Corzine you arrogant ASS! Thanks for nothing!

[NJmaverick]

You used your wealth and name recognition to push aside a popular acting Democratric Governor in Rich Cody. You were a sucessful Senator, but that wasn't enough? NO! You needed the mansion and security details and all the other perks that come with the Governorship. Then for the past 4 years you provided ZERO leadership. You most memorable moves were taking away holidays from State workers and not wearing your seatbelt as your driver ran the Parkway at a 100 mph. I hope you are happy Jon. You got your ego boost, but at what cost to the State of NJ????????

[Sebass1271]

1. Hey NJ you should be worry now, you got yourself a

type of "joe wilson" right winger as governor. That's what happens when low information voters make decisions.

[NJmaverick]

3. Oh it's a terrible situation we find ourselves in

[Sebass1271]

2. If you thought you were in deep shit before, wait until what

is coming.. LOTS OF SPENDING..... BUT FOR THE WEALTHIEST!.

[Warpy]

4. Christie will be just a bad smell blowing through

because voters in NJ are not hard line conservatives. If Christie is true to form and tries to govern from the hard right, he's not going to last. The only reason he won is because no one could get excited about Corzine. They'd simply had enough.

Unfortunately, this is being spun into a victory for GOP ideology instead of the nasty habit state parties have of running bad candidates who run half hearted campaigns portraying themselves as only slightly less conservative than the wingnuts.

Meanwhile, the media are tooting along, yammering about the governorships, while the Democrats increased their lead in the House by two seats, something potentially much more important on the national level.

Face it, the only reason GOPs want more governors is because they use that office as a springboard to the presidency. Unfortunately, they've completely misread the mood of the country, as did the state Democratic Parties in NJ and VA.

The only mystery remaining is which party will catch on first.

[NJmaverick]

5. They also use the power of the Governorship to steal presidental elections

This was all about Corzine's failings, not the right and the left.

[madinmaryland]

6. I agree that the reason Christie is because of the failings of Corzine.

The two governors races that the repukes won were because we fielded poor candidates. VA was even worse. After years of fielding strong Dem candidates they really failed with this one. Rather than appealing to the democratic base, they went for the southern state conservative dem and lost big time.

[RubyDuby in GA]

8. And that would be the failing of the DNC

Where there is weak leadership now.

The national Dems have exactly 10 months to pull their heads out of their asses or the backlash cometh bigtime next November.

[Sebass1271]

9. Dr. Dean was so right!. Let's write the house and remind them

who was Dr. Dean and what he did for our party.

[Sebass1271]

7. I know he had problems from the start because of property

taxes, but it is difficult for a governor to balance budgets when there are not many things to cut from and increase from. He took the budget seriously from first day in office and ppl got pissed of at that. I guess, ppl want tax rebates all the time and the expense of rasing deficits.

Not saying he was not a crappy candidate, but the reason he lost was because of the budget fallout anyway, and because voters all theyh want is their taxes reduced at the expense of anything!!.

I acknowledge that property taxes in NJ are high. But it has been this way for years and yes, something must be done about this out of control taxation in NJ but corzine wanted to do the right thing, at least in balancing the budget.

[LiberalEsto]

10. NJ property taxes

The only way NJ could possibly get a handle on its property taxes is by abolishing its 560 or so small municipal school districts and creating 21 county school districts instead. This would also help the state's large cities, which are absolute dumps because nobody wants to live there and send their kids to horrible city schools. Larger school districts would eliminate millions of dollars of waste in duplicated services, from cafeterias to buses. It would cut down on the number of overpaid administrators.

However, it will never happen. NJ's rich and powerful are hopelessly enamored of "home rule" which means small, wasteful localized school districts and appalling inequalities in the educations kids receive. People who can afford it are willing to pay high property taxes in order to send their kids to good school districts. And above all, they don't want their kids mingling with kids from poorer school districts.

I speak not only as someone who lived in NJ from 1954 to 1990 and attended NJ public schools, but as a former reporter for the Star-Ledger, the state's largest paper. Since 1990 I've lived in Maryland, which has county school districts and affordable property taxes that are about one third of what I'd pay on a comparable house in a comparable school district in NJ.

[Postman]

11. Is it institutionalized racism or class warfare or both?

[NJmaverick]

12. It's local level political corruption

that is being protected

[LiberalEsto]

15. Both, but they'll never admit it

The ostensible reason is that they want Home Rule -- local control over schools. And they're paying for it.

[Barack_America]

13. Be sure to campaign hard for your Dem state reps.

It's the only thing that can save you.

[NJmaverick]

14. Yeah, that's true and I did

fortunately they still hold control of the legislature