Barack Obama put his prestige on line for Jon Corzine and was defeated sharply tonight. Republican Chris Christie pulled out a tremendous victory in one of the bluest of the blue states - New Jersey. This signals a Republican comeback in 2010.
Oh please. Republican Christine Whitman won NJ in 1993, did that mean anything about Clinton? No. Clinton won in 1996. How about Democrat Jim McGreevey winning NJ in 2001? did that spell disaster for Bush? No. Bush won in 2004. How about Democrat Chuck Robb winning Virginia in 1981, did that mean anything about Reagan? No. Reagan won in 1984. How about Democrat Mark Warner winning Virginia in 2001?... Oh see... two Democrats won these two Governors races in 2001... did that mean anything for 2002 or 2004? No! The Republicans did very well in both of those years. Why are we suddenly supposed to think that these Governors races have anything to do with national politics? The ignorance & stupidity of the TV pundits repeating this nonsense without looking into the history of it.... well it should be shocking, but sadly - at this point that kind of obvious stupidity is to be expected from the "journalists" on cable news.
If people are voting for their own state governor based on whether or not they like the President they are morons. Corzine didn't deliver and he lost his job. The End.
While I can agree to this to some extent and in some cases, I think this case is different. I haven't been following it closely, but didn't Obama campaign for Jon Corzine? Think of it this way: Say I'm on the fence with who to vote for. There's this one government official I don't like or agree with his policies at all. Now that official is telling me to vote for candidate "A" because he believes in candidate A and that candidate A will produce results we need for our state and country. How is it moronic to associate candidate A with this official and consider the official's endorsement as well as the official's policies when I make my vote? ...and Zibblu, you're talking apples and oranges unless your other examples actually endorsed as well as campaigned for the candidate while holding the position of President of the United States.
Well speaking as someone who has relatives in NJ who didn't vote for Corzine, I can tell you a lot of people there weren't on the fence at all. It's moronic because no matter what the "official" says, the people in that state already know how Corzine operates. The "official" isn't from my state and I know he has his own political reasons for supporting the candidate that has nothing to do with my local interests. If you already have all the information there before you and you let an outsider sweet talk you into voting for one candidate or another you're a sheep. High taxes and cost of living in NJ under Corzine equaled him losing his job. To make it worse, instead of learning from the book of how to LOSE an election in the 21st century the Republicans wrote for us in 2006 and 2008 he decided to run negative attacks. I'm one of the bigger Obama supporters on this forum and I live in Illinois. If you think that had Blagojevich not been kicked out I would have supported him afterward just because Obama says so you're crazy.
Frankly I'd rather not be a dramatic party person, but there is no doubt in my mind that the radical extremist politics of the far right, now representing the GOP, has been the worst thing for the US in many many decades. Afterall, they took us into the worst recession in decades. In some ways the long term problems are even worse than the depression. The cause is all a function of radical far right wing extremism leading to an endless accumulation of personal and business debt that has never before been experienced. On top of that far right extremism has taken us into 2 wars. We are still fighting. We don't have the troop levels for it. We haven't won, we have difficult issues in front of us. We have lost thousands of troops, in excess of a trillion in expenditures and no end in sight. Its all a function of right wing extremism without being honest to the American public. I grew up in NJ and still have strong contacts there. I live in Virginia; both states won by GOP governors. Its time to lay every single thing that doesn't go right on the new VA governor starting the day he takes office. He either he fixes the deficit, rising unemployment, and the statewide horrible transportation road problems or he is a miserable failure. He better have the right solutions the day he gets into office. As to the NJ governor...that dude better fix everything IMMEDIATELY the day he gets into office. His debt problems make Virginia look like nothing. He needs to get a lot of people back to work immediately. He promised all that. The nations voters have a short memory. Its important for them to realize the miserable condition that the Extremists from the Right Wing put the nation into. Time for people with common sense to wake up and fight political fire with fire so that the nation does not again go under the control of the people that are responsible for putting the US into an incredibly weakened situation.
I think the Obama deadline was about 3 to 4 months if I'm not mistaken. (time between election and inauguration included). So New Jersey should be turning around any day now.
Two big issues are high taxes and corruption. Chris Christie has a lot of experience dealing with corruption as a US Attorney General. The second issue of high taxes is difficult. The first step is to stop raising them and stop the increase in spending. NJ already has the highest property taxes in the nation. At some point you have to make the difficult decisions and live within your means.
What day does Christie become inaugerated? If things aren't fixed by the following day, it seems only appropriate that every problem in the state is 150% his!!
What about if, a year later, those problems are dramatically exacerbated by his policies? Oh yeh, he'll own em then, and rightly so.
Yeah, if within that year Christie doesn't save the state from the worst economic meltdown since the great depression and stop job losses from being much worse than they would have been had the state stayed on the same path it was on, I'd consider him a failure.
The more extreme republicans and democrats get the more hopeful I become that people will bail looking for a new solution. People will become much more open to a legitimate 3rd party that hopefully will be AGAINST spending rather than just talking like they are. Not that I would want a 3rd party take over, but become enough of a threat to keep the wasteful spending, backroom lobbyist dealing, extremist currently alive in the D and R parties in check. Right now it's too much of a lesser of two evils combined with the grass is greener syndrome. We have ignorant people loyal to a single party who will never consider what the other side has to say and assume their party could do no wrong. There's no hope for them. Then in the middle and to the side we have independents who in some cases aren't much better. They tend to flow one direction until that party pisses them off enough to go with the other... and back and forth they go. The first Bush pissed them off so they went to Clinton, they finally got tired of Clinton and went to Bush Jr. Bush Jr eventually really pissed them off and they went to Obama... now looking at the polls, Obama is already pissing them off and the Republicans are waiting with open arms for them telling everyone to come on over and they'll fix everything. I AM hopeful people will begin to wake up, and the more extreme each party becomes, the more people will see it finally. Either New Jersey is like no other state or you're living in a bubble. Have you seen the many of the polls and street interviews done showing people clueless of even the President's policies and position on topics? I find it hard to believe even a majority in the state know Corzine's or ANY of their state official's policies and positions on topics. Yes that's ignorant, just as I'm ignorant for not really knowing my own state reps positions as well. People can only handle so much politics when they have so many other more interesting things they would rather spend their time on. So an outside influence will be part of the decision making. Things such as who is endorsing them which may not be very accurate to predict the job they would do, but it's a hell of a lot better than picking who has a prettier name. If I feel my roofer did a poor job and ripped me off, do you think I'll use his recommendation for a window washer? No, I think I would purposely avoid his recommendation. What do I do when I'm voting and don't know the candidates for a position? I vote Libertarian lol.
Though I (barf) agree with Reseg about the necessity for a 3rd party I just don't see it ever happening because we're just too polarized. Independent voters have proven time and time again over the past 3 years that they are the deciding factor in our country's elections as the 2 parties become more and more polarized. The problem is that if a 3rd party ever came to power that party's voters would lose their "real" power as the deciding swing voters. But it'll never happen. People are too gullible. There aren't enough progressives or libertarians or what have you to form a solid base. And if they ever did begin to get big enough one of the 2 parties would court them like a cheap date and pull them into their tent.
It has happened, and it will happen again. The republican party replaced the whigs, probably for very similar reasons. One person one vote means we will always wind up with a two party system, but that does not mean a third party cannot rise to replace one of the other two. I have no doubt that whatever new party arises will eventually be just as corrupt and problematic as what it replaces. Given that over 40% of people now identify themselves as independents at the expense of both parties(Republicans more than Democrats), we will likely be seeing some reforms soon. If not, we may be kissing one of the existing parties goodbye.
What path was Corzine on? Corzine has authorized the spending of $4 billion for new school construction over the last couple of years. It's really not the right time to tear down perfectly food schools and spend that kind of money in this climate.
With the hits Obama has been taking during the election, in between the election and being inaugerated and every day since, its only appropriate that the new New Jersey Governor should expect the same. I figure if graft isn't cleaned up the day after he is inaugerated, the NJ debt situation isn't cleared, and the high state real estate taxes aren't reduced than this guy is a miserable failure. In saying this I am quite simply following the lead of our extremist right wingers. That is the simple premise under which they work.
Chris Christie as US Attorney had 130 corruption convictions without losing a case. The first is to reduce spending. Without that reducing taxes is useless.