If Gov. Corzine is going to seek re-election in 2009, he won’t be running as the voter’s best friend.
“He’s not setting himself up in 2009 as someone who you’re going to love. You’re going to respect him. That’s really where he has to go with this,” said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray just after Corzine’s State of the State address.
Today’s speech has been heralded as the make or break moment of the Corzine governorship, and today he laid out a “tough love” approach to restructuring the state’s finances and offered some clue of what’s to come in his asset monetization plan: toll hikes. Lots of them — even if they don’t go into effect until after the next gubernatorial election.
Corzine will need to demonstrate to New Jerseyans just how dire the fiscal situation is, said Murray, before they’ll be willing to vote for a governor who’s raising their tolls. Right now, he said, polling says that people don’t take it quite so seriously.
Democratic State Sen. Fred Madden said that the speech seemed to him divorced from any thought of an upcoming reelection campaign.
“I don’t believe his speech was geared towards doing anything other than what’s best for the people of New Jersey. I don’t believe there was any political agenda beneath it,” he said.
Assembly Speaker Joe Cryan thinks that the accomplishments listed by Corzine – combined with any solution to the state’s debt, will help propel the governor to another term if he chooses to run again.
“I believe that with school funding, the end of the death penalty… and fixing the state’s finances, that he has a platform and agenda that frankly puts us in a strong position for 2009,” he said.
Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson, however, called Corzine’s roadway plan “debt exchange,” and said that the speech didn’t bode well for the Governor’s reelection prospects.
“The Governor once again reminded us that he’s not the most dynamic speaker who’s ever graced the stage,” said Wilson. “If this is setting the stage for 2009, the theme is going to be ‘You might not like what I did, but I did what had to be done. It’s not the best battle cry for a politician on the ballot.’”
Bill Baroni, fresh from being sworn in as the new Senator from district 14, said that he still didn’t know enough about Corzine’s plan, but didn’t want to pass anything that would raise expenses for his constituents. Nor was it a good idea, he said, to rush such a serious proposal through the legislature.
“It’s too important, it’s too big, and for the prospects of 2009, woe to the politician who rushes through a $40 billion proposal without paying a lot of attention to it.”