This is for personal, noncommercial use only.
Gas Buddy
Steve Adubato / Now we have what we need: A tough ‘Jersey guy’ as guv
Print this Article- Font Size:
- Default font size
- Larger font size
The nation's eyes were on New Jersey on Tuesday night, and New Jersey didn't disappoint. In a shocking victory, Chris Christie beat the odds, as well as a $30 million-plus campaign by Gov. Jon S. Corzine and a nonstop series of visits from President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton and every other Democratic luminary under the sun.
Christie didn't run a picture-perfect campaign, yet he stuck to his guns and simply made the case, as he said toward the end of the campaign, that "I can't do any worse" than Corzine. Most voters bought that argument. Corzine had become extremely unpopular. It didn't matter how many times Obama came in to rally the Democratic troops and get massive media attention for Corzine. It didn't matter how much of Corzine's personal fortune he was willing to spend on destroying Christie's reputation.
Democrats got embarrassed in the last few days of this race when they got caught sending so-called "robocalls" promoting the candidacy of independent Chris Daggett, who in effect was simply drawing votes away from Christie. But in the end, Daggett wasn't a factor at all. He got only
6 percent of the vote, nowhere near the 15 percent to 20 percent some pollsters were projecting. Most people didn't want to waste their votes on a guy who couldn't win and instead opted to vote for Christie because they just wanted to get rid of Corzine.
Don't get me wrong. I've always thought of Corzine as a decent guy with a good heart, but he let his campaign run out of control. There was probably nothing he could have done to save his political hide and win this race, but he never should have allowed his campaign handlers to run that absurdly offensive ad about Christie "throwing his weight around."
How lame is it when nearly 10 percent of the people in our state are unemployed, property taxes are the highest in the nation, and we have an $8 billion budget gap, that the governor's campaign decides the biggest issue they can hit Christie on is that he is overweight, and then not even own up to the fact that they did it? It was a disgrace and frankly beneath Jon Corzine.
Sure, Christie is going to have to come up with more specifics in a hurry as to how he is going to close this massive budget deficit, increase the property-tax rebate, cut the size of state government, etc. But most New Jerseyans were willing to take a shot with him. They were willing to believe that his aggressive personality and style would be better for the state than Corzine's more laid-back and hands-off approach. Simply put, Corzine being a nice guy was nice, but wasn't nearly enough to deal with the serious problems in our state.
As governor, Corzine needed to take a harder line. He needed to kick some butt in the state Legislature when lawmakers wouldn't move on his top agenda items. In the campaign, he needed to be a more persuasive communicator. He needed to talk directly to people in simple, clear language about just exactly how bad the situation was and what he was going to do about it. That was the only type of campaign that could have won. But instead, he opted - based on cynical so-called conventional political wisdom - that he had to destroy Christie and his reputation in order to win. That was not to the governor's credit.
Saying Christie was corrupt, couldn't be trusted, was a clone of George W. Bush, gave away no-bid contracts to friends and, of course, was overweight only pointed to how out of touch the governor was regarding what voters really wanted to hear: What was Corzine going to do in the next four years to improve the economic situation in our state?
As for Christie, as I said, he made mistakes in this campaign. But I've known him for a long time, and he is the kind of person who learns from those mistakes. He will be open to criticism and feedback. But most of all, Christie is a "Jersey guy" who is tough and rough and will hopefully be willing to engage New Jersey voters in a more direct and candid fashion.
As governor, hopefully he will tell us what our problems are and what he believes needs to be done to move forward. Sure, he needs to listen, but he also needs to set a clear course and stick to it. That's what he did in the campaign despite all the criticism he received. I'm hopeful that is the kind of governor Christie will be.
Write to me at sadubato@aol.com with what you think is the No. 1 issue or challenge Christie should take on as governor and why.
Steve Adubato is a lecturer, television commentator and former state legislator.
Posted in Commentary on Sunday, November 8, 2009 2:10 am
2 comments:
Click here to report a comment as abusive.