Sean Darcy

Since his independent campaign went from being a curiosity to a legitimate factor in race for governor, Christopher Daggett has been dogged by the rumor that he is a stalking horse for Gov. Corzine – a willing accomplice to help an unpopular governor win reelection by sapping the anti-incumbent vote from Republican Chris Christie.

Former Republican Gov. Christie Whitman even seemed to lend the theory credence when she told Fox Business News that the Corzine camp was “urging people, quietly, to support Chris Daggett because, by doing that, they figure they'll split the independent vote.”

Daggett suspects the conspiracy theory is peddled by the Christie campaign and the Republican establishment, which have spent the last several weeks criticizing Daggett in advertisements and campaign rhetoric.

“[Christie] sends all these Republicans like Christie Whitman to make people believe there’s some kind of conspiracy theory.  It’s shameful,” said Daggett in a phone interview.

Gov. Jon Corzine today released a full list of contributions made by his charitable foundation this year -- $191,770 through October 8.  Included were gifts to the Harlem Day School ($50,000), Rockefeller University ($25,000), and the Folksbeine Yiddish Theater ($20,000).

Gov. Jon Corzine's foundation gave $3,188,083 to charities in 2008

Gov. Jon Corzine today released a list of nearly $3.2 million in charitable contributions made by his foundation in 2008, including $250,000 to the Rutgers University Foundation, $250,000 to the Cooper Foundation in Camden, $400,000 to the New York University Child Study Center, and $500,000 to a private school in Connecticut that his son once attended.  The list of donations was provided at the request of PolitickerNJ.com.

"We scrambled to compile the list of contributions made by the Jon S. Corzine Foundation and put it out in advance of the filing extension requested to put to rest any further attempts by the Christie campaign to use these contributions as a diversion from answering questions about limo rides and five star hotels on taxpayer dime and the apparent use of the United States Attorney's office as a campaign headquarters for Christie.  These are all very serious transgressions and will hopefully now be looked at in their proper context," said Sean Darcy, a spokesman for the Corzine campaign. 

Darcy is also asking that GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie release a detailed list of contributions made by a charitable group run by his own family.
 
"In the name of the same transparency the Christie campaign claims to value, they should now release the contributions from the Christie Family Foundation.  While it would make sense that the Corzine campaign's ongoing transparency would compel the Christie campaign to do the same with the contributions for the Christie Family Foundation, nothing we have seen from Christie to this point will make us hold our breath," Darcy said.

Click here to view the list.

Gov. Jon Corzine is outspending his Republican opponent by a 3-1 margin in his bid for re-election to a second term, but he's still spending less than he did when he ran four years ago.

Maurice Carroll, who runs the Quinnipiac University poll, doesn't read much into that.

"Whatever they tell him he'll have to spend, he'll spend. Which I guess is good for the economy.  It pays for a lot of consultants, television stations are getting rich," he said.

Corzine has raised and spend $16.8 million so far - a bit down from the $20.1 million he raised and $18.6 million he spent as of the same point in his last campaign.  

That's complicated by one key difference. In a late September, 2005 Quinnipiac poll, Corzine led Douglas Forrester by four points.  Now, in the latest Quinnipiac poll, he trails Republican Christopher Christie by four.

But Corzine faced an opponent with more cash in Forrester, a wealthy businessman who opted not to take part in the public financing program and ultimately spent almost $20 million of his own money in the general election.  By contrast, Christie's spending is capped at $10.9 million because he's taking part in the public financing program. 

Carroll's polls show Corzine succeeding in tarnishing Christie's image, but Corzine's approval and favorability ratings have remained mired in the 38%-42% range.  He doesn't think that Corzine is concerned with boosting those numbers.

"It's just like with all you reporters.  The only number he's really interested in is the basic head to head. And in that, Corzine's doing better than he has in quite a while," Carroll said.

Washington, DC-based political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said he was surprised that Corzine was not spending more than he did in previous races, since he's been behind in 44 out of the last 45 polls independent public opinion polls. 

"Given all the numbers we were throwing around about how much Corzine would spend, having spent less than four years ago is something of a surprise," he said.

Two members of the Republican legislative leadership are calling for the appointment of a special investigator to decide if Gov. Jon Corzine's investment in a hedge fund creates a conflict of interest.

"It is completely unacceptable that Governor Corzine's hedge fund should be able to directly profit in any way, shape or form from government business or that the governor's actions and those of his political appointees can be called into question because of these personal investments," said Senate Minority Whip Kevin O'Toole (R-Cedar Grove) and Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Parsippany). "A special investigator will put this issue to rest and ensure existing conflicts are properly corrected."

Corzine has a stake in TPG-Axon, a hedge fund that has a relationship with a private investment fund, Texas Pacific Group (TPG).  A spokesman for TPG told the Star-Ledger last week that a firewall exists between the two companies and that they do not share investment information.  The governor has declined to disclose the amount of his investment in the hedge fund, but his staff says it is in the one percent range.  That means Corzine's personal stake could be as high as $90 million.

O'Toole and DeCroce say they want to "put to rest any lingering questions about Governor Jon Corzine's finances and what appears to be several serious instances where the governor's finances are in direct conflict with state business."

Gov. Jon Corzine is an investor in a $9 billion hedge fund that owns stock in two cable TV companies regulated by the state.  Corzine's investment in TPG-Axon is said to be in the 1% range, which could make the governor's personal stake in the fund as high as $90 million.  Corzine has refused to say how much his investment is.

A hedge fund Gov. Jon Corzine invests in has a financial stake in two companies that are regulated by the state, public records show.

Corzine has a stake of less than one percent in TPG-Axon, which holds $26.6 million of stock in Comcast.  The company, which has 1.3 million subscribers, is the largest cable provider in the state.  The fund also has $25.8 million of stock in Time Warner Cable, which has a small share of the New Jersey market, with 54,000 subscribers in Bergen and Hudson Counties. 

Cable television companies are regulated by the Board of Public Utilities, whose members are appointed by the governor.

Corzine's investment with TPG-Axon has become a political headache for his campaign, as Republicans have used it to tie him to casino investments made by Texas Pacific Group (TPG), which shares a founder with TPG-Axon.  Spokesmen from both TPG and TPG-Axon told newspapers this week that the two companies are separately run, although Republicans pointed to shared corporate addresses and several business publications that drew a connection between the two. 

No such separation exists in this case, since TPG-Axon itself made the investments sometime between March 30 and June 30 of this year.  Corzine has not disclosed the exact size of his investment in the hedge fund, but a one percent share would equate to about $260,000 in Comcast stock - a small amount relative to Corzine's personal wealth. 

Corzine aides argue that investors would be hard pressed to find major companies that are not regulated by the state in one way or another.  He is one of 250 passive investors in the hedge fund, meaning he does not dictate the investment decisions of its manager, Dinakhar Singh.  And the two cable companies, at about $50 million combined, make up barely more than one half of one percent of the $9 billion fund.  A one percent investment in that fund would be worth about $90 million.

"Governor Corzine has no input or control over the investments TPG-Axon has made," said Sean Darcy, a spokesman for the campaign. "Factually, he has no discretion over the fund's investments." 

Still, despite its small size, the investment creates at least the appearance of conflict, according Seton Hall University political science professor Joseph Marbach.

"It points to a larger issue that I think the Governor has to explain: why does he insist on managing his portfolio when nearly every other politician in that situation would have turned it over to a blind trust?" he said.

Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains), the Republican State Chairman, today accused Gov. Jon Corzine and his campaign staff of avoiding transparency and "providing excuses without evidence" by claiming that the state Attorney General's forensic review found no connection between TPG and TPG-Axon.

Webber says that "evidence provided by major publications" confirms a relationship between the two companies, and wants all documents related to the Division of Gaming Enforcement's review of TPG to be made public.

The Corzine campaign releases documents related to the DGE review on Sunday.  Click here to view: Division of Gaming Enforcement 1 | Division of Gaming Enforcement 2 | Division of Gaming Enforcement 3

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher J. Christie

PARAMUS - Republican gubernatorial nominee Christopher Christie today framed the final 55 days this year's election campaign as a choice between Gov. Jon Corzine's tax increases and the state's subsequent loss of jobs and Christie's starkly different view of  a New Jersey government that taxes and spends less in an effort to bring jobs back to New Jersey.

In a 43 minute address dubbed "Countdown to Change" made at the Paramus Elks Lodge, Christie repackaged the campaign themes he's sounded since declaring his candidacy: tax relief, cutting state spending, improving urban education, increasing funding for public universities and rejuvenating the state's major cities -- all while knocking Corzine for increasing taxes to the detriment of the state's business climate.  It was a new speech, but Christie had proposed most of the ideas before. 

Christie vowed to cut state spending, telling the audience that "there will be fights and there will be programs that will be cut that maybe even some of you in here would like," but he did not outline specifics about which state departments he would trim. Christie also criticized Corzine for slashing property tax rebates despite promising to increase them by 40% over his first term during his first campaign for governor.  

"He knew he couldn't do it when he said it.  He said it to get elected, and we should show him the door because of it." he said.

New Jersey's unemployment rate, Christie noted, is higher than its neighbors - despite Corzine's touted private sector job growth last month.  Businesses and residents, he said, are "voting with their feet," opting to move across the Delaware to the lower taxed Pennsylvania. 

Christie, who is trying to eat into Corzine's margins in the state's largest cities, said that  the Governor sees the state's urban areas as places "to go and get votes every four years," while he is committed to bringing their residents' quality of life to the same standards enjoyed in suburban towns like Paramus. 

A new proposal Christie did offer in the speech was to institute a system called "CityTrack," which will track crime and economic development. 

He also dropped the name of the Democratic mayor of the state's largest city - even if he's a Corzine supporter.  .

"In January, 2010 Cory Booker will have that real partner, and his name will be Chris Christie," he said. 

Corzine campaign Communications Director Sean Darcy said that Chris Christie’s failure to disclose his $46,000 loan to friend and U.S. Attorney’s office staffer Michele Brown is part of a “worsening pattern” of Christie “hiding information that the public should know since he's seeking the state's highest office.”

“We have learned in the past week that while he was United States Attorney he held secret talks with Karl Rove plotting his political campaign at a time when those activities violated federal law. He has refused to release basic information such as his schedules, travel and budgets while United States Attorney and now we learn he not only failed to disclose the loan as required by law, but he failed to pay taxes on the income he earned on the loan,” said Darcy in a statement.  

Christie addressed the controversy this afternoon in a campaign stop in Cherry Hill.  PolitickerNJ.com will post his comments when they become available.  

Governor Corzine crticized Christie over the loan to PolitickerNJ.com earlier today.

Since the gubernatorial primary ended and the general election began, incumbent Jon Corzine has outspent Republican nominee Chris Christie by a 10-1 margin on television ads.

Corzine has spent over $5.4 million on cable and network television in the New York and Philadelphia media markets since June with mostly negative ads, while Christie has spent a little over $540,000 solely in the Philadelphia market during the same period.    

The figures, however, do not count spending by third party groups.  The Republican Governors Association (RGA) has spent about $3 million in New Jersey -- most of it since the June 2 primary.  The Democratic Governors Association, which helped fund the Mid-Atlantic Leadership Fund’s attack ads against Christie before the primary, has not run any ads to help Corzine (or any other candidates) since then. 
    
Radio ad buys are harder to track, and right now it’s impossible to tell exactly how much each campaign has spent on the internet.  But with the next campaign finance reports not coming out until October, television ad buys are one way to keep tabs on campaign spending.

Christie campaign strategist Mike DuHaime noted that his candidate has maintained his high single-digit or low double-digit lead in the polls all summer long despite the disparity.

“How much does he have to spend to make a dent in this lead?” DuHaime said.  “Millions and millions in negative ads seem to have not worked. They keep trying one after the next and the lead hasn’t changed much over the summer.”