Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Thoughts on Corzine vs. Christie

So the field is set for yet another very expensive, very nasty campaign here in New Jersey. Governor Jon Corzine against former US Attorney Chris Christie. The gloves definitely came off during Corzine's rally.

Corzine is down in the polls, and it's going to be a heck of a fight. Bad economy, an inherited mess worsened by the Mess, and some high profile issues and missteps (selling the Turnpike?) are working against the Governor.

Christie's biggest problem, aside from the multi-million dollar no-bid contracts, is the Republican brand itself. Biden and Corzine hit on it in a couple ways, but Corzine became impassioned to the point I thought he was going to levitate off the stage when delivering this part of his speech:
Our opponents disagree. They say that government should be small ... Small enough to slip under your bedroom door. Small enough to root for a new president to fail ... Narrow enough to divide us by gender and ethnicity over a Supreme Court nominee ... Self-righteous enough to dictate their own religious beliefs to the rest of us ...on stem cell research ... family planning ... and even science curricula. We must be bigger than that.

Distilled into a few moments, Corzine's delivery of this characterization that Republicans have earned over the last few years was impressive. As part of his effort to pump up the troops, Corzine's personal passion on this point was palpable.

It will be interesting to see how Christie's campaign deals with this earned image of Republicans, and if voters can accept it or not.

Oh , this is going to be fun.

Pictures of the rally in the next couple of days.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So Matt, who do you think it will be? I am curious to know your expert opinion.

Admin said...

Oh, way too early to tell. There's a lot of campaigning left.

Jill said...

Where the hell has that guy BEEN for the last few years?

And does anyone know what Christie actually would DO, other than political prosecutions?