If you haven’t heard, Bush nominated Judge Sam Alito for the open seat on the US Supreme Court. Alito is from Trenton, a Princeton graduate and son of a pair of public school teachers. He lives in West Caldwell.

Leftwingers like Schumer, Kennedy, Lautenberg and Corzine will not like Alito. Unfortunately for them, they are the equivalent of potted plants for this nominee. What matters is the 14 senators who have agreed not to fillibuster a nominee unless there’s “extraordinary circumstances”. A guy who has already been through the confirmation process once without problems and has been a judge for over a decade will not meet the standards for “extraordinary circumstances”, that is unless the seven democrats who signed the deal are lying scum who’s word doesn’t mean a thing.

Alito was first nominated for the court in 1990, and Frank Lautenberg had this to say about Mr. Alito, that he is ” .. the kind of judge the public deserves — one who is impartial, thoughtful, and fair.” Of course back then Lautenberg was only half vicious. The years have not been kind to Mr. Lautenberg, but instead have turned him into a nasty, sulking, bitter, unlikeable shell of man. Tradition is that a home state senator is supposed to introduce a nominee to the Judiciary Committee. Indiana democrat senator Evan Bayh introduced John Roberts to the committee, so either Corzine or Lautenberg will do the honors for Alito.

When I saw this at Enlighten-NewJersey, I thought it was a spoof, so I ran out and got a copy of the Star-Ledger. Sure enough, it was true. The Star-Ledger, the biggest newspaper in the state, endorsed the republican, Doug Forrester, for governor of New Jersey.

I have often dismissed the editorial page of the Star-Ledger, calling it the democrat party house newspaper. It took some courage for them to pass up the easy endorsement for Jon Corzine and go with Forrester.

The editorial lays out the case for Forrester, and the endorsement is based on the assumption that Jon Corzine is too connected to the party bosses and unions to really shake things up, and if there’s one thing Trenton needs is a good swift kick in the teeth. On property taxes, the Ledger mocks the Corzine plan of more rebates and waiting for a property tax convention. Though they don’t give the Forrester plan much credit either since his plan revolves around finding two or three billion dollars in “waste, fraud and abuse”. The Ledger does compliment the rest of the Forrester platform noting that “… he has offered a more focused and programmatic approach to state government”. Corzine on the other hand has a plan built around more spending and bond debt to support expanded state programs.

Kudos to the Ledger for looking at Corzine’s resume and saying “Yeah, so what?” and even criticizing the bearded progressive for his knee-jerk liberal vote against Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Ouch!! Forrester’s experience is based in Jersey, while Corzine’s is on Wall Street and Washington DC.

Actually, it looks like the Star-Ledger endorsed acting governor Richard Codey, but unless he gets a huge write-in vote he’s not going to win. It’s between the two major party candidates, and they are endorsing Doug Forrester.

This was a bad blogging week for DynamoBuzz. This blog is hosted on a server located in the sunny state of Florida, and Hurricane Wilma knocked them offline for almost the entire week. I thought I’d be unable to host this weeks COTNJ, but at 11AM Saturday morning power was restored. In a flash back to my college days, I was up to the wee hours of the morning putting the finishing touches on this weeks post. Hope you enjoy!!

Next week is the New Jersey gubernatorial election, and there was lots of election buzz in the Jersey blogosphere. Jersey political bloggers usually don’t agree on much, but most thought the Corzine ad using a paralyzed boy to bash Forrester on stem cell research was in poor taste.

In addition to all the political stuff, you’ve got discussions of mammograms, evil clowns, memory loss, radiators, Mr. T and that New Jersey State slogan controversy.

Next week’s host is Janet at The Art of Getting By.

POLITICS

With DynamoBuzz offline this week due to the hurricane knocking out its server, EnlightenNJ took the lead in making the case against Jon Corzine with Will Corzine Trip?

Smadanek follows up on the Corzine tripping theme, using very reliable neighborhood indicators to determine that it’s Corzine Tripping time.

Danny Klein at Sloppydawg says He knew it!! He just knew that voters would come to their senses and support Jon Corzine [Thanks Doug!]

GOP and the City has a preview of the anti-Corzine ad the Forrester campaign should run, “New Doug Forrester Ad“. It does not use paralyzed boys.

And here’s a speech that New Jersey Untouchables guarantees would be a winner for any candidate for NJ governor, “The Speech The GOV. Candidates Would Give if They Were Serious“. It also does not use paralyzed boys.

Even Jorge at Media in Trouble, a Corzine supporter, has some problems with the Corzine
paralyzed-boy-stem-cell ad [link]. But he balances the Corzine criticism with a piece on Forrester “Hester on Forrester“. The only thing more toxic than NJ politics are the toxic waste dumps in Ringwood. Oh, and if you were thinking of inviting both Jorge and Ann Coulter to your next party, I’d recommend that you don’t [link].

BlueJersey contrasts Doug Forrester to John F. Kennedy and Jon Corzine [link] and finds
Mr. Forrester lacking. I guess it’s “the vision thing”.

The Wrightwing looks at third party candidates for governor and endorses Pawlowski for governor.

Steven at the Opinion Mill weighs in on the anti-Iraq war movement with The Wrong Decade.

Tammany on the Hudson looks at the antics of some Hoboken town council members and notes that It’s Nice to Have Friends in High Places and wonders Duh, Am I A Crook? Hey, I didn’t vote for them.

The Xpatriated Texan looks at the war between Councilman Steve Lipski and political consultant Steve Kush, Curiouser and Curiouser. And then there’s the Scooter Libby piece about Moral Failing.

Where is the Remote is troubled by the City of Newark using taxpayer money to “buy” good news in a local paper in “Printola” Comes to Newark. By the way, he is copyrighting “Printola”.

Jim at Parkway Rest Stop also looks at the Newark “Printola” scandal, though he’s more amused than angry [link].

Sharon at the Center of NJ Life gives a thumbs down to the idea of a leiutenant governor for New Jersey, at least the Lt. Gov as presented in next week’s ballot proposition [link].

Bob at eCache points out the latest case of conflict of interest and shady financial dealing with our NJ politicos, this time Curtis Bashaw at the Jersey Shore Alliance [link].

Fausta at the Bad Hair blog looks at the UN Food for Oil scandal, and look who shows up with his fingers in cookie jar, stealing money from Iraqi children. Bill and Hillary’s pal Marc Rich.

SPORTS

The Contrarian has two posts. First, he nominates Rutgers for inclusion in the College Football Victory Chain Linker. Second, his advice to the baseball World Series champs, the Chicago White Sox: gloat. Yeah, and Houston sucks.

FAMILY LIFE AND ALL THE OTHER STUFF

Liz at This Full House has some Halloween talk in You’ve been Ghosted. Candy, pukin’ pumpkins and helping out Save the Children.

NJ Bloggers are never too afraid to take on topics that strike a nerve.

Inadmissible Evidence gives a big thumbs down to those multi-million dollar projects that dump sand on NJ beaches after those pesty Nor’easter storms [link].

The Daily Doormat looks at blonde Nazi teen girl singers and that Arkansas family of 18 kids and wonders if it’s due to home schooling. This stirs up a hornet’s nest of angry home school supporters (Doormatt Strikes a Nerve With Homeschoolers).

Jane at Armies of Liberation highlights her efforts on behalf of Adbulkarim al-Khaiwani and all the oppressed Yemenis [link]. Jane has been tireless in her efforts, and the bad guys in Yemen are taking note.

NJ Blog opines on the New Jersey State slogan. They are not won over by “New Jersey: We’ll win you over”.

No problem, NJ Blog! Mr. Snitch was leaked (perhaps from Scooter Libby) the list of Top ten rejected Jersey state slogans.

Not sure what NJConservative hates more about the NJ slogan issue, the winning slogan or the fact that the state paid $260,000 for it [link].

Tom at “D”igital Breakfast has a guide on how to get rich in real estate [link]. Sounds easy.

For more real estate advice, The Jersey Shore Real Estate Bubble Blog says invest in Red Bank [link].

NJ Spoken Word endorses the new movie “Invisible” and has more about AIDS in the minority community.

Kate notes the new edict from Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta to their students. Thou Shalt Not Blog! See No Blogs for you!

My pal Mike at Sluggo Needs a Nap talks about how fragile our memory is [link]. How much do you remember from when you were a kid?? Mike has a person close to him starting on the road to Alzheimer’s. Pray for her.

Erin at Gigglechick goes into some lighter stuff like Mr. T and treating Yo’ Mama right. This is why Mr. T never made it as a rapper. And Erin gives the Gigglechick stamp of approval to Frappr, a Google-map type application that tracks vistors to your site. And she promoises to use watch her words when talking about mammograms. Or does she??

In addition to rejecting the Lt. Gov, Sharon at Center of NJ Life rejects the idea of antibacterial soaps.

Suzette buys a snazzy new handbag on QVC and admits to carrying more than one purse. And she’s got one of those great pictures of herself from her high school days. What a babe!! [link]

Coalition of the Swilling has a frightening photo of the evil clown of Middletown.

Daniella at Daniella’s Misadventures talks about heating your own home [link]. After living in a climate controlled apartment, she and her mate are in their own home, a 1930’s cottage with radiators. Note to Daniella: Suzette and I are experts on radiators!

Check out Maureen Berzok’s blog over at NJ.com, Jersey Writer’s. She has memories of the wave pool at Palisades Park. Yes, I went there!! And I stopped at Hiram’s on the way home.

I’m hosting this weeks Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers!! All you Jersey bloggers, send your links to me here at DynamoBuzz (Roberto) or use the old favorite Carnival e-mail link (njcarnival@gmail.com).

DynamoBuzz is back on-line. My webhost has its servers located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news lately, but Florida got hit by a hurricane last week which knocked a lot of people off-line. Katrina knocked them off-line for a few days but Wilma was a real doozy of a storm. From what I’ve read, many parts of Florida are still without power.

Actually, my first thought was that the hurricane was a clever trick by the Corzine campaign to silence all dissent. And you thought Karl Rove was clever!!

Maybe that Mrist poll from a few weeks back was a fluke?? That’s the poll that showed Jon Corzine and Doug Forrester in a nearly flatfooted tie in the race for the NJ governor’s job.

The most recent poll from Quinnipiac University of 700 likely voters, shows Corzine at 50% and Forrester at 43%. While the media is making a big thing about Corzine reaching the “magic number” of 50%, he has reached that number before if you look at the previous poll results (see Daly Thoughts Status Quo In Jersey).

The poll results show that the Forrester has been able to link corruption to the democrats. Half the voters in the poll associate corruption with democrats compared to 22% who associate corruption with republicans. And when asked if Corzine is part of the solution or part of the problem with corruption, voters were split 42% to 43%. And he’s been able to do this without getting labeled as a negative campaigner. The poll results show voters think Corzine has been the more negative of the two.

The problem for Forrester still appears to be the gender gap. The poll doesn’t break out the total result by male/female, though individual questions do. For instance, when asked who would do a better job reducing property taxes, men favor Forrester by 13% but women favor Corzine by 11%. When asked who would do a better job dealing with the budget crisis in New Jersey, men favor Forrester by 7% but women favor Corzine by 15%.

I’m not sure why this is. I think a higher percentage of women are senior citizens because they live a bit longer. Maybe it’s the beard. I don’t know.

Today’s NY Times has an article about Jon Corzine and his relationship with disgraced ex-NJ senator Robert “The Torch” Torricelli (”The Shadow on Corzine’s Race Is His History With Torricelli“). While it is very enjoyable to beat up on disgraced ex-NJ governor Jim McGreevey, Mr. Corzine’s relationship with Torricelli should be more troubling for NJ voters.

When they build the New Jersey Corruption Hall of Fame, you can bet that there will be a bronze bust in memory of Mr. Torricelli. During Torricelli’s term in the US Senate he was under investigation for a slew of fundraising scandals, many involving his former fundraiser David Chang. Money laundering, straw donors, North Korean money, expensive watches, art dealers in Frenchtown, etc. Read more here (Passing the Torch : What Bob Torricelli did wrong.). It was so bad that the US Senate, normally loathe to criticize a sitting member of Congress, had no choice but to “severely admonish” the Torch in July of 2002. Weeks later, Torricelli was forced by Bill Clinton and the national democrat party to drop out of the race for his senate seat when the polls showed he was despised by NJ voters and was poised to lose his seat to challenger Doug Forrester. Thanks to an assist from Debbie Poritz and the NJ Supreme Court, the democrats were allowed to drop the despicable Torricelli from the ticket and replace him with the despicable Frank Lautenberg who then won the election.

The NY Times article is actually two articles in one. Half the article is Mr. Corzine and the Torch denying that Torricelli is assisting in any meaningful way with Corzine’s 2005 campaign for NJ governor. The other half of the article quotes unnamed sources in the Corzine campaign and the Bergen County democrat party organization who say that Torricelli is heavily involved. Note that Loretta Weinberg, who was backed by Mr. Corzine in her recent fight for an open NJ state senate seat in Bergen county, is a big time ally of Torricelli.

The article gives some background on the Torricelli-Corzine relationship. If you want more detail, refer to the outstanding July 2005 piece in New York Metro magazine “The Deal He Made : Senator Jon Corzine’s Quest for Redemption“. The article goes into detail about how an unemployed Mr. Corzine met up with the Torch while pondering a run for the senate. The rest is history, as Torricelli mentored Mr. Corzine on the ways of NJ politics and how the money game is played.

Torricelli is now heavily envolved in NJ real estate and high powered consulting. If you had to pick one person who would most personally benefit from a Corzine victory in November, it would be the Torch.

The first batch of newspaper endorsements in the New Jersey governor’s race was rolled out this past weekend. Doug Forrester was endorsed by a NJ paper, the Courier Post, while Jon Corzine was endorsed by an out of state paper, the NY Times.

The Courier Post (”New Jersey needs Forrester in Trenton“) goes over a laundry list of democrat corruption and inaction over the past few years and feels that Corzine as governor would mean just more of the same. The list is damning: (1) Four years of inaction on property tax reform (2) Four years of inaction on the funding for the Transportation Trust Fund (3) Four years of sitting on their hands while the NJ School Construction Corporation mismanaged an $8.6 billion pot of money (4) Out of control borrowing fueling a 20% increase in state spending in four years (5) Four years of inaction on spending reforms like the pension crisis. The endorsement is a bit restrained in its praise of Forrester. The article begins, “The GOP candidate is far from perfect ..”. But, hey, it’s an endorsement.

The Sunday NY Times wieghed in with an endorsement of the democrat, Jon Corzine (For Governor of New Jersey). Half of the editorial touts Mr. Corzine’s liberal accomplishments in the senate, like opposing the Iraq war, voting against tax cuts and obstructing any meaningful reform of Social Security. There is just a single sentence about the 2005 campaign (”Neither candidate has done much to educate voters in a campaign that has become increasingly a matter of dueling attack ads.”) The Times doesn’t explain why any of that is important to NJ voters. And the second half of editorial laments the huge amounts of personal money being spent by Corzine and Forrester. What a lame endorsement. Perhaps the NY Times editors are too consumed by the Judith Miller controversy to give this endorsement more than a few minutes of thought.

Enlighten-NewJersey is equally disgusted by the NY Times [link] which seems more concerned with rewarding the liberal (oops, “progressive”) Corzine than it does with the needs of the rapidly shrinking NJ middle class.

Enlighten-NJ links to an APP article “Leave N.J., or go deep into debt? : Taxes, high costs squeeze middle class” which is a thorough examination of how the middle class in this state is being decimated while democrats in Trenton do squat. Property tax bills of $8000 for a modest home. College graduates making starting salaries who cannot afford a home and move out of state. High paying jobs, many in manufacturing, leaving the state due to the hostile, anti-business policies. Companies avoiding moving to the state due to high costs and more pro-business policies in other states.

There are three co-workers of mine who are near retirement. Two of them have already purchased homes in North Carolina and the third has property in Alabama. All three intend to “Cash out and Move out” when they retire.

It would be good if this election was a referendum about the future direction of the state. Unfortunately, it looks like a missed opportunity.

Earlier in the week, it was NJ political analyst Steve Adubato commenting that Doug Forrester’s ad featuring his wife was a momentun shifter in the NJ governor’s race, mostly because it subtly highlighted Forrester’s personal life and was in contract to Mr. Corzine who has recently been divorced. Now the Sunday Star-Ledger has an article, “In Forrester-Corzine fight, public images get personal“. It’s funny that in a campaign that was supposed to be about taxes, spending and corruption that Forrester’s family life would be a big deal, but the democrats seem a bit miffed about the issue.

The article quotes Michael Murphy, an FOJ (friend of Jon) who says about the bearded wonder “He’s not the kind of guy who would ever use his children as a prop or a marketing tool.” Mr. Corzine is also quoted in the article, commenting that the use of Mrs. Forrester was “clever” and saying “I suspect they think it’s a contrast.”

There’s also an AP story (see here at the Trentonian, “Commercial changed my life: Doug’s wife“) that quotes mostly the republican spokespeople and Mrs. Forrester herself.

My two cents: Jon Corzine has a reputation as being a bit stiff and aloof. He was fortunate that Doug Forrester is also not exactly the most charismatic candidate NJ politics has ever seen. The Forrester ad is trying to show voters the personal side of the candidate, and in a close race voters may vote for the guy who they feel more comfortable with. It may also have been an effort to improve Forrester’s standing with women voters. As I’ve mentioned many times, all the polls in this 2005 governor’s race show that Corzine’s lead is entirely due to the gender gap. Men are split or slightly leaning towards Forrester while women voters are just oh so crazy about Corzine.

I’ve found that one of the pleasures of blogging is being ahead of the conventional wisdom on a topic, to write something before anyone else and to find that I’m not the only person who feels that way.

Today’s topic: The New Jersey School Construction fund and the $134 million dollars for a high school in Union City.

I wrote about this three months ago, on July 17th (”Is This the Best Way to Spend $136 Million??)”. At the time, I thought that the plans for the new Union City high school, including a football stadium on the roof of the building, was an extravagance that the state should not be funding out of a limited pool of cash. The high school is one of six “demonstration projects” that will eat up almost a half billion of the NJSCC budget.

The money lines from that post:

Well, I look at today’s Star-Ledger, and the story is “Tug-of-war over ‘demo’ schools“. Though the $543 million has been allocated to the six projects, located in New Brunswick, Camden, East Orange, Trenton, Vineland and Union City, none has been actually spent yet, and our legislators are questioning spending all that money when there are many other smaller projects without funding.

Irene Sperling, the director of the Paterson Education Fund notes that all that money “…would buy 10 schools.” Paterson had 43 school projects in various stages of planning, but only 8 have NJSCC funding. Assemblyman Craig Stanley (D-Essex County) wants to look at the money committed to the demonstration schools and possibly redistribute it. “We have to look at every source of revenue”.

It won’t be easy to stop or scale back these projects. New Brunswick, Camden, East Orange, Trenton, Vineland and Union City are all heavy democrat towns. And the construction firm hired by the state to manage four of the six demonstration schools, $337 million worth of projects, has already greased the palms of NJ state democrats with over $1 million in donations since 1997. (Umm… isn’t this pay to play??)

Oh, and since when has the government estimate of project been accurate?? Here’s some shocking news: The final cost of a government run project is always higher than the estimate.. The article quotes the mayor of East Orange who instead of cutting back on the demonstration school in his town is asking for an additional $8.3 million in “inflationary expenses”. Hey, these contractors need fancier trailers with state of the art equipment.

Trentonian columnist Charles Webster has been paying attention to this week’s activities on the campaign trail and has a warning for Jon Corzine [link]. Webster says Corzine has been taking a few too many political shots at South Jersey political boss George Norcross. First the wishy-washy Corzine statements on the land grabs of Petty’s Island and Cramer Hill in Camden, then apparently at a candidate’s forum he dissed John Adler, Norcross’ hand picked candidate for NJ attorney general in a future Corzine administration. Webster notes that the last guy to take on Norcross, NJ state senator John Bennett is now ex-senator John Bennett.

Corzine back tracked on Wednesday, clarifying his position on the Norcross crony, saying he didn’t mean to say he wasn’t qualified and he apologized to Mr. Adler [link].

Webster has fun with Corzine’s statement at Tuesday’s debate on his endorsement of disgraced ex-NJ governor Jim McGreevey. Doug Forrester questioned Corzine’s judgement after the bearded one praised McGreevey weeks before he had to bow out of office in disgrace. Corzine said he had to praise the crooked governor (”Jim McGreevey is my governor.”) at the Democrat National Convention because, well, it was a democrat function and he was surrounded by democrat honchos. This could be Corzine’s Kerry moment “I supported Jim McGreevey before I opposed him”. Webster wants to know what other Corzine statements he can deny later on.

Stop on over at The Frenchtown Blog for links and information about this monsoon that has hit New Jersey. Frenchtown was hit very hard last year by Hurricane Ivan, and this storm is starting to cause some serious flooding problems. The Raritan and Millstone Rivers are near me, and it looks like they’re close to flood stage.

The other bad thing about this rain is that I’ll have to cut my grass again. Darn.

Listened to the second debate last night featuring Jon Corzine and Doug Forrester. NJ 101.5FM hosted the debate and supplied the moderator, Eric Scott. Scott did a fair job, both asking questions and tossing out follow up questions to get more information, particularly on the property tax question. Scott seemed to be a bit tougher on Corzine, but it wasn’t over the line. And there were listener call-in questions and e-mail questions. Suprisingly, the first question of the night was from a caller about the proposed smoking ban. I didn’t realize that was such a big deal.

A lot of repeat questions from the first debate with pretty much the same answers. Forrester didn’t stray too much from his talking points. Corzine seemed to be more agressive compared to the first debate.

When asked about selling the Turnpike to raise money, Corzine kept on saying he wouldn’t sell it but that he would was in favor of “securitization”. He used the term several times. I think that means you sell bonds backed up by toll revenues which is basically a loan.

Lots of back and forth about eminent domain, Petty’s Island and the Cramer Hill development in Camden. Corzine seems to think that Citgo will not clean up the oil spills on Petty’s Island before donating it to the state, which is total bull, a red herring to deflect attention from the fact that Corzine won’t come out against either land grab. Everything I’ve read says Citgo will set aside money for the clean up, the only question is how much. Forrester was smart to note that Petty’s Island and Cramer Hill are both being pursued by the same politically connected developer, and boss Norcross is envolved in both cases.

In a bit of a surpise, both candidates said they support medicinal use of marijuana.

Both Corzine and Forrester were against raising the gasoline tax to fund the state transportation fund.

In the questions and answers concerning property taxes, Corzine kept on hammering on the theme that seniors will be getting all these $1200 and $1800 rebates. What about us non-seniors, homeowners with young children?? Forrester mentioned “30 in 3″ a bunch of times. Corzine kept on touting the property tax convention.

Both candidates would fire all the patronage employees in Trenton, or “ask for their resignation”. Of course they will, they need to find patronage jobs for their own supporters. Corzine committed to reducing patronage jobs by 50%. Both said state pensions were on the negotiating table, but only for future benefits. We’re stuck with what has already been awarded, hugh pension liabilities that will suck up almost a quarter of the state budget in a few years.

When asked to name a favorite NJ vacation spot that wasn’t down the shore, Corzine mentioned rafting at the Delaware Water Gap. Has he actually ever done that?? Forrester took this question to remind voters that he and his wife just celebrated their 30th aniversary at a B&B in Stockton.

The lamest question was when Scott asked each candidate to name their greatest weakness. Anyone who’s ever prepped for a job interview has a canned answer for that question, and Corzine answered that “he tries to do too much” and Forrester said he sometimes doesn’t adequately convey his passion for issues when he’s discussing them.

I’d say Corzine rebounded from his lame lackluster performance in the first debate, but Forrester did better. Net result: A plus for Forrester. Twenty seven days to go.

While driving into work Tuesday morning, I was listening to NJ political analyst Steve Adubato who was a guest on 77 WABC talk radio with Curtis and Kuby.

Steve had a lot to say about the 2005 NJ governor’s race. He thought that Corzine was having problems “connecting” with voters and that the more people see him the more likely they are to be unimpressed. He thought the advertisement featuring Forrester’s wife was a stroke of genius, that it alone may have shifted the momentum. He doesn’t have a preference towards either candidate, he thinks they are both lacking in charisma, but thought that voters might prefer Forrester to be their kid’s soccer coach and that stuff like that matters.

He was also critical of the Corzine approach of attacking Forrester on the Benecard issues. He said that voters don’t understand all the Benecard stuff, that their eyes glaze over when you try to explain it. Funny, I said the exact same thing over the summer (see here). At the time, I said that if it takes more than two or three sentences to explain a scandal then voters don’t care about it. Yes, we great minds think alike. Adubato also felt that neither candidate was being totally honest with the voters, that money for property tax relief would have to come from somewhere, either other spending or sales and/or income taxes. I agree with that too, having been equally critical of both candidates plan for property tax relief.

Adubato was was very dismissive of the Corzine strategy of linking Forrester to Bush. I agree with this 100%. Corzine appears to have surrounded himself with a bunch of national campaign operatives who are out of touch with the issues here in New Jersey. The Matt Stollers of the political world bounce around the country from campaign to campaign as hired guns. They inhabit the left wing blogosphere, where George Bush is Hitler, Karl Rove is Goebbels and Tom Delay is Eichmann, and where everyone gets all emotional about federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The average Jersey voter doesn’t really care about any of this. If you asked Jersey Joe Six-pack to identify Valerie Plame and Scooter Libby, they’d guess that they were stars of a new TV show. Three issues are going to decide this race (1) Dealing with the property tax crisis (2) reigning in the out of control tax and spend bureaucracy in Trenton and (3) cleaning up the sewer of corruption in New Jersey. Forrester is focusing on those issues while the democrat high paid media consultants are spending Corzine’s money on ads attacking George Bush.

Voters who are motivated by Bush hatred should already be in the Corzine camp. It’s a bad sign for Corzine that four weeks before the election his people still feel that he needs to get them all fired up.

According to the Star-Ledger, tonight’s second NJ governor’s debate on radio station 101.5 FM will feature questions from listeners [link]. There’s a seven second delay, maybe to catch Howard Stern callers.

The debate starts at 7:30PM.

The Star-Ledger article also notes the voter turnout for the most recent N
NJ governor’s elections. For the 2001 slugfest between Jim McGreevey and Bret Schundler, only 49% of registered voters bothered to show up. That would be a great advertisement to increase voter turnout. “In 2001, over half the voters stayed home, and we got stuck with the most corrupt governor in NJ history. Get out and vote!” The biggest turnout the past five elections was 1993 when voters walked over hot coals and broken glass to toss Jim Florio from office. If enough angry voters go to the polls next month, I think it would be good news for Forrester.

I betcha the Forrester people are high fiving each other after getting a look at the latest poll on the NJ Governor’s Race, this one the WNBC/Marist Poll:

Corzine 44% Doug Forrester 43% undecided 13%

When they counted “leaners”, voters who are leaning towards a candidate, the results were Corzine 47% and Forrester 45%.

Wow. A statistical tie, with four weeks to go.

Most political observers can come up with some reason for discounting a single poll result, but every poll from the last two weeks shows Corzine’s lead shrinking to single digits, and this most recent Marist poll is within the margin of error. Momentum is what these polls are measuring, and they show Corzine stuck at 45 to 50% and Forrester gaining, though he’s still not ahead in any poll. But in a close raise, whoever has the momentum as we get closer to Election Day will probably win.

So what happens now?? My guess is Corzine goes heavy negative. Time to open up the bank account and really start spending the bucks, maybe not so much on all those fat cat consultants but on air-time and commercials. Forrester to continue with the property taxes and corruption. Corzine may call in Bill Clinton for another campaign appearance. I’d like to see Guiliani or McCain show up in Jersey for Forrester, just to get some headlines.

Tuesday night is another debate, one which I don’t think is televised. It’s sponsored by 101.5 FM. Listen on the radio or over the internet.

UPDATE: I don’t like linking to Daily Kos, but they’ve got a long thread going with commentary about this poll and the state of the election. Some commenters (like BlueJersey) note the Marist poll uses a small sample, less than 400 likely voters. I agree, but I’m noting momentum, like every other poll showing it getting closer in Forrester’s favor. The other commenters want more negative ads, and of course Bush bashing. I still think trying to nationalize the race is a mistake, the issues are property taxes, corruption and an out control state spending. Stem cells is not in the top 10.

Wally Edge at Inside Edge says acting governor Richard Codey will appear in a TV ad for the Jon Corzine campaign, apparently in response to the ad former governor Tom Kean has done for Doug Forrester. Very interesting, considering how rotten Corzine was to Mr. Codey earlier this year when he was considering challenging the bearded one for the democrat nomination. Did Corzine have to offer something in return, or is Codey just being a nice guy?? Inquiring minds want to know.

Took the whole family to the movies tonight, saw the new Wallace and Grommit flick, “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”. Good movie, especially is you’ve seen the first three Wallace and Gromit shorts.

You can learn lots of British lingo in Wallace and Gromit movies. Did you know that the Brits don’t call it “cotton candy”, they call it “candy floss”?

My favorite conservative movie reviewer, James Bowman from the American Spectator, gave it his highest rating [link].

One more poll on the NJ governor’s race, this time from Rasmussen Reports, has democrat Jon Corzine leading republican Doug Forrester by 7 points, 45% to 38%, with 12% undecided. A Rasmussen poll from last month had Corzine leading by 11 points, so this poll shows a slight tightening of the race.

Once again, the poll shows that among men voters, the race is even, but women voters are overwhelmingly supporting Mr. Corzine. Must be the beard.

Carol Segal owns a piece of property in Union Township and has a contract to sell it to an out of state land developer who plans to build 100 townhouses on the property. One problem: Union Township has voted to start eminent domain proceedings to seize the property and turn it over to another developer who will then build townhouses on the property.

Mr. Segal planned to sell the 6 acre tract to an out of state developer. Union Township wants to turn it over to a local developer instead, a developer who coincidently has raised thousands of dollars for the Union Township democrat party machine that runs the town. The Star-Ledger has the gory details [link].

This story is so outrageous that super liberal/progressive blogger Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly has written about it [link] as has New Jersey’s own NJ Conservative [No Eminent Domain Abuse Here].

Mr. Segal has singled out Assemblyman Joseph Cryan of Union Township as the force behind the land grab. Segal says he’s met with Cryan many times over the past few years, but has come away with the impression that Cryan would like him to use certain developers and lawyers. Cryan denies any wrongdoing. It’s just a coincidence that the developers who he wants to develop the property just raised over $70,000 for Cryan.

The local newspaper, the Union Leader, has also been covering the story. ” Begin Negotiating” and “Owner Still Seeks Approval“.