January 12, 2009 - 1:18pm
Inside Edge

Without e-mail burden, Corzine focuses on economic woes in bid to save his job

Gov. Jone Corzine dodged a bullet with an appellate court ruling that halts the release of his e-mails.

Jon Corzine's chances to win re-election got a little better today when a state appellate court ruled that he won’t have to release personal e-mail exchanges with his former girlfriend, CWA leader Carla Katz.  The case could get appealed to the state Supreme Court, but Republican strategists thought their best chance was to have the appellate level uphold Superior Court Judge Paul Innes’ ruling last May that Corzine.

Assuming Chief Justice Stuart Rabner won’t have the Supreme Court dealing with the matter in the height of the election season, Corzine’s greatest obstacle for a second term now becomes the economy.  If huge budget shortfalls result in significant tax increases and state worker layoffs, pundits from both parties say the e-mails would hardly have been his worst problem.  The conventional wisdom is that Republicans need Corzine’s negatives to increase substantially, regardless of who wins the June GOP gubernatorial primary.

Wally Edge can be reached via email at politicsnj@aol.com.