Jim McGreevey

Senate President (and former Governor) Richard Codey (D-Roseland)

Chris Christie’s repeated characterizations of the failed administrations of governors Jim McGreevey and Jon Corzine, while leapfrogging oratorically over the gubernatorial term of Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland), forced a smile from Codey. 

“I take that as a compliment,” he said, chuckling when reminded of Christie’s WOR likening of Codey to former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, who worked across the aisle with then-President Ronald Reagan.

Codey did a robocall this week for District 28 incumbents Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville) and Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark), who are being challenged in the Democratic Primary by former Assemblyman Craig Stanley. 

With the entrance of Chris Christie into the Republican gubernatorial primary, the GOP has greatly enhanced its chances of capturing the governor's mansion. While Christie certainly will be a strong candidate, the fact that he faces another prominent Republican in Steve Lonegan means that a significant amount of media attention will be focused on the Republican primary, while the Democratic candidate, in all likelihood the incumbent Governor Corzine, will be attending to state business. Unfortunately, in this economic climate attending to state business means that Governor Corzine will be cutting budgets rather than cutting ribbons.

Conventional wisdom generally holds that a any primary pitting the state's two most recognizable candidates against one another is a recipe for disaster, especially when facing a well-financed incumbent. However, I believe conventional wisdom is wrong in this case. In an off-year election cycle like New Jersey's, the media's attention will be focused on the gubernatorial primary, especially the "horse-race" elements, and will provide the candidates in the primary an unprecedented degree of media coverage.  The result will be a significant boost in their name recognition among voters. 

This was the situation that Democrats faced in 1997 when Jim McGreevey, Mike Murphy and Rob Andrews squared off against one another. Christie Whitman, the incumbent, waited in the wings and received little attention. (Governors performing their normal duties are usually not very newsworthy.) The Democratic race that year was the big news story, and it received the lion's share of media attention. As a result, the event winner of the primary, Jim McGreevey, nearly pulled off an upset against Whitman.

To view a larger version of this cartoon, click here.

In response to Republican criticism of the way Democrats ran theSenate President Richard Codey (D-Essex): Politicker file photo state Property Tax Assistance and Community Development account, Democratic Party Chairman Joe Cryan and state Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) tonight tried to staunch the bleeding.

The Democrats took a series of GOP hits this week in the aftermath of state budget officer George LeBlanc’s courtroom testimony that former Gov. Codey’s administration applied no oversight to the way the state distributed $40 million supposedly dedicated to property tax relief.

The Democrats argue that Republicans want to act holier than thou, while they were knee-deep in the same slush fund that Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Troy Hills-Parsippany) said was not a "merit-based, competitive grant awards system as claimed by the McGreevey and Codey administrations."

"Every grant from the program was approved by the Joint Budget and Oversight Committee (JBOC), which included Republican Senator Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) and Republican Assemblyman Joe Malone (R-Bordentown)," objected Cryan in a prepared statement. "Each member of JBOC had to approve the grants, a process that included notification and approval by Sen. Lance and Assemblyman Malone."

Assessing what they say was a fund that over two years added up to $128 million, Republicans say they wanted and requested JBOC meetings, however, the meetings did not take place after the majority party waited out the ten-day period deadline.

While New Jersey suffered from a crippling structural deficit, politicians created a slush fund to dole out tax dollars for their own personal gain.

Last week at the corruption trial of disgraced former state Sen. Wayne Bryant, a Democratic legislative aide testified that Bryant and other legislators were given complete discretion over the allocation of millions of dollars in the state budget -- from a fund that was supposed to be distributed based on a competitive, merit-based application process. Prosecutors allege that Bryant directed some of his share to the School of Osteopathic Medicine at UMDNJ in exchange for a no-show, pension-boosting job.

The separation of powers were non-existent in 2005 when the budget's $40 million slush fund was proposed by then-acting Gov. Dick Codey and ushered through the legislature by Senate President Codey (a prior budget from then-Gov. Jim McGreevey also included such a fund). Governor Jon Corzine shut the scheme down within months of taking office after conducting an internal investigation, the results of which are still not public.

Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) in Summit on Friday.: Politicker photoSUMMIT - Coming off a train station rally here for presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer and state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) convened a town hall meeting at the high school, where they brandished their fiscally conservative credentials in a room of about 50 voters.

Now in a race with Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood) to represent the 7th Congressional District, Lance the veteran legislator underscored his tenacity fighting bloated government, including the administration of disgraced former Gov. Jim McGreevey.Former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer addresses voters in the Summit High School Library as GOP organizer Kelly Hatfield looks on: Politicker photo

"I am the ‘Lance’ of Lance versus McGreevey," the senator said of his suit against the former administration to curb borrowing to balance the state budget.

The New Jersey Supreme Court in 2004 allowed McGreevey to borrow $1.9 billion, or nearly 7 percent of what was then a $28 billion budget, but forbade the governor from borrowing in the future.

Talking to Summit voters Friday evening in the high school library, Lance took pride too in noting how his proposed Constitutional amendment to ban borrowing without voter approval will appear on the Nov. 4th ballot.

A Union County judge has ruled that former Gov. Jim McGreevey must pay child support to his now ex-wife Dina Matos, but does not owe any alimony payments.

Superior Court judge Karen Cassidy issued the ruling this afternoon. McGreevey will have to pay $1,075 per month in child support -- less than the $1,750 requested by Matos.

The ruling also requires that McGreevey pay Matos about $110,000 -- representing half the balance in various accounts he holds. Matos had wanted half of all present and future assets, potentially totaling up to $1 million. But McGreevey does not need to split any earnings from his book, "The Confession", nor for his "alleged celebrity goodwill".

In the opinion accompanying the ruling, Cassidy writes: "Mrs. McGreevey is able to earn a living. Her ability to support herself is hampered by her accrual of significant debt even though she received over $275,000 from a book detailing her experiences with the plaintiff. She is not entitled to a lifestyle commensurate with that of the First Lady of New Jersey."

Neither party must pay the other for legal fees, which totals in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

EDISON - Diners anchor what’s left of the train-track and warehouseEdison Mayor Jun Choi: Politicker file photo girded countryside in this sprawling town, fifth biggest in New Jersey, where Mayor Jun Choi drinks his coffee on a summer morning in one of the more recognizable roadside haunts called the Plaza Diner.

The suit and tie and modest demeanor belie a man restlessly at work, for if Choi was an enigmatic upstart when he hit the scene three years ago, he has built himself into a surging political force, three-fourths of the way into his first term.

"And I’m running again," he says with a smile.

The Edison-raised kid who came from the inner sanctum of Bill Bradley’s machine-bucking 2000 presidential campaign, former state Department of Education wonk, Choi remains the Democratic Party outsider in a party that still does not know quite what to do with him.

Obama State Director Tricia Mueller: Politicker photo

HAMILTON - Politics and union organizing weld into one for Tricia Mueller, the new state director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Granddaughter of a Local 19 sheet metal worker or "tin knocker" as they're called in building and trades, Mueller first started working campaigns for her father, a telephone installer who served as the youngest mayor of Oaklyn, New Jersey.

"I could read a ward map from the time I was very small," said the 34-year old Camden native and chief political operative for the 17,000-strong New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters, as she sat in a Hamilton coffee shop on Thursday, three days into her tenure as Obama's state director.

"I come from the field," she told PolitickerNJ.com. "I believe voter contact, voter mobilization, and voter education represent civic duty at its finest."

Here's today's cartoon, plus bonus cartoons about our favorite former Governor.