Oct 07 2009
Corzine Toast, McDonnell Riding High
It looks like there will be a GOP sweep of this fall’s governor races. In New Jersey, Governor Corzine is still polling pathetically low, and while the margin is tight the fact is Corzine’s average number is 40.6% – which for an incumbent means defeat. I think the nation is not sanguine about going back to the GOP after years of screwing up, but the Dems in DC have made it pretty clear they are the worse of two evils. I expect a late shift to Christie as people decide they need real change in government. It does help that Christie is a moderate GOP candidate.
In VA AG Bob McDonnell has been riding very high in the polls, which typically lean left up until election day – when all of a sudden they get a clear picture. I would ad 2-3% points to anything being reported now. Given McDonnell is polling over 50%, I would wager this race is his to lose. McDonnell has been fighting off attempts to make him look right wing, and is staying with economic issues and away from social issues. If he stays the course he should win.
From what I have read, it appears that Christie is running a very bland, play it safe race which would be why he is just barely ahead of a widely despised Governor like Corzine. McDonnell is doing a much better job of staking out positions, and it shows.
Christie still has time to make a move, but not much. There’s not going to be any reason for disaffected voters to break his way unless he gives them one, and that means doing a lot more than he has done to date.
AJ,
Never underestimate the ability of NJ Republicans to pull defeat from the jaws of victory.
In addition, the NJ polity seems to have gone the route of Michigan and California voters in believing in fantasies rather than dealing with hard reality.
Michigan is past the tipping point, and is now the prime example of what happens when any state has been subject to destructive fantasy policies for far too long. There is no recovery possible there, and there is not going to be any return to conservative or even rational values. Almost all of the truly productive people have left, and what is left behind is what Mike Judge termed an Idiocracy. They will continue to blame everyone but themselves as they sink ever deeper into third world levels of futility. (google for news story about how half of all Michigan college graduates move out of state each year)
It is now going to lose population and lose money every year as it slowly sinks into existence as an impoverished slum known as Michiganistan. Maybe in 100 years some new generation might decide to build something useful on the ashes of the old, but we won’t see it in our lifetimes.
The average price of a house in Detroit last December was $7,500.00 That’s no typo – seven thousand five hundred dollars for nice, 3 bedroom house. Of course, it comes with added benefits such as a guarantee of no job, no police protection, a completely failed school system, and a hopelessly corrupt and failed city government. And people aren’t dying to move there? Imagine that.
That stat alone says more than you need to know about how far Detroit has fallen.
I think Corzine will win 44% of the vote. The 40.6% number is a little misleading in that it includes polls with large third party % or large undecided %. The Rasmussen poll is by far the most accurate because he includes leaners. The Rasmussen undecided is only 3% and his third party number is single digit. The problem with any third party is that people do not want to waste their vote. It would be just as well to stay home than go to the effort to get to the polls to waste your vote on someone who at the very best is going to get 15%. That will not win you any office. That is why the third party candidate will only win 5 – 8% of the vote, if he wins 5%.
So the key to NJ is who will get all those voters who now poll for the third party who will not vote for the third party on election day and switch to either Christie of Corzine. Trent is right, in NJ, votes pull the democrat lever by reflex. It is is the water, in their blood, in their fantasies. Corzine is hoping that the reflex will kick in and he will get to 47% and win a squeaker. Because as WWS has pointed out correctly Christie is running a bad campaign. I don’t expect a late shift to Christie by default just because he is a moderate. Christie must give people something to vote for, that he can turn around the fortunes of NJ and not just be Corzine without the corruption.
They are pushing some polls out there right now showing Corzine surging (one has him ahead). I hope not.
I saw a piece yesterday which said that Corzine is now running ads making fun of Christie for being fat, and Christie is not responding. They’re disgusting, but they’re working. I think it’s Christie’s complete lack of a response to being slapped in the face which is so damaging, just like when Dukakis said he didn’t know what he’d do if his wife was raped.
If Christie just sits there and takes this without saying anything, he deserves to lose. I haven’t seen Christie lay out any ideas for what he would do different in that state, other than be Corzine II without quite as much corruption.
Voters are looking for men who will fight for them. Men who are just going to mouth platitudes while warming a chair are going nowhere.
Christie is losing this race because he won’t fight. He’s got 3 weeks left to change that.