New Jersey is now facing the effects of a widespread recession.  Honestly, I don’t see Republicans as having much credibility when it comes to the economy.  It was, after all, George Bush’s party and it’s weak regulation of the financial industries that helped drive the American economy into this ditch.  According to Vice-President Joe Biden, Corzine was the first person that he and President Obama phoned to discuss how best to combat the recession when Barack first moved into the Oval Office.

But what of the governor’s challenger, former State Attorney General, Chris Christie?  On the economy, Christie said that if he had been governor, he would have rejected funds for New Jersey from President Obama’s stimulus plan.  Honestly, that’s not the kind of action that would have helped people here at home.  In fact, Sarah Palin said the same thing with regards to Alaska’s stimulus money.

On social issues, Christie holds conservative views against abortion rights and opposes legalizing same-sex marriage in New Jersey.  Jon Corzine, on the other hand, is staunchly pro-choice and has vowed to sign a marriage equality bill into law as soon as the legislature passes it (which will likely happen after election day, in the legislature’s lame-duck session).

Furthermore, Jon Corzine is the only candidate reaching out to the Rutgers community.  Representatives of his campaign and of the New Jersey Democratic Party, some paid and some volunteers, have been all over campus.  They are talking to students, helping them register to vote, and educating them about the voting process and even how to vote by mail.

Meanwhile, neither the Christe nor the Dagget campaign has been visible at Rutgers.  Pundits decry apathy among young voters.  It seems to me, however, that Republicans are the ones showing apathy towards young voters like you and me.

Jon Corzine and the Democrats seated RU students right up front at this summer’s big rally with President Obama, and they’ll be bringing former president Bill Clinton to our fair campus before the month is out.  Clearly, Jon Corzine isn’t taking our support for granted or as a given.  His campaign is working their hearts out to get young people engaged in state politics and to make sure that student turnout doesn’t end with the 2008 election.

Only one campaign in this election is taking students seriously.  How do Christie and the GOP expect to earn our votes when they don’t even attempt to engage us?  Personally, I think that student voters deserve better than to be written off by the likes of Chris Christie.  Our voices deserve to be heard and they will be this November 3^rd.

This is going to be an incredibly close election.  On one side, we have our reliably progressive Democrat battered by the fallout of a worldwide recession.  On the other, we have a pretty conservative republican promising a utopia of lower taxes and an improved economy without offering any specific plans on how we get there.  Every “protest vote” for a third party candidate, in practical terms, will make it that much easier for Christie and the Republicans to win.  Simply put, each of those Dagget votes will bring the GOP ever closer to victory.  The same logic applies to any votes for Norbert, Rocko, Doug Funnie, and any other characters from old-school Nickelodeon shows.

In all seriousness, this contest is neck-and-neck.  All of the latest polls seem to say so.  Your vote is valuable.  Cast it wisely.

VOTE ON NOVEMBER 3

Polls open 6 a.m. – 8 p.m.

Questions?  Call NJ Voter Protection Hotline

1-800-792-VOTE (8683)

Charles Wasserman, 2009

“I do.”

With those simple pithy little words, a lifetime commitment begins. Once married, couples also stand to gain an array of legal benefits. These range from hospital visitation rights to certain tax benefits. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize that every loving couple, straight and gay, deserves the opportunity to have their union recognized and certified in the eyes of the law.

As of this writing, four states have legalized marriage equality. The other three are Connecticut, Vermont, and Iowa. When will New Jersey join their ranks? For how much longer will our ostensibly liberal and true-blue state be “out-progressed” by a bunch of corn-huskers in Iowa, of all places? The Garden State is smack-dab in the middle of NYC and Philadelphia, for goodness’ sake. We’re supposed to be cosmopolitan! Iowa, on the other hand, is the midpoint between nowhere and a flock of sheep, if that.

In all seriousness, it is maddening that New Jersey has yet to extend the rights of marriage to all its residents. Instead, we have something called “civil unions”. Garden State same-sex couples have been allowed to join in civil unions before the law. This classification was to guarantee gays and lesbians all the same legal rights and benefits that married heterosexual couples enjoy, without the supposedly insurmountable hurdle of using the word “marriage”. Presently, this has resulted in equal rights on paper, but varying results in practice. As any student of American history could have guessed, a “separate but equal” policy has turned out to be inherently unequal.

Recently, our fair state established the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission to evaluate the program’s success. Their report, however, concluded civil unions to be “a failed experiment”.

Governor Corzine, as reported in The Star-Ledger, has “pledged to sign a gay marriage bill if it reaches his desk”. Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton) introduced just such a bill, but it has yet to pass. The state senate, meanwhile, seems to be really dragging its heels. Both Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) and Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) have expressed their support in the past for legalizing same-sex marriage. Now they must double their efforts to round up the necessary votes and send a bill to the governor.

Senator Loretta Weinberg, a Bergen county Democrat, explains the stakes:

“As public opinion continues to evolve from the dark days when homosexuals were forced to hide their sexual orientation from a fearful and intolerant public, we stand on the precipice of a rebirth of true civil rights for all people. As more and more states take a stand in defense of marriage – and I truly believe that expanding the definition strengthens the institution of marriage, as opposed to weakening it – we’re gaining momentum to true, nationwide marriage equality that does not judge the value of love between two people, be they heterosexual or homosexual.”

We need to throw away our two-tiered “separate but equal” system and stop assigning second-class status to gay and lesbian relationships in the eyes of the law.

You can help bring about this change in New Jersey. Just take a minute to call one or more of the following leaders in Trenton and ask them to legalize marriage equality.

Whether you’re a fervent Obama supporter (like Seeger and Springsteen, pictured above) or a dejected revolutionary, there’s a song on this hand-picked list that you can groove to.