October Preview or April Storm?

Chris Christie appears to be gliding to victory in the GOP primary for Governor. With the convention season coming to a close and petitions due to be filed on Monday, the former U.S. Attorney has garnered over 80% of the rank and file vote in county conventions and the polls show him leading Corzine by a wide margin.

Christie's only significant opponent for the nomination, Steve Lonegan, has run a very disappointing campaign to date. Lonegan does well on the stump. His conservative message resonates with voters. His accomplishments are impressive. His personal story of overcoming his disability is compelling on the rare occasions that he shares it. The polls show him also beating Corzine, but with a smaller margin than Christie's.

However Lonegan's campaign has proved to be desperate and self-destructive. His negative print pieces comparing himself to Christie are full of distortions, embellishments and lies. His attack on Christie for "pay to play" over Herbert Stern's donations to the Christie campaign are laughable on substance and inconsistent with his own conservative stand for no campaign finance regulations other than full disclosure. Lonegan has gone out of his way to alienate and insult the moderate GOP establishment. It is doubtful that Lonegan can recover any gravitas he had prior to his recent foolishness or if he can continue to raise the money necessary to compete for the next two months.

Yet, all is not well for the NJ GOP. The Democratic machine, fueled by Corzine's money, is gearing up to "kick Christie's ass" as Democratic Chairman Joe Cryan shouted at the Somerset Democratic convention last week.

As I wrote in November the Democrats are not vulnerable, at least not yet.

Yesterday the Democrats, lead by Congressmen Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell, gave us a preview of the attacks we can expect on Christie in the fall. Hours after Christie introduced his ethics reform proposals, Pallone and Pascrell sent out a press release announcing their federal legislation to reform Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPA).

Everyone who has been paying attention knew that the Democrats would attack Christie as a Bush supporter who bought his office as U.S. Attorney through campaign fundraising and that he rewarded his former boss John Ashcroft with a lucrative DPA monitorship. But the Democrats are going to go much further. They are going to accuse Christie of using the influence of his U.S. Attorney office to keep his brother Todd out of trouble and of paying off the prosecutor who investigated Todd for securities fraud with a lucrative DFP monitorship of his own. This article in today's Philadephia Inquirer is just the beginning of the attack.

Christie was quoted in the Inquirer article calling the Pallone/Pascrell legislation "...made-up political stuff by people who want to play gubernatorial politics." That's true, but it doesn't mean it won't stick politically. He said he never talked to the prosecutor turned monitor who investigated Todd about his brother's SEC case. Of course he didn't. He's too smart a lawyer to have done that. But, will that matter in October when Corzine's money is buying smear ads with unflattering black and white photos of the Christie brothers, Ashcroft and Bush?

The story of Todd's troubles is not a new one. Former reporter and blogger Jackie Corley started writing about it in 2006. Insiders on both sides of the isle have known this was coming for some time. The Christie campaign must have an answer better than, "this is just politics and he didn't do anything illegal" to thwart the coming onslaught.

That the Democrats and their friends in the media are releasing this now, rather than spring it in October, is a sign of Christie's strength and Corzine's weakness to date. They are trying to take the bloom off of Christie's rose and define him as a sleazy hack before the majority of voters come to like him as much as the GOP rank and file does. They are also trying to keep the news of Joe Coniglio corruption trial from being positive free media for Christie.

The primary may be a cake walk for Christie, but the general election will be anything but, unless Christie can thwart this issue which is probably the Democrat's best punch.