Campaign Diaries

Jon Corzine is presently one of the most vulnerable Governors in the country: With only six months to go before he has to face voters, his poll numbers are dreadfully low and it’s hard to see how he can boost his approval rating since the economic crisis or the state’s fiscal crisis will be going nowhere by November.

Yet, Corzine could be thrown a lifeline if Republican voters nominate former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan over former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie on June 2nd - in just three weeks.

Bogota is a small town of around 8,200 residents, so holding its mayoral position does not seem to be an idle launching pad for a statewide campaign. But Lonegan is a conservative, particularly on economic issues: He has focused on taxation and the public debt, for instance advocating a flat tax. His 2007 book Putting Taxpayers First calls on Republicans to take a more confrontation stance towards liberals and Democratic-leaning groups.

While New Jersey is not overwhelmingly blue, it clearly is a left-leaning state dominated by a coalition of Democratic voters and left-leaning independents. For many cycles, the GOP has been hoping to convince these independent voters to come over to their side but they have repeatedly failed: Either their candidate have been too conservative to attract independents (like in 2005) or the environment was too toxic for the party for independents to consider bucking Democrats (like in 2006). Now, Corzine is so unpopular that Republicans have a very credible shot at putting together a coalition - but that requires nominating a candidate who could be acceptable to voters who are used to voting Democratic.

Unless Corzine’s approval rating collapses further, it’s hard to imagine Lonegan putting together such an electoral coalition: How would his support for a flat tax play in a general election? While the GOP insists that Christie is moderate enough to convince Dem-leaning voters to support him, he has to walk a careful line in trying to win the GOP primary.

Once thought to be a minor candidate while Christie was piling up establishment support, Lonegan now looks to be a genuine threat to win the nomination. A poll released yesterday by Rasmussen finds Christie leading 39% to 29% and 3% going to other candidates. That’s a comfortable lead, but it also means that Christie is well under 50% and that 29% of voters remain undecided; that’s never a good place to be for an establishment candidate.

A Lonegan victory would be the best-case scenario for Democrats, but even if Christie loses he might have damaged himself. After spending months ignoring his primary rivals, he has been forced to engage with Lonegan. He is now participating in a series of debates in which he is forced to defend his conservative credentials. Sure, he is not trying to out-conservative Lonegan - for instance, he has certainly not followed his opponent’s call for a flat tax - but any time Christie spends moving to the right will make his general election campaign more difficult.

The primary has now been heating up. The Christie campaign is rolling out its endorsements from Republican figures like former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. A recent ad attacks Lonegan’s anti-tax credentials by accusing him of raising taxes and touts Christie as a “conservative leader:”

In an earlier ad in which he goes after Corzine rather than Lonegan, Christie highlights his plan to roll back the income tax and lower taxes on businesses - more positions that are meant to appeal to right-leaning voters:

As these two ads make it obvious, Christie is planning to campaign as someone who takes no bullshit and is willing to shake up the establishment. “I will grab the problems in Trenton by the throat and wrestle them to the ground just as I did as U.S. Attorney,” he says in that second ad. And this is exactly the image that Christie’s opponents are trying to undermine. Freedom’s Defense Fund is now running TV ads in GOP-leaning areas of the state, attacking for improperly using his influence while he was U.S. Attorney:

In making this argument, Lonegan looks to have landed a high-profile - and somewhat unlikely - ally: the Democratic Governors Association. Aware that eliminating Christie on June 2nd would greatly boost Corzine’s chances in November, Democrats have decided to get involved in the Republican primary by echoing the right’s attacks against the former U.S. Attorney. They are expected to start airing ad making similar claims as the Freedom’s Defense Fund.

If Christie survives the primary, this contested race might help him in one important way, however. He has only won one campaign in 1995, when he was elected to Morris County’s Board of Chosen Freeholders. This is by far his first electoral experience and a competitive primary gives him a good opportunity to sharpen his arguments, improve his stump speech and work on his debate skills in before facing Jon Corzine. It also forces Christie’s opponents to air a lot of their best attacks now rather than in the fall, reducing the potential of last-minute explosive revelations in the run-up to November.