An Anomaly in Democrat's Thinking

[seneca_roman]

2 more polls show NJ gov race is tossup:
"
In an election for New Jersey governor today, 10/08/09, 26 days until votes are counted, Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine is toe-to-toe with Republican challenger Chris Christie, according to this SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WABC-TV in New York City. Within the margin of sampling error, it's Christie 43%, Corzine 40%. 1 in 7 voters reject both the Democrat and the Republican.
Who is independent Daggett hurting more? Of those who voted for Corzine in 2005, 67% stick with Corzine in 2009. 17% of 2005 Corzine voters crossover to Republican Christie in 2009; 13% vote Daggett. Of those who voted for Corzine's 2005 Republican opponent, Doug Forrester, 82% vote for Republican Christie in 2009; 4% defect to Corzine; 14% vote Daggett.

Among men, Christie leads by 13. Among women, Corzine leads by 9. A 22-point gender gap. Among whites, Christie leads 3:2. Among blacks, Corzine leads 6:1. Christie, who became the Republican nominee after defeating a more conservative Republican, Steve Lonegan, in the primary, leads 4:1 among Conservatives. Corzine leads 4:1 among liberals. Moderates split. Corzine carries Northern Jersey. Christie carries Central Jersey and South Jersey.

40% of voters say property taxes are the most important issue; Christie carries this group 2:1. Among the 21% who say the economy is tops, Corzine, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, wins 5:3. Christie runs strongly among the 9% who say corruption is the top issue.

Christie leads among Jets fans, Giants fans and Eagles fans. Corzine leads among Springsteen fans, even though Christie has been to 120 Springsteen concerts."



With less than a month to go before Election Day, a new survey conducted for Stan Greenberg and James Carville’s organization Democracy Corps by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research finds that Democratic Governor Jon Corzine has now moved slightly ahead of Republican Chris Christie, after pulling into a statistical dead heat two weeks ago. Corzine now leads by 3 points, garnering 41 percent of the vote to Christie’s 38 percent and independent Chris Daggett’s 14 percent. Importantly, Corzine has now consolidated the vote among his base, crossing the 80 percent threshold among Democrats and winning more Democrats than Christie does Republicans for the first time.

Christie’s standing has declined markedly in the last two weeks, with 42 percent now rating the Republican unfavorably versus just 30 percent who rate him favorably. This net -12 point favorability rating is a 10-point decline from two weeks ago. Corzine is rated favorably by 37 percent of voters and unfavorably by 46 percent, for a net favorability rating of -9 points."

http://www.democracycorps.com/strat...s-first-lead-in-race-for-new-jersey-governor/

Seneca

ps-The Dems are getting trounced in the Old Dominion.

 

[bugscoe]

Quote from seneca_roman:

2 more polls show NJ gov race is tossup:

"Thursday, October 08, 2009

Jon Corzine's Hilarious Ethnic Jokes

The news that Jon Corzine's campaign is trying fat jokes against Chris Christie comes as something of an improvement over his past attempts at humor:

Jon S. Corzine, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in a state where one of every four Democrats is Italian-American, acknowledged today that he had made disparaging remarks about Italians as recently as two weeks ago.

Mr. Corzine, whose ethnic background is unclear, apologized after an attack by the head of a group that opposes negative portrayals of Italians in the media. Mr. Corzine's opponent in the primary, former Gov. Jim Florio, himself Italian-American, called Mr. Corzine's remarks ''startling'' in their insensitivity.

Emanuel Alfano, chairman of the Italian-American One Voice Committee, issued a statement saying that Mr. Corzine had made offensive remarks twice, the first time at an Italian restaurant in Newark several months ago, ''where Mr. Corzine was courting the support of six prominent Italian-Americans.''

According to Mr. Alfano, when someone in the group introduced Mr. Corzine to a lawyer named David Stein, Mr. Corzine said: ''He's not Italian, is he? Oh, I guess he's your Jewish lawyer who is here to get the rest of you out of jail.''

Mr. Corzine today flatly denied making any mention of Mr. Stein's religion. And Mr. Stein said in a brief telephone interview that he did not recall what Mr. Corzine had said, though he remembered the meeting.

But no one present disputed Mr. Corzine's reference to Italian-Americans. One man who heard the remark was Sam Formosa, a past president of the New Jersey Sons of Italy. ''No one said anything at the time,'' Mr. Formosa, of West Caldwell, recalled. ''At the moment, it went over my head. I didn't want to get involved with it. But in retrospect I was very offended — because he did it again.''

The second time was about two weeks ago, Mr. Alfano said. He said Mr. Corzine was introduced to an Italian-American man who said he was in the construction business. As Mr. Alfano related the exchange, ''Mr. Corzine turned to the Italian-American contractor and quipped, 'Oh, you make cement shoes!' ''.

Oh, that's okay; New Jersey doesn't have too many Italian-Americans or Jews."

 

[seneca_roman]

In another shocker in the NJ race, INTRADE now has Corzine winning. IMO, Intrade is one if not the best forecaster.

S

 

[drjekyllus]

Yeah, baby.

 

[John_Wensink]

Intrade is useless unless the outcome is already known.

 

[Tigerjaw]

Damned, how can I short intrade ? Sounds like $ in the bank.

 

[Mnphats]

Quote from seneca_roman:

This will be an interesting race to watch. To me, Christie is the type of moderate Republican that can get elected. He beat out what I call is the typical super conservative in the primary. That guy ran in part on the "flat tax" vs issues near and dear to NJites, ie, property taxes being near the highest in the nation.

According to the composite polls at RCP, the lead is around 8%, actually not very big at this stage, considering how poorly Corzine did during his term as Gov.

Corzine is suffering from not delivering on campaign promised property tax reductions and the fallout of the crappy economy.

All in all, it'll be a fun one to watch.

Christie is making pipedream promises which could backfire on him. EG-he will get job growth by cutting business taxes. In NJ (I lived and worked there for about 9 years), this is a huge problem.

However, cutting business taxes means either cutting spending or raising someone elses taxes ( see comment about high property taxes. )
In addition, NJ has very high income taxes. So, Corzine will likely spin this as putting more burden on the already overburdened individual via higher property and income taxes.

Christie has another serious problem and that is campaign finance. He will be limited to about $10.9 million in public funds while the very wealthy Corzine has no limit in spending his personal fortune, something he has been willing to do.

NJ is somewhat unique in that it has no major TV stations; therefore, candidates have to buy from either the NYC or Philly stations with the NYC being the most expensive in the nation. This clearly is a disadvantage for Christie.
Also, Corzine will likely bring in Obama. As you know, the big O. has huge popular support.

This will be a very closely watched election. IMO, if Christie wins and I think he can and actually hope he will, it will have national implications for the GOP by making easier for the so called impure moderates to run.

BTW-Reps can and do win north of the Mason Dixon line, just not very often.

Peace,
Seneca

Spot on, nice call.