Reagan administrations, will run for Governor as an independent could force the two major party candidates to spend more time talking about the environment than they otherwise would.

Environmentalists put the Governor's lack of commitment to open space funding among the worst parts of his record.  Corzine favors once again funding open space through a ballot question, which annoys environmentalists who believe the issue is too important to depend on the whim of the electorate.

Read More >

Democrats think today's Quinnipiac gubernatorial poll indicates that Gov. Jon Corzine is well on his way to being understood and embraced by the electorate after making several unpopular and tough, but necessary decisions.

Republicans see the poll as demonstrating lackluster support for the Corzine, considering he's spent a combined $100 million on his two previous statewide races, and early enthusiasm for U.S. Attorney Chris Christie's potential candidacy among those who have heard of him.

Meanwhile, non-partisan political analysts see the poll as a wash, with promising and troubling results for both Corzine and U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, who is viewed as a likely gubernatorial candidate.

Corzine leads Christie in the poll, 42% to 36%, although only 37% of voters think Corzine deserves to be reelected and his approval rating remains net negative. Christie remains a relative unknown, with only 30% of respondents knowing enough about him to form an opinion.

Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union), the Democratic State Chairman, said that's the number that caught his attention. Despite dozens of positive front page headlines about his indictments and convictions of prominent public officials since he was sworn in, 70% of voters still barely know anything about him.

On top of that, although Corzine still has a net negative approval rating, he's improved significantly since the last Quinnipiac poll in September.

Read More >

It's election eve, which means that it's time to journey up the Ivory Tower to hear what political analysts think will happen tomorrow.

The four analysts PolitickerNJ.com talked to today were unanimous in predicting a big win for Barack Obama over John McCain both nationally and in New Jersey, and were nearly certain that incumbent U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) would easily beat down the challenge by former Rep. Dick Zimmer.   

They were also unanimous in picking state Sen. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill) over Republican Medford Mayor Chris Myers in the 3rd Congressional District.

Three out of four predicated that U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-Wantage) would beat challenger Dennis Shulman in the 5th District, but by a narrow margin.  

Three out of four also felt that Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood) had the edge in her race against state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Flemington) in the 7th Congressional District, while one gave Lance a narrow victory. Read More >