Posted on 03/26/2006 11:44:54 AM PST by ncountylee
AP) WASHINGTON Had Jon Corzine stayed in the U.S. Senate, he'd be on a congressional recess right now, not trying to explain to residents why he's already had to break two campaign promises and wants to raise their taxes.
Life as a low-ranking member of the minority party doesn't usually come with a lot of power to create change or new policy, but it also doesn't carry the stress and headaches of leading a state with the financial problems New Jersey is facing.
Sure, the Democrat would have faced re-election in November, but most likely he'd have won easily, thanks to his high approval ratings as a U.S. Senator and the personal wealth at his disposal to spend on a campaign.
snip
Corzine's situation now is similar to that of Jim Florio, the Democrat who left Congress in 1990 to become governor, also at a time of fiscal problems. Six months later, he said he would have to raise taxes. Four years later, residents voted Florio out of office.
Whether or not the same fate will be handed to Corzine remains to be seen, but Republicans will be busy reminding residents of Corzine's broken promises.
"Governor Corzine promised to reinvent government," said New Jersey Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson. "But all he did was reinvent the Florio plan -- raise taxes and spend more."
(Excerpt) Read more at wcbstv.com ...
Yeah, that makes a lot of political sense, now doesn't it? I don't know whether Kean deliberately avoided Cheney or not. But I will say this- I perfectly understand if he did so to avoid being associated with a horribly rated VP. I've got no personal problems with Cheney, and in fact I agree with him on quite a few things- but I realize that he's an election poison, especially in a state like New Jersey. People need to understand this point before complaining about Kean.
I may not trust Kean on some things, but his opponent is BOB MENENDEZ!!!! This guy is Corzine Episode II.
Couldn't agree more.
Character and honesty matter in elections. I can stand a Democrat with character (Joe Lieberman) better than a Republican without character (Bob Taft, Lincoln Chafee.)
All Kean's done with this episode is give people on the right solid evidence for their suspicions about Kean - that he's an opportunist with no core principles beyond getting himself elected to office so he can enjoy the power and perks of a US Senate seat for the rest of his life. And in a state like NJ where the GOP candidate starts in a deep, deep hole, he can't afford to just throw away a bunch of his suppporters who are looking at his ducking the VP and saying WTF?
FWIW, I won't be voting for either candidate as I don't live in NJ. I'm just telling you what it looks like from outside the race.
Guess they forgot that the dems and the media ran the first President Bush out of office for raising taxes.
Courageous would be cutting spending.
Kean Jr. is a shlub. An Average Joe. He is neither a Democrat Republican Conservative or Liberal in ideology. His ideology is whatever happens to "sound good" at the moment it's explained to him, and anything his father's friends tell him will help get him elected.
He is not even a RINO, he is simply a politician, with no allegiances to any ideology except to self promotion.
He's now had at least 3 private fundraisers where the guests(who donated him good money none the less) were laughing at his preposterous inability to articulate any thoughts about almost every topic.
His nickname in North Jersey is now "the kid". As in, "he's a nice kid, maybe someday he'll make something of himself."
He has no policy positions, no positions, no ideas, nothing. He is truly an empty suit.
(Did I hear a niner in there?)
He has time to be coached, but he will not be able to seriously challenge Menendez in a debate, everyone around hm knows it.
Oh he has one and one only. Ban smoking. He's the *(!@#& who sponsered the smoking ban here in New Jersey.
Other then that, he's never sponsered anything
I ditto the sediments above, I could vote (and vote happily) for an Olympia Snowe or even an Arlean Spector type RINO, but having moved here from New York and seeing the damage Patakifeller and Baffoonberg type RINOs can do, there is no way in hell I would vote for the little puke Kean who is in the same mold.
I will sit home and smoke a cigarette in his honor and that's it.
C'mon New Jersey GOP, run somebody against him in the primary. Run Schundler, Murphy, Loeghan or even DiGitano (Sorry about the spelling of their names). The little puke is unacceptable and not going to do.
Had to break those promises...?
SNORT.
i read in yeterdays paper that he wants to impose a $630 tax on hospitals for each bed they have.
We're involuntarily taking one for the team.
Well, all of us except the state's union workers. With all the talk of Corzine's about belt tightening, he's asked not a single thing of the unions. No layoffs, no givebacks, no nothing.
Of course, unlike the union leadership, we only get screwed by Corzine in the figurative sense.
If this is the best spin the AP can put on it, imagine how bad the situation really is...
How do the other 49 states in the Union do the job for less? Most of them do it for a lot less.
When a state has the highest per capita spending in the country, it is hard to see how raising taxes can be the only way out of their fiscal problems.
Thanks a lot, from those of us who have to LIVE here.
I agree with you. Is there any wonder why NJ keeps ending up with moronic RAT senators? At least a RINO will keep our majority.
You're not looking at the big picture and the overall scheme of things.
What if Menendez narrowly wins and Democrats win a 51 to 49 majority in the Senate? This is unlikely, but not impossible.
And as for honesty, do you think that Bob Menendez is a beacon of truthfulness and character?
Yeah, you know, because one can simply walk up to the Vice President of the United States and go "stay out of my state, punk!" I'm sure left wing liberals would love that, but everyone else would see it as a lack of class and respect- even if they themselves do not like the VP.
Furthermore, the VP did bring in money. The NJ GOP got shafted on funding from the national party this year, and Kean needs all the help he can get. Personally, I think the NJ GOP should have just conceded the 2005 Gubernatorial election last June when Forrester got nominated, and instead kept that money for this year's Senate race. That's how bad of a candidate Forrester was. Kean's light years better than him.
Indeed. The more and more time passes in this state, the more and more I realize that maybe it's not the idiot liberals that are the problem: it's the stubborn conservatives who are. They continue to stab their own party's chances at taking back even a tiny bit of semblance of power because they stubbornly sit out elections, giving even more say to the liberals in the state, because the GOP's candidate isn't conservative enough for them. This "all or nothing" attitude by many Republicans in NJ is the reason why the party continues to lose ground to a corrupt Democratic Party.
In the 1990s, we were fortunate enough to have Whitman at least bit out Florio, resulting in a pretty large tax cut. I have the feeling that many NJ conservatives have become so stubborn now that even if a candidate like Whitman (liberal on some things, but still better than a Democrat) ran, they'd actually vote against her, or sit out the election, leading to a Democratic win.
At least back then, NJ Republicans knew they had to stop the bleeding in order to heal the wound. Now, they'd rather amputate themselves than try to stop the bleeding, all because of an obsession with ideology- in a dark blue state, no less.
I wonder how long this exercise in futility will continue, until these people realize it's time to wake up and stop the bleeding.
Don't feel like the Lone Ranger, my governor is also a RAT. At least we overrode her veto and got concealed carry.
Yes, a spine would be nice and few politicians have one. But a republican vote in teh Senate for six years would be nice too. As opposed to a corrupt, totally left wing, democrat vote. NONE of these politicians deserve your vote, but neither do we deserve six years of a left wing democrat in the senate.
I agree; however, in Kean's case it isn't "All or nothing" it's "Nothing for nothing"
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