Republicans are - rightly - crowing this morning about the GOP’s victories in the New Jersey Governor’s race and a battery of races in Virginia from the Governorship on down and what they say about the turn in the national mood, if not in a pro-Republican direction then at least in a direction that’s sufficiently hostile to the Democrats that voters in states won by Obama and dominated by the Democrats in the last few years are willing to give individual Republicans another chance.

But the key word there, even in an across-the-board sweep like happened in Virginia, is individual. There remains an ongoing battle on the Right over how Republicans choose which candidates to support - who voters and the national party organs should back in primaries, when and whether to support third party candidacies, etc. It’s a battle intensified by Doug Hoffman’s loss in the NY-23 race after the NRCC-backed candidate, Dede Scoazzafava, ended up swinging the race to the Democrats when she endorsed Bill Owens. But in making sense of such debates, this is a point that cannot be stressed enough: no matter how favorable or unfavorable the overall national climate may be, no matter what ideological compass you want the party to follow, you can’t ever overlook the importance of the individual candidates and the conditions they run in. I said it in 2008 with regard to presidential campaigns, and it’s true as well of races for Governor, Senate or House: ideas don’t run for president, people do.

Read More →

The man who thought that he could take over the Corzine campaign and drive it to victory.

Have a nice night.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

According to the Politico, Chris Christie is the winner of the New Jersey Governor’s race.

From a pollster friend:

I’m sensing the NJ exits maybe skewed to Dems…they had Health care at 18%, most important issue. Economy was #1 at 31% and property taxes 2 at 25%. Corruption was at 20%. Property taxes was always the #1 issue in everyone’s statewide.

UPDATE: North New Jersey Democrats are beginning to fret that Corzine did not pick up enough support in the area to over come exit pollings that, even skewed to the Democrats, show Christie picking up +50% of independents and Corzine less than 40%.

Election Night 2004 saw Republican Dino Rossi emerge victorious in the Washington State gubernatorial election against Democrat Christine Gregoire. Yet when the time came to take the oath of office, Christine Gregoire stood at the podium with her right hand up.

Four years later, Election Night 2008 and it was Republican Norm Coleman with the highest number of votes against Al Franken in the race for the Senate. Yet today, Norm Coleman is a private citizen and Al Franken is a United States Senator representing the state of Minnesota in Washington DC.

I’m going to avoid rehashing the blatant fraud and larceny perpetrated by the Democratic machine in King County in the 2004 race and focus instead on the more recent case of Norm Coleman.

There is not much of a need to recap in full the very worst case of out and out election theft in decades, perpetrated by the Minnesota Secretary of State in open collusion with the Franken campaign, the liberal Democrats and Fifth Column Republicans (hereafter known as “Scuzzies” - in (dis)honor of fake Republican DeDe Scozzafava) more concerned with appearing “bipartisan” to the media than protecting the votes of the people of Minnesota on the so-called “bipartisan” canvassing board that conducted the “recount.”

Suffice it to say; can there be any doubt that the fix was in when the ballot below qualified as a vote for Al Franken;

… but this (below) “strangely” did not qualify as a vote for Norm Coleman?

PS: The above episode was brought to you courtesy of the Soros funded SOS (Secretaries of State) Project; the aim of which to get individuals who have sworn to actively slant the process, lie, cheat and steal to ensure that Democrats win elections whether or not they actually get the higher number of votes (like Minnesota SOS Mark Ritchie, a direct beneficiary) elected to state Secretary of State positions (in charge of conducting elections) around the country.

Handsomely paid off in Minnesota, didn’t it?

Read More →

Big Government’s open about the fact that this is an issue:

Will Corzine Allies Steal the Election in New Jersey? ACORN, Dirty Tricks and Absentee Ballot Fraud

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is locked in the political fight of his life. With just hours left before voting, polls show a neck-and-neck race between Corzine and GOP candidate Chris Christie, with Independent candidate Chris Daggett pulling significant support. Obama and VP Biden are making last ditch pitches for the embattled governor. But evidence is building that Corzine’s campaign may see its only salvation is in rigging the election.

What can you do about it?

1. If you’re a NJ voter, then vote for Chris Christie.  As the saying goes: if it isn’t close, they can’t cheat.
2. If you have a video camera, make sure that you’re in the area of a vulnerable polling station (officially or not) and keep a lookout for shenanigans.  Go in a group, be prepared to run, and remember that the idea is to shine a light on skulduggery, not strike a blow for fair elections via street fighting.  Let the Democrats scream curses and vitriol at you.
3. If you don’t have a video camera, go volunteer .  Also: get a video camera. We’ll have to do this again next year.

Thursday, New York Times:

The Democratic governor, Jon S. Corzine, says he may revisit his plan to lease the New Jersey Turnpike to raise cash — a proposal that he abandoned last year in the face of intense opposition from lawmakers and voters.

Friday, Philly.com:

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine says he has no plans to increase tolls or lease toll roads.

(The New York Times is sticking with their version.)

Via Jim Geraghty, who also pointed out this report that Christie spent the day hammering this.  Which is smart of Christie: speaking as somebody who grew up in NJ, looking like you want to muck around with the toll roads situation is contraindicated.

Contraindicated.

Moe Lane

PS:  Chris Christie for Governor.

Via Hot Air comes this Neil Cavuto piece on Don Imus’ interview with Chris Christie, where Chris addresses the two central issues of the Corzine campaign: Christie’s weight, and Corzine’s inability to even face that forthrightly.

“Hey listen: if you’re gonna do it, at least man up and say I’m fat.”

The phrase ‘wusses out’ was then used - accurately - followed by a couple of good lines about the need to keep stimulating the donut/restaurant industries.  Give it a listen: like Allahpundit, I think that this is good retail politics, and it really does hammer home just how empty the Corzine campaign has been.  I recognize that any Democratic campaign these days is going to revolve around trying to scare voters about the evvvvvil Republicans, but Corzine is being especially stereotypical about his response to what has essentially become a vanity campaign for him at this point. Which, given the way that he was fired from Goldman-Sachs and was more or less irrelevant as a Senator, is probably not too surprising. Depressing - why does the state of NJ have to pay for his therapy? - but not too surprising.

Moe Lane

PS: Chris Christie for Governor.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

And if you thought that yesterday’s semi-cryptic blog post from the former was just some prepare-the-Democrats-for-some-bad-news, and not an attempt to raise Republican hopes… well, you were right.

Chris Christie now leads Jon Corzine 42-38 in the race to be New Jersey’s next Governor, a slight increase from our poll two weeks that showed his advantage at 40-39.

In other words, the partisan Democratic polling firm is reporting that the race has shifted in Christie’s direction by three points, and now has a lead barely out of the MoE. Rasmussen likewise reports that Christie has increased his lead to 46/43, with Daggett at 7%, which is down four from last week.  But here’s what may be the important part of that report:

Christie leads by eight points among those who are certain they will show up and vote. A week ago, he was up by five among that group. Christie’s supporters are also less likely to say they might consider voting for someone else.

A week to go. Word is that Quinnipiac will have out something later this week; in the meantime, expect New Jersey to get inundated with even more campaign advertising and national scrutiny .

Moe Lane

PS: Christie for Governor.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

…may make for an interesting headline; but I have a possibly more accurate one.

Supporters face off

An hour before the debate, crowds of Christie and Daggett supporters faced off in front of the studios, yelling taunts from opposite sides of the street and separated by cars.

“Sinking ship! Sinking ship!” chanted the Daggett fans, a reference to Christie’s slippage in the polls.

“We can’t hear you! We can’t hear you!” answered the Christie squad, which outnumbered Daggett’s group about 4-to-1.

It’s “Jon Corzine can’t draw a crowd.”

Moe Lane

PS: Christie for Governor.

PPS: A comment from Democratic Christie supporter Councilwoman Tana Raymond, on Corzine’s ties to convicted Bergen County Democratic chair Joseph Ferriero:

“For years, Jon Corzine facilitated the corrupt leadership of Joseph Ferriero at the Bergen County Democratic Organization with hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial contributions. Even as Corzine preached ethics reform in public, his actions enabled the corrupt status quo and completely contradicted his words. It’s ridiculous for the governor to attempt to play off his financial contributions to Ferriero as something other than what they actually were - Corzine looking the other way in the face of corruption for his own political benefit.”

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

I mean, I know that the Governor’s rich, thanks to Goldman-Sachs - so donating a mere $440,000 or so to former Bergen County chair Joe Ferriero (and yet another convicted Democratic politician) over the years may have been a mere lark. A minor duty. He just did what they told him to. Still, you’d have thought that Corzine might have noticed all the dirty dealing going on. Or cared.

Because the legal system did b0th:

Read More →

(Via Hot Air) The Democrats in this Politico piece about former Gov. Palin and the VA/NJ races are spouting nonsense about her long term appeal*, of course - they’re aware as I am that she’s going to be very much in demand in Congressional races where the Democratic incumbent is holding down a seat in a district that McCain or Bush won.  Of which there are quite a few; but Democratic strategists can perhaps not be blamed for not wanting to say something along the lines of ‘Well, THAT WOMAN is going to go through all those Southern/Western Blue-on-Red districts like a buzz-saw, so you might as well get used to it.’  The people who need to hear that most will want to hear it least.

That being said, I don’t expect her to participate in the NJ gubernatorial election, although VA’s may yet still see a presence if the McDonnell campaign goes sour.  Virginia’s at best lightly purple, even now; New Jersey’s pretty definitely blue.  Christie doesn’t have a margin for taking chances right now.

Moe Lane

*As might be perhaps witnessed by interest in her book, which is currently at #3 on Amazon after spending over a week at #1. And that was individual pre-order.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

RedState colleague Mark Impomeni reports that New Jersey Democrats may be contemplating putting the Torch to Corzine’s campaign:

It could be déjà vu all over again in New Jersey, as rumors percolate that Democrats may force incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine off the November ballot if his poll numbers do not improve quickly. Corzine, a former United States Senator and first-term governor, trails Republican challenger Christopher Christie by nearly double-digits in aggregate polling in the governor’s race and has not enjoyed a lead over Christie in any poll since early January.

The Corzine campaign denies that the governor would consider dropping out, calling talk of a replacement “gossip.”

Why this is not generally considered to be enough to squash that particular rumor is because, of course, New Jersey Democrats did this back when Torricelli was ‘persuaded’ to drop out of the Senate race and replaced in a manner that I would call illegal, but unfortunately the NJ Supreme Court did not. This time around, talk centers around either Rep Pallone or Sen Menendez (although the latter may be reluctant to do so, particularly considering how many of his Bergen County Democratic friends are currently up on corruption charges). The clock’s ticking on this one, as Mark notes: the closer it gets to November, the harder it gets for the Democrats to toss Corzine.

The complicating factor here is that Corzine’s major problem is that he’s loathed by NJ voters for his job performance; unless there’s a convenient revelation of major criminal shenanigans on Corzine’s part, he is going to want to bull his way through and hope that he can narrow the race. And he did win the primary; if NJ Democrats get a name for setting aside the results of their primaries every time the winner ends up polling badly, it becomes a fair question to ask why the party even has them…

Moe Lane

PS: Chris Christie for Governor. Contribute here.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Read More →

Some details from the story (covered here and here):

• Yes, in fact: there was trafficking in human organs involved.  At least one individual has been brought up on charges of attempting to sell a liver.
• The list of individuals and charges can be found here: we’re looking at conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering, and again, at least one charge in trafficking in human organs.  There are at least two Republicans on the list; but the Hudson County Democratic Party organizational chart is probably going to end up looking like there was a sudden outbreak of the bubonic plague.
• There is currently no indication that Governor Corzine was aware that numerous Democratic officials were allegedly involved in any conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering, and/or trafficking in human organs.  He apparently missed it completely.
• The FBI raided Community Affairs Commissioner (and NJ Cabinet member) Joseph Doria’s office, presumably in relation to their investigation of conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering, and/or trafficking in human organs charges; Doria has resigned.
• Gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie (R) is also involved in this up to his eyeballs; in the sense that he was the one that started the investigation two years ago as a… I believe the term is, ‘crusading US Attorney.’
• An attempt to get a statement from Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Hudson County Democrat and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was unsuccessful.  There has been no press release and/or statement made at the time that this post was written.

And that’s how it stands at the moment.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

If he’s seriously considering Randal Pinkett (the guy from Season Four of The Apprentice, apparently) for his running mate, he might as well get a camera crew together and film Who Wants to be a Losing Candidate for Lt. Governor ?  There’s money in Reality TV, as I understand.  I also understand that he kind of needs money right now.

More from Politicker NJ, including this:

So far, there is only one certainty in the race to become Corzine’s running mate: the LG selection process - including an uncomfortable public search for an African American candidate — has become a bit too comical for the comfort of Corzine supporters.  Democrats are giving the impression of desperation; even East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser received a call asking if LG was something he would consider.  He said no.   At this point, new names are being treated with some trepidation.  A trial balloon for former Superior Court Judge Theodore Davis, the state appointed Chief Operating Officer of the City of Camden and a Republican, was viewed as too late to be serious.  Talk of Seton Hall Law Professor Mark Alexander, who ran Obama’s New Jersey campaign in the primary, had a shelf life of just a few minutes.

…and the Daily Record is reporting that insiders aren’t really happy about any of this.  Meanwhile, you can donate to Chris Christie - the guy taking this race seriously - here.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

We both want to link the (for-now) Governor of New Jersey to the President. Admittedly, their reasons are not ours; but that’s why we have elections. And the White House is worried about this one, to the point that they brought in Corzine to discuss it with Rahm Emanuel:

A senior Obama administration official familiar with the meeting said Emanuel did not express concern with the Corzine campaign, but rather wanted to gather intelligence on Corzine’s gameplan as the governor sought advice and help from the Obama political operation. The administration official, who requested anonymity when discussing the private meeting, said the president and national party leadership are well aware Corzine is in a tough fight, but believe he will be able to turn it around - particularly with core Democratic voters - as he begins to campaign heavily this summer.

“We’re invested in this victory and we’re confident of it,” the official said.

Asked about the discussions, Corzine campaign spokesman Sean Darcy said in a statement today: “The Vice President’s two recent visits here mere days ago entirely disproves this gossip item.”

He declined to elaborate.

Read More →

Hot on the heels of their taxpayers’ funded multi-trillion dollar production of Left Side Story – which featured the outré spectacle of enemy combatants being read their Miranda rights as American workers are being given pink slips – and after postponing its May debut, on June 25th Congressional Democrats are producing their self-satirizing revival of Franz Kafka’s The Trial.

Produced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, scripted by the Obama Administration, and directed by Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), this Beltway show features all of the Left-wing’s favorite conspiracy theories to smear honest conservatives, pander to radicals, and get rave reviews from the Washington Post.

Here’s the plot synopsis:

Read More →

Promoted by Erick

Now the primary is over and the votes are in, it’s time we all join together to throw Jon Corzine out of New Jersey for good.

Mayor Steve Lonegan ran a hard fought race, brought in far more votes than the party leadership expected, and garnered support from an electorate that does not traditionally support staunchly conservative candidates. I’ve personally volunteered for Mayor Lonegan in a previous run for office. I know him to be a man of great leadership and for that reason, and so many more, I hope Mayor Lonegan quickly comes to the aide of Christie in his run against Corzine, and I hope those who supported Lonegan’s candidacy will do the same. If we don’t work together in this election, our party will surely fail.

Christie’s for smaller government, fiscal responsibility, high ethical standards, and he’s pro-life. But just as importantly, he’s the candidate who can win the general election in the Garden State. He can restore confidence in a state plagued with political scandal; and with a proven track record over the last eight years as U.S. Attorney, he would restore New Jerseyans’ faith in their statewide leader. But that being said, it will take any candidate awhile to restore what has been lost under the Democrats rule in my beloved home state.

Most importantly, Chris Christie is a born and bred New Jersey Republican, and let me assure you that matters in a state that is frequently the butt of jokes and unfair stereotypes. In a state like New Jersey where people are fiercely proud and loya, and the Republicans are few and far between, it’s wonderful to know a committed leader who is also a New Jersey native. (As if you need reminding, the current governor most definitely is not.)

Read More →

New Jersey and Virginia elect governors this year, and Republicans stand a good chance of taking both. In the Garden State, the GOP likely has a very strong challenger in former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, if he makes it through the primary against former Mayor of Bogota (Bergen County), Steve Lonegan. Christie made his name putting corrupt Democratic politicians in jail, so the primary should be little more than a formality and a tune-up for the eventual fall campaign against a very well-funded and powerful Democratic machine in the state. Christie has an excellent chance of unseating Governor John Corzine (D) if he can prove himself competent on issues other than public corruption.

It is on that issue, however, Christie’s strength, that some Democrats are trying to attack him. They would love to paint Christie as one of a kind with their corrupt crowd. Democrats know that for Republicans, hypocrisy is a campaign-killer, even as it seems to be a resume enhancement for them. But their first venture down this line of attack will fall flat, if Christie continues to follow his instincts.

Read More →