‘New Jersey’

November8

Corzine, Christie and the Media

By: Alex Holodak

As this election year heats up, the race for New Jersey’s Governor begins to tighten as both campaigns begin to push their messages via press releases, speeches, and political endorsements. Meanwhile, the media throughout the state and nation are taking notice. News outlets are now focusing on New Jersey voters and the strategies of the two campaigns to better gauge this race to predict where New Jersey is headed. The outcome not only this race but also the race in Virginia could potentially send a warning sign to Democrats pre-2010.

Jon Corzine’s campaign website mainly focuses on the state of the economy, jobs, healthcare, education, and endorsements for the governor. Much of this focus is shown on the homepage as commercial ad attacks on Christie (most recently on mammograms and early childhood education) next to positive ads talking about Corzine’s successes on healthcare in the state. Chris Christie’s campaign website, on the other hand, focuses on his stance with law enforcement, teachers, and fire fighters. For his site’s overview of his policies, it displays an attack ad on Corzine and high property taxes and emphasizes “cutting taxes, controlling spending, and creating jobs”. The most recent set of the Chrisitie campaign’s press releases are all attacks on “Corzine taxes” declaring, “Everywhere we go… Jon Corzine’s property taxes follow.”

Many media outlets have been covering this election carefully, but how is the media reporting the candidate’s messages? One recent article in the Asbury Park Press challenged both major candidates on their lack of detail on the property tax issue. The article states that, “The topic is not addressed in their TV ads and given short shrift on their campaign web sites…[Daggett is the only] one of the three major candidates for governor that has offered a detailed plan to combat your highest-in-nation property taxes.”

An article on Politico.com entitled “Will Chris Christie be the Biggest Loser?” talked about a recent Corzine ad arguing that Christie was “throwing his weight around as district attorney” to get out of multiple traffic violations. The article goes on to focus on the ad’s visuals of the heavyset Christie getting out of his SUV in slow motion. This story even made its rounds on MSNBC’s Hardball and the New York Times as dirty negative politics coming from the Corzine campaign.

Unfortunately for both major party candidates, the media is reporting more and more that voters are being turned off by the negative ads coming from both campaigns. The New York Times reported, “[Corzine and Christie] appear to be turning off voters with nasty ads and personal attacks; Mr. Daggett is turning them on — or at least persuading them to give him a closer look.” Mr. Daggett has just won The Star-Ledger’s endorsement for his property tax plan.

With this growing trend within the media to focus on the seeming reluctance for detailed property tax initiatives, negative attacks coming from both Corzine and Chrisite, and the appeal of the independent Chris Daggett, how do these two campaigns use new media to push the messages they want out there? Corzine would like the focus to be on healthcare, his relationship with Barack Obama, the New Jersey Stimulus, and the shortfalls of his rival. Chrisite wants to focus on Corzine and his failures, cutting taxes, and stopping the Democratic State Senate from spending more.

Both the Corzine and Christie campaigns have turned to social networking websites to get their messages and ads out there. Twitter and Facebook users can follow both candidates and get links to videos, pictures, articles, or press releases that the campaigns want the voters to see. The campaigns have even implemented text-messaging systems, where people can subscribe to get text message alerts from the campaign on their cell phones. These include messages about registration deadlines, post-debate polls, and will provide them with a mass messaging system to alert voters to vote on Election Day. This has become a valuable strategy.

Pollster has showed in recent weeks since the debate that the race is continuing to tighten. It remains to be seen how effective Daggett will be in pulling votes from Corzine and Christie, but Corzine has nearly tied Christie in Pollster’s snapshot of polls at 40% to Christie’s 41.4% average. The trend shows a steady decline for Christie mainly due to his lacking performance in the debates and the effectiveness of negative attack ads coming from the Corzine campaign. Despite the media and voter’s rejection of negative attack ads, they appear to be effective for the Corzine campaign. Interestingly, Google Trends, Google’s search rating system, shows that in 2009 a search for “Jon Corzine” yielded a 3.2 search index less than “Chris Christie” at 3.9. This shows that more people are “googling” Chrisite.

Corzine’s ad campaign and political endorsements has helped him come back from a once certain death in the polls. The Christie campaign is now on the defensive, answering attack ads with attack ads and showing an inability to dominate the media frenzy. They have been even more unsuccessful in getting their message out to the public. The interesting trend to watch leading up to the election is the impact of Daggett, who is gaining the support of traditional media. The question is who will he hurt more?

Posted in: Current Issue, New Jersey0 comments

November8

Clinton Comes to Rutgers

By: Annie Drelles

On a beautiful October day two weeks before the most decisive day of his political career, Jon Corzine held a rally for Rutgers students at the College Avenue Gym. In order to gain momentum among student voters, Corzine had former President William Jefferson Clinton join him.  Many of us Rutgers students remember Bill Clinton as the president of our childhood, so we were excited to see him appear in person at our fine school, whether or not we supported his policies.

,

The line began to form outside the gym hours before the event was to begin. The doors were supposed to open at 7:30pm, but ended up opening about an hour earlier to accommodate the huge turnout for the event. With their personal bubble’s shrinking as more and more people filed in, the people in the front desperately tried to catch a glimpse of Clinton as everyone gathered backstage.  After a series of speakers (the crowd growing more and more impatient to see Clinton with each) President Clinton finally took the stage with Governor Corzine and his running mate, Loretta Weinberg.

Corzine introduced Clinton by reminding us that America was “respected around the world and we were at peace” when Clinton was president.  Corzine promised not to talk long, knowing the crowd was desperate to hear Clinton speak, so he focused on encouraging students to vote. He emphasized how much elections matter, referencing the debacle that was 2000. He told the crowd to talk to their friends and family and make sure that everyone votes, no matter for whom. As a chant of “four more years” resounded throughout the gym, Corzine promised to fight for healthcare for everyone, more money for dorms, and to ensure that women have the right to make their own choices.

President Clinton took to the podium to a huge ovation and camera flashes worthy of Derek Jeter in the post-season. He began by praising Loretta Weinberg, calling her a progressive “Jewish grandmother”. He praised the audience, saying it was great to have such a diverse crowd, which would not have been the case in the past. While it was a great time to be alive, Clinton said our country faced three problems: it was unequal, unstable, and unsustainable. We need to create more winners and fewer losers, he said.

Clinton asked the crowd an important question: “Why is this a close race?” He continued by listing the statistics of Corzine’s previous four years in office. For instance, under Corzine, New Jersey was the first state in the Union to have an economic recovery plan, which was actually used as a model for the national plan. He also pointed out among other things that New Jersey is first in the nation for the number of high school graduates and second in solar, wind, and other clean energy use. Clinton also boasted that Jon Corzine had gotten over 3% of the federal stimulus money, which is a bigger percentage than New Jersey’s population is of the national population.

Like Corzine, Clinton emphasized the importance of getting out and voting in the upcoming election. We need to make our “good intentions into changes in other people’s lives.” Fewer people are better at this than Jon Corzine, he said. This should not be a close race, and as both Jon Corzine and President Clinton reminded us, the future is in our hands.

Posted in: Current Issue, Featured, New Jersey, Rutgers0 comments

November8

The Case for Corzine

By: Charles Wasserman

Around the nation, all eyes are on New Jersey because we are one of only two states with governor’s races this year.  Me?  I’ll be voting for Jon Corzine, and here are a few reasons why.  [Full disclosure: I did work for the governor’s campaign over the summer.]  Corzine has added tens of thousands more children to the state’s health insurance roles and made New Jersey a leader in renewable energy and solar power.  The governor has also lowered state spending, making each year’s budget smaller than the previous one.  To help students statewide, Jon Corzine strictly capped the size of tuition increases at public colleges and universities.

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 3rd.

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)

Posted in: Current Issue, New Jersey0 comments

July17

RU Dems President’s Corzine/Obama Rally Speech

By: Libertas Staff

The President of the Rutgers Democrats, Alex Holodak, was scheduled to give a speech of his own with Governor Corzine and President Obama at the rally in Holmdel, NJ. Due to time constrictions with the President, Alex did not actually get to speak. While this allowed the crowd to have more time hearing from President Obama, we think Alex wrote an amazing speech and deserves to have it out there for people to at least read. That speech, in its entirety, is below.

Alex Holodak, President of the Rutgers Democrats

Good afternoon and welcome fellow New Jerseyans, members of the Rutgers community and welcome to our very special guest, the President of the United States, Barack Obama!  Now, we are all here at the PNC Bank Arts Center, yet it matters not where you sit, but by whom you sit.  Look now to your right, look to your left.  They are your friends, they are your peers; this is your community, this is our state.  We are here today for the common purpose of demonstrating our confidence in and our support for the governor of the great state of New Jersey – Jon Corzine!If education is not our top priority today, then we invite failure tomorrow. To this noble end, Governor Corzine has endeavored to strengthen our schools, support our teachers and inspire our students.  Without fear, Governor Corzine has not simply stepped on the so-called third rail of New Jersey politics, but has in fact dared to neutralize it.  Once considered improbable, if not impossible, he signed legislation to consolidate school districts and services, thereby eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy and realizing greater efficiencies.

Breaking a 40 year impasse on school funding, Governor Corzine implemented a new formula that has brought our state’s students back into focus, one which provides for a more equitable distribution of funds and increases funding for special education.

Owing to our governors great efforts, we boast the highest graduation rates in the country.  New Jersey is ranked #1 by Education Weekly for preschool enrollments and New Jersey students are also considered among the best prepared for higher education.  We must now resolve to work hard so as to allow Governor Corzine another four years so he may continue raising the standards in education.

Jon Corzine is a chief executive, with proven successes in both public and private sectors, who has made tough decisions, and whose steady hand has steered our ship of state through a dark time. The current financial crisis looms large over us all, but we may find comfort in the seasoned financial expert, that is our governor, who leads our state.  It is today, more than any other, worth mentioning that when the Obama administration crafted the economic stimulus plan, which has saved tens of thousands of jobs and strengthened our economy, they went to one of the nation’s foremost authorities on finance – Jon Corzine.  Described by Vice President Joe Biden as, “America’s Governor,” Jon Corzine possesses precisely the knowledge and ideas of leadership necessary in this tumultuous time.

As president of the Rutgers Democrats, I am here today as, yes, a partisan.  So-called partisan politics is decried in the media as a dirty word, but let’s take a look around. We should be proud to call ourselves democrats!  I am proud to be here with my peers from the University, I am proud to be here with Rutgers President Richard McCormick, and I am very proud to be here with Jon Corzine and Barack Obama!

Speaking now, to those specifically of my generation, we must realize that what our president has said is true – that this is our time!  We can no longer sit idly by with indifference and apathy.  We possess the potential for immense political power, but many of us choose to ignore our obligations, instead finding blissful ignorance in hollow distractions.  Don’t get me wrong, we all require and deserve outlets and levity, but I beg you to focus your energies this fall to the task at hand of re-electing Governor Corzine.

Today we have had an open and honest dialogue with one another. Yes, we are, for the most part, all democrats, but it need not be limited to one party.  If explained gently, with kindness and patience, our friends from the other side of the isle will recognize what we know to be true.  I recognize politics will not change overnight, but I also acknowledge that is changing.  I believe we stand at a precipice. Bastions of the old guard have signaled that even they are aware of the change that is so undeniably in the air.  Look to Washington, where a woman serves as Speaker of the House, where a man who less than century ago could not even vote, serves as our nations president. Look to Europe, once separated by differences, now united in their common humanity.  Look even to the Vatican, where Pope Benedict speaks not of maintaining the status quo, but of large changes. Up until today, there has been only tacit acknowledgement of the immense change that is taking place.

Well, today, I challenge you to join me in turning the page.  The seemingly endless chapter of old, dirty politics is over – we must turn the page.  The days we were on the sidelines are over – turn the page.  Gone is the fear and insecurity – We will turn the page this November!  But let it not stop there.  Let us continue this frank discussion.  Let us continue to have ideas and to take action.  We must endeavor to bring back the public square that is so necessary for the vital exchange of ideas, which drives that steady march of progress. So with that said, I invite those of you Rutgers students, to join our organization, the Rutgers Democrats on Facebook, Twitter.com/RUDems, or rudemocrats.com and to all of you to follow me at twitter.com/alexholodak so we can continue this discussion as we move forward.

Finally, I would like to thank the Corzine campaign for the opportunity to speak today.  I also would like to express my appreciation to Rutgers University. They have gone above and beyond to help our student organization in this effort. I am proud to be a product of Rutgers University.

In closing, Martin Luther King told us that, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.“ I want you to know that this matters! November 3rd matters! Our state matters! And re-electing Jon Corzine matters! Go vote and spread the word! Thank you!

-Alex Holodak, 2009

Posted in: Featured, New Jersey0 comments

April27

Mr. Adler Goes to Washington

By: Naomi Michaelis

You have been elected with 51.7% of the vote in your district, what do you do now?

Congressman John Adler

Since arriving in Washington, DC, freshman Congressman John Adler (NJ-3) has been assigned to the House Committee on Financial Services and Veterans’ Affairs and the Committee’s subcommittees for Capital Markets, Domestic Monetary Policy, and Oversight and Investigations as well as the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and will serve on the subcommittees for Economic Opportunity and Oversight and Investigations. In the three short months since being sworn in, Congressman Adler has sponsored H.R. 746 that would help veterans and seniors. It would provide $500 tax rebate to retired or unemployed veteran and seniors who are not covered under the tax rebate provided by the stimulus package. The bill has been referred to the Veterans Affair Committee, subcommittee on Health, and the House Ways and Means committee where it waits for a hearing to be held.

In addition to H.R. 746, Congressman Adler has introduced with Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr., (NJ-6) The Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2009. This bill addresses some of the concerns created under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which was originally passed in 1976 and was amended in 1996 and reauthorized in 2006. This bill would create flexibility in the timeline created by the Magnuson-Stevens Act for the ending of overfishing in areas labeled as overfished to allow for the rebuilding of the fishery. Therefore, areas that are showing improvement will be given an opportunity to adjust the timeline to minimize economic harm on fishing communities such as those that exists along the Jersey Shore.

Congressman Adler has also shown that he understands the importance of listening to his constituents. He has obtained more than $6 million from the economic recovery package for Burlington and ocean counties to be used for energy efficiency and conservation projects, which will also help with job creation. Finally, he wants to meet with constituents directly at times and locations that are more convenient for them through his Congress at Your Corner program. He has made numerous visits back to his district to meet with constituents to discuss what is on their minds.

Posted in: National, New Jersey1 comments

© Copyright Rutgers Democrats - Libertas Magazine. All Rights Reserved.