Governor

Rob Tornoe's cartoon from PolitickerNJ.com's Hold Me Accountable Week in September 2007

Today, as Governor Jon Corzine addressed the New Jersey League of Municipalities convention in Atlantic City and proposed allowing local and county governments to defer 50% of next April's required pension payments, there was word from the New Jersey State Investment Council that the pension fund has lost $25 billion since July, including $9 billion in October.  When he gets back to Trenton, he'll have to decide whether to hold his close friend, Orin Kramer, accountable for the massive losses.  

Kramer, a 63-year-old hedge fund millionaire and according to U.S. News and World Report, the #3 bundler for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, originally came up with the idea of Corzine running for an open U.S. Senate seat in 1999.  It won't be easy for Corzine to fire him.  And while Kramer isn't the only financial whiz to mess up during difficult economic times, Corzine's biggest problem is how easy it will be for Republicans to come up with a 30-second TV ad holding the former Wall Streeter accountable for massive losses in a fund that provides benefits for more than 700,000 current and future retirees.

Gov. Jon Corzine

If it’s Corzine versus Christie for governor next year, both parties agree on one thing at least: the contest will get ugly, with bruising attacks emanating out of both camps.

“You’re probably going to have to go back to Lautenberg-Dawkins to find a race like this one, if it happens,” said Democratic Party political operative Pat Politano.

In that infamous 1988 matchup, the “Swamp Dog” incumbent senator, plagued by unfavorable internal polling, branded challenger Pete Dawkins a carpetbagger and flailed away at him with negative ads until he dropped him on Election Day by eight points.

Gov. Jon Corzine said a while ago that now retiring U.S. Attorney Chris Christie has demonstrated expertise “in one area,” namely as a crusader against government corruption. As such, the Democrats anticipate a Christie campaign trying to cocoon Corzine in the danker reaches of New Jersey politics.

Hedge Fund millionaire Orin Kramer and Obama national finance director Julianna Smoot. A state pension fund headed by Kramer says they have lost $25 billion since July

A New Jersey pension fund run by one of Barack Obama’s earliest and biggest campaign fundraisers/bundlers has lost $25 billion -- including $9 billion in October, according to a report issued today by a state panel.  The New Jersey Investment Council, chaired by hedge fund manager Orin Kramer, says that the value of the state pension fund has shrunk from $82 billion in July to $57 billion.

Kramer, 63, a former White House aide in the Carter administration and a partner at Boston Provident, was named to head the state retirement benefits panel by then-Gov. James E. McGreevey in 2003.  The state Division of Investment is one of the ten largest public fund managers in the U.S., with a market value at of $70.7 billion as of the end of September, according to the Treasury Department website.  The fund provides retirement benefits for more than 700,000 current and future retirees.

U.S. News and World Report ranked Kramer as Obama's #3 bundler last August, just behind Lehman Brothers' Christine Forester.

Democrats think today's Quinnipiac gubernatorial poll indicates that Gov. Jon Corzine is well on his way to being understood and embraced by the electorate after making several unpopular and tough, but necessary decisions.

Republicans see the poll as demonstrating lackluster support for the Corzine, considering he's spent a combined $100 million on his two previous statewide races, and early enthusiasm for U.S. Attorney Chris Christie's potential candidacy among those who have heard of him.

Meanwhile, non-partisan political analysts see the poll as a wash, with promising and troubling results for both Corzine and U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, who is viewed as a likely gubernatorial candidate.

Corzine leads Christie in the poll, 42% to 36%, although only 37% of voters think Corzine deserves to be reelected and his approval rating remains net negative. Christie remains a relative unknown, with only 30% of respondents knowing enough about him to form an opinion.

Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union), the Democratic State Chairman, said that's the number that caught his attention. Despite dozens of positive front page headlines about his indictments and convictions of prominent public officials since he was sworn in, 70% of voters still barely know anything about him.

On top of that, although Corzine still has a net negative approval rating, he's improved significantly since the last Quinnipiac poll in September.

In a statement issued Wednesday morning, GOP gubernatorial candidate Assemblyman Richard A. Merkt (R-Mendham) called on Republican State Committee Chairman Tom Wilson to resign his post immediately “in the best interests of the party.”

“After years of failure, it is time for the New Jersey State GOP to change horses and look to new leadership if it wants to succeed in 2009,” said Merkt. “Wilson has overseen a series of dismal state campaigns, reducing the Republican party to essential irrelevance in New Jersey state politics.”

 Merkt called Wilson’s handling of the U.S. Senate Primary a “fiasco,” in which the establishment juggled one candidate after another before running with former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer, and getting soundly beaten by U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park).  In particular, the party’s selection of political neophyte and food heir Andy Unanue, whose short-lived candidacy dissolved in jarring headlines about his party boy past, galled Merkt.

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Bob Franks had a 53%-3% favorble rating among Republicans after his 2000 U.S. Senate bid, and lost a primary for Governor six months later by fourteen percentage points

Outgoing U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie has a 42%-1% favorable rating among Republican voters, who by a 67%-4% margin want him to run for Governor in 2009.  In a head to head poll with Democrat Jon Corzine, Republicans back Christie 76%-10%.  Christie also leads Corzine among Independents, 38%-32%.

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Gov. Jon Corzine has an upside-down 43%-46% job approval rating

Gov. Jon Corzine continues to struggle with his fifth negative approval rating this year -- 43%-46% -- according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today.  But those numbers are better than his 40%-51% approval rating in a September 17 Quinnipiac poll.  More than half of New Jersey voters (51%) say he doesn't deserve to be re-elected, while just 37% say he does.  

New Jerseyans, by a 54%-30% margin, don't want Corzine to be Barack Obama's Secretary of the Treasury.

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U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie is within six points of incumbent Jon Corzine in a Quinnipiac University poll of the 2009 race for Governor of New Jersey

Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine has a narrow six point lead over Republican Christopher Christie in the 2009 race for Governor of New Jersey, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released early this morning.  Corzine leads Christie, who will leave his post as U.S. Attorney on December 1, 42%-36%.

“The long coattails of Barack Obama have reached down into New Jersey and helped Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election prospects, at least for now,” said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. 

Quinnipiac University will release a new poll on Wednesday morning with Gov. Jon Corzine's job approval ratings and a head-to-head contest with U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie. In a September 17 survey, Corzine had an upside-down approval rating of 40%-51%, and was in a statistial dead heat with Christie, 42%-40%.