At Netroots Nation last week, I saw a lot of friends of mine from various progressive circles, and one conversation-starter many of them ask me was "what's going on for you besides health care?" To which I talk about The Progressive Revolution (I manage the press, website and book tour) some other work I'm doing at Progressive Strategies, my boyfriend, etc. Lots of my friends ask what I think about Creigh Deeds' race, to which I kind of give them a funny stare. I think they're wondering because here in DC, I'm 10 minutes from Virginia. But in terms of a major race that I actually care about, it's not VA-Gov, where a conservative Democrat is running. It's NJ-Gov.
So I tell them that I'm concerned about Corzine, that he's way down in the polls, and why I think it's important to re-elect the only other major gubernatorial candidate I can think of in recent years- aside from Eliot Spitzer, my home-state governor, and Deval Patrick- who speaks on the stump about the importance of marriage equality and pledging to sign a bill. Oh, and Spitzer was doing it while he was on his way to winning with 69% of the vote, and Patrick on his way to an easy victory as well.
1) "Ehh, he'll be fine, Democrats always close late in New Jersey. Look at Menendez vs. Kean Jr. in 2006. New Jersey folks flirt with Republicans but always come back to the Democrat."
2) "Ehh, he'll be fine, he'll just dump another $60 million into the race and swamp Christie on TV."
More on why those two assumptions are wrong- and an announcement- in the extended entry.
Now, I'm no expert on New Jersey politics- other than, like Virginia, the opposite party usually wins the off-year gubernatorial election, which should serve as one motivation in 2009. I do know, regarding assumption #1, that virtually nothing should be taken for granted in politics or public policy. It unnerved me to no end when Rep. Jim Clyburn peered into his crystal ball and predicted that we would somehow pass a public option between now and the end of Obama's term if we didn't get it done this year. It unnerves me when people- many of whom aren't looking at the polling in the race, and don't understand the dynamics- brazenly predict that Corzine will be fine. What makes you so sure? Like I said, I'm no expert on NJ politics. But I have been watching this race closely, and I do know that when a very progressive incumbent governor is down by an average of eight percentage points, and two polls have come out showing him down by 13 and 14 points in the last month, that it's time to damn your assumptions and sound the alarm.
Assumption #2 isn't quite right, either. On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to ask Gov. Corzine about it on a blogger conference call, who said:
People must be confusing me with Bloomberg. Terms and conditions are different in asset values than at an earlier point in time. I've been in politics for 10 years, been self-financing for that time, but my net worth is lower than it has been. We are going to put substantial amounts of dollars into this race, but I certainly would like to have people paying attention and helping in all the various ways they can.
That right there is a guy trying to tell us he doesn't have tens of millions of dollars sitting around, and isn't going to put that kind of cash into the race anytime soon. My friends in New Jersey political circles all have told me the same thing, that it's the biggest open secret in the race. But it seems everyone in the progressive netroots is operating under the assumption that he is, as belied by the paltry showing on his ActBlue page of a mere $5,653 raised. That is just shocking.
Look, this is a guy who actually campaigns on marriage equality, not when he's going to win by 69% of the vote anyway like Spitzer, but when he's been down 13 and 14 points. I saw it myself. He's a guy who abolished capital punishment, who was first in the nation to enact a loan modification program (NJ's rate of foreclosure is half the national average), who changed the funding formula for school taxes so that it's not based on zip codes, expanded state child health insurance eligibility to insure 80,000 more kids, signed LGBT hate crimes and bullying legislation, signed legislation to expand stem cell research, and enacted paid family leave (something we haven't been able to do in New York State). And that's just the stuff off the top of my head that I remember in the last four years. I'm sure there are a bunch of more reasons progressives should invest in this race- if you know of more, leave them in the comments.
He also has gone after his opponent, corrupt Chris Christie (that's some good alliteration for a campaign ad), who was recently linked to Karl Rove, as Mike wrote about here; claims he's still "got" federal prosectors, as Marcy Wheeler wrote about here; and failed to report a loan he gave to an associate formerly in the U.S. Attorney's office who still owes him while Christie is running for office. Yesterday Corzine filed a FOIA request to find out about these items as well as no-bid contracts Christie awarded to none other than John Ashcroft, for whom he used to work. The guy is a sleazebag, through and through.
When I was watching Corzine speak at Netroots Nation last week, I thought: okay, he may not be the flashiest of guys- hell, he may be a quiet policy wonk- but dammit, he's OUR quiet policy wonk, and he gets progressive shit done.
STATE BLOGS
