POLITICS: Corzine Shots
Fund, John H.
POLITICS JOHN H. FUND Corzine Shots Hoboken, New Jersey EW JERSEY SENATOR JON CORZINE is the man who helped convince New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that you can get elected to high office if...
...An activist state Supreme Court has taken over distribution of a large chunk of property taxes and directed 60 percent of it to failing urban school districts...
...No one believes that Corzine is to blame for the resemblance of much of New Jersey local government to HBO's Soprano family...
...Unfortunately, on property taxes, both candidates have wimped out...
...He exercises decisive power over the budget, with strong line-item veto authority...
...In 2000, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs became the human ATM of New Jersey politics when he shelled out an eye-popping $63 million—almost all of it his own—to win a vacant Senate seat by 50 to 47 percent...
...In fact, you could say he's JOHN H. FUND climbed into bed with part of it...
...Never pay for a landslide," Corzine quipped...
...The post has real power, and is easily the strongest in the country...
...Maybe that's why he's coming home...
...OCTOBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 43...
...The New York Times reported in August that the recently divorced Corzine gave a gift of $470,000 to a New Jersey labor leader—representing nearly half of state workers—whom he had been dating around the time of his separation from his wife...
...His expansive fiscal agenda combined with the state's gerrymandered Democratic legislature will give the left a rare opportunity to show how it governs a major state...
...The political news service Hotline could only marvel...
...Corzine backs a plan to call a constitutional convention that critics say could propose new taxes but be precluded from discussing spending limits...
...His self-described political mentor, Senator Robert Torricelli, had to drop out in disgrace from his U.S...
...Indeed, there are signs that Corzine is returning to a state that could view him as part of the problem rather than the solution...
...Earlier this year, Corzine winced when Phil Thigpen, a Democratic leader in Newark, introduced him by saying, "I know he's having a difficult time in Washington, being the minority in an unsympathetic majority...
...The public is especially angry over the state's highest-in-the country property taxes...
...Alas, unlike California, New Jersey residents don't have a realistic right of recall to correct the situation if it gets out of hand...
...Katz, whom he was no longer dating, was in financial difficulties...
...Corzine is returning to a state that could view him as part of the problem rather than the solution...
...senators—a piggish price tag of $41 billion...
...The National Taxpayers Union Foundation reports that he supported the most costly current agenda of bills of all U.S...
...In his race for governor, he is already proposing to offer health coverage to two-thirds of the state's 1.2 million uninsured...
...We all know how that turned out...
...Despite all of the disadvantages plaguing his campaign in a state as Democratic as New Jersey, Forrester has a chance for an upset...
...Already 50 percent higher than the national average, they are going up 7 percent a year to keep pace with constantly growing local budgets and a state debt burden that is the third-highest in the country...
...But none of that extra money appears to be improving education...
...The issue threatened to derail Corzine's carefully crafted image of someone whose immense wealth guarantees "independence" and freedom from "special interest" influence...
...Corzine insists his relationship with Norcross is "insubstantial," but he must be relieved that so far only two of the 330 hours of recordings prosecutors made of New Jersey pols have been publicly released...
...Forrester promises a 30 percent rollback in property taxes, but his plan is sufficiently gimmicky that Newark Star-Ledger columnist Tom Moran concluded it was a shell game because "his plan gives local governments and schools no incentive to reduce spending...
...Now bored and frustrated in the Senate, Corzine is seeking to become governor this November...
...This year, Corzine's name surfaced on tapes that prosecutors made of conversations by George Norcross, 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2005 the South Jersey boss to whose political committees Corzine has funneled $700,000...
...4.1 John H. Fund, The American Spectator's Politics columnist, is author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (Encounter Books...
...If Corzine should complete his transition from Wall Street to the governor's mansion in Trenton, one thing is certain...
...Norcross boasted of breakfast at the Corzine home and speaking weekly with the senator: "In the end, the McGreeveys, the Corzines, they're all going to be with me...
...But while he has both bucks and name recognition, Corzine hasn't closed the sale with voters...
...In 2004, Governor Jim McGreevey, a man Corzine had strongly backed, was forced to resign suddenly in the midst of an unseemly influence-peddling scandal...
...It's been a week since we've seen significant print coverage of the Corzine affair, and we're still seeing coverage of Forrester's business dealings...
...New Jersey's chief executive is the only statewide official, and he appoints all other officials of consequence, including the attorney general and the 21 county district attorneys...
...The story from Corzine's office is that, a week after he announced his gubernatorial run, he was reviewing his finances and decided to forgive the loan because Ms...
...POLITICS JOHN H. FUND Corzine Shots Hoboken, New Jersey EW JERSEY SENATOR JON CORZINE is the man who helped convince New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that you can get elected to high office if you are just willing to unload your bank account...
...Within 24 hours of the Katz story breaking, the campaign disseminated much of the opposition research it had compiled on Forrester...
...IN THEORY, THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY could do something about all this...
...In 2000, Corzine began his Senate race with a 20 point lead and ended up winning by only three points...
...Perhaps it's because they sense he's still a millionaire restlessly looking for a perch with real clout...
...Senate re-election race in 2002...
...The last time it had that chance was in California, when Gray Davis and Democrats in the legislature enjoyed a monopoly on political power from 1999 until 2003...
...But the quick-footed Corzine campaign quickly changed the subject to his Republican opponent, a somewhat less wealthy millionaire named Doug Forrester...
...Carla Katz, head of Local 1034 of the Communications Workers of America, used what was originally styled as a loan to buy her ex-husband's share of their house...
...not that they like me, but because they have no choice...
...It's easy to believe the loan had nothing to do with the union's subsequent endorsement of Corzine—after all, who else was the labor group going to endorse...
...But he clearly has made his peace with a cozy insider machine that feeds off the state's bloated public sector...
...Given how much he is outgunned in the PR war, Forrester's major hope lies in persuading New Jersey voters that Corzine is too connected to the high-tax and limitless corruption of New Jersey government to be trusted to change anything...
...A big reason is that even in a party filled with liberals, Corzine stands out...
...Only this time he plans to use a lot more of other people's money...
...The state's Democratic attorney general wants to keep the remainder sealed because he claims they could compromise investigative techniques and expose innocent people to ridicule...
Vol. 38 • October 2005 • No. 8
