Sunday, September 20, 2009

Hedges vs Bushes

The gubernatorial campaign will be a battle of hedges vs bushes, at least for the next few days or weeks.

The floundering Corzine campaign will continue to try to portray Chris Christie as Bush. It hasn't worked so far, but they remember how strongly the people pushed back last March when they tried to pass pro-bush regulations. Since nothing else is working, they will try it again.

The Christie campaign revealed their hedge against Corzine's attacks over the weekend. It seems Corzine is invested in a hedgefund that is closely related to, and has a similar name as, a hedge fund that owns four New Jersey Casinos. Governors having financial interests in Casinos is a serious legal and ethical violation.

Just as Christie's loan to Michelle Brown, his conversations with Karl
Rove, and his driving record didn't amount to anything, Corzine's investment in this hedgefund won't amount to anything either, legally.

Politically, the timing of the hedgefund revelations means everything.

Reporters, pundits and bloggers were all over Christie for the Brown, Rove and driving matters in August. The issues and chatter about them got Christie off stride briefly and Corzine had hope. But New Jersey voters were busy vacationing, getting ready for school, and paying their third quarter property tax bills. All the ink had no impact on the polls.

Now that the kids are back to their school routine and summer is over, voters are starting to pay attention. Perfect time to make Corzine answer reporters questions about his hedgefunds and possibly improper investments. The economic news continues to be terrible. Corizne will be explaining how TFP-Axon really isn't TFP, how he didn't do anything wrong, and lost almost $3 million anyway. After a week of this Corzine will wish for returns of his "Go to North Dakota for a job" tape. The Christie campaign will comply.

Timing is everything in politics and you hope for some breaks. The Christie campaign's timing is impeccable and the gaffing Corzine campaign is giving them the breaks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am voting for Chritie because he has to be better than Corzine.

HOWEVER, don't you wish he had been vetted better by the state chairman and the county chairs? They didn't look past "We think he can win." What can you expect when they supported a senate candidate who called in his desire to run and he didn't even live in NJ.

I hear almost every day "Christie is no different than all the corrupt politicians in NJ!" It is hard to disagree. There is already bloom coming off his rose.

Right now the only reason to vote for Christue is... he is not Corzine. That is sad!

ML said...

"Don't you wish he had been vetted better"? Come on. What are we going to do run Mother Theresa for Governor? You would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't have something in there past to blow out of proportion. It all comes down to who has the bigger Gotcha.