Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Time For The Crooks To Take Over, New Jersey

By the time you read this article, election day will have come and gone. In New Jersey, there is a good chance that Chris Christie (R) will have been duly elected governor in place of moneybags Jon Corzine (D). If the race is very close (no pollster in his right mind is calling that election today), and Christie comes out on top, you're assuming that it's over, right?

Let me disabuse you of that notion right now. I start with two words: Al Franken. Franken manipulated the results of his loss into a victory with the help of the Democratic machine in charge of elections and the courts. At least three significant races over the past decade have gone to Republicans, only to find themselves in a recount and with an ultimate loss. Franken's home state looks like Mother Teresa's parlor compared to New Jersey. If Corzine is behind within the margin of recount, then by the end of the process, he will have been miraculously re-elected after all.

So, he has now gotten the welcome (if not formally invited) assistance of the New Jersey machine, the Chicago machine, and our very favorite group, ACORN. If Corzine appears to have won on the first results, it's over. But if he's behind by the end of the initial results, hang on to your wigs and keys, it's gonna get ugly. To start with, a significant number of the votes counted are phonies, and if he wins initially, he will already have stolen the election. But that isn't going to stop the Democratic hordes from rushing to New Jersey to insure that Corzine wins--win or lose.

Much is riding on this outcome, not the least of which is the president's first test of his coattails. Obama pretty much steered clear of the Virginia race, knowing that turning back the Republican tide was a near-impossibility there. But he put considerable political capital into the New Jersey race, largely because at one point Corzine looked like a shoo-in. But as the gap slowly closed, Obama made an unprecedented three campaign appearances holding hands with Corzine, two of them on the same day. The picture accompanying this article is Corzine applauding the messiah at one of those rallies.

Corzine has poured huge sums of his own money into the campaign, and it was estimated that he might have been personally paying in $1,000,000 per day of his own money in the final stretch. If he wins on election day, Obama and Corzine's investments will be safely invested in future graft. But an apparent loss cannot be allowed. The machine must correct the flaws of the election and the misunderstanding of the voters by insuring the election finally goes to the Democrat.

Many voting irregularities have already been discovered by elections officials. Many voter signatures don't match up with the official records. Many voters are registered twice, in slightly different districts. Inordinate numbers of absentee ballots (which are controlled by and ultimately counted by the Democratic machine) were requested. In fact the number of absentee ballots requested is somewhere between 8 and 10 times the number requested in the previous election. If Christie's margin of +1 to 2% currently predicted holds up, does anybody here want to guess where 90% of those questionable votes are going to go? "Oh, golly, we just found 2,000 Democratic absentee ballots in Trenton that weren't counted. Isn't that amazing?"

Two of the crookedest political organizations in the nation are deeply involved in assuring Corzine's ultimate victory, and now cometh the crookedest community organization in history to help them out. How much genuine help can Christie count on from the elections commissions, state authorities, courts and Obama's Justice Department when these ridiculous fraudulent efforts are exposed? How about, none? The Obama/Holder Justice Department recently dismissed all charges against the Philadelphia chapter of the New Black Panthers, who had physically threatened voters at the polls, on video. I hope you're not counting on that legal cesspool to do much investigating of a few thousand questionable ballots in New Jersey.

John Fund in the Wall Street Journal reports that in 2005, at the time of a heated and crucial election for both governor and mayor, only 200 absentee ballots were cast. So far, the records show that over 3700 absentee ballots were requested, 90% of them Democratic. New York's Working Families Party has moved en masse across the border into New Jersey and has been working feverishly for weeks now. The Working Families Party is just an arm of ACORN, and is well-funded by George Soros. In Camden, Independent candidate for mayor Roberto Feliz discovered that the official number of absentee ballots in the local election increased by nearly fifteen times its level in the previous election.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, unless Christie wins, and wins by at least a four + point margin, the gubernatorial election in New Jersey is far from over. As Karen Carpenter sang so beautifully many years back, "We've only just begun." Five points or more, we can probably start singing "Happy Days Are Here Again," and you can happily ignore this entire article.

UPDATE: It is now nearly midnight in California, and it seems very clear that Republican Christie has won by somewhere between four and five points in the gubernatorial election in New Jersey. As you can tell, the original article was written before the polls closed on Tuesday in New Jersey. At the time, all indicators were that Christie might very well eke out a narrow two to three point victory over Corzine, and it fit into my predictions as well.

We have been very pleasantly surprised by a much clearer victory, followed by the Democrat incumbent's concession speech. My original thought was to scrub the article, but upon reflection I decided that it should serve a slightly different purpose from that originally intended. Instead of a prediction of what was likely to occur, it now becomes an illustration of a much more positive point.

Christie has proven that with the help of decent, honest, hardworking citizens, even in New Jersey the smell of corruption can be so overwhelming as to produce a victory over heavily-entrenched, well-funded incumbents in what is basically a one-party (Democrat) state. Christie started with a lackluster campaign, but it picked up steam, and the voters of New Jersey recognized that they had a candidate who was a proven prosecutor of dishonest politicians and now would use those skills to clean up New Jersey.

As Christie said in his victory speech, this proves that a solid conservative Republican candidate can win if he conducts an open, clean, forthright and non-personal campaign. And this was against all the common wisdom. Corzine couldn't defend his own record, so he spent most of the time attacking Christie personally, even resorting to the desperate charge that Christie was fat. Christie took it all in stride, and the most personal comment he made during the entire campaign against Corzine was that "I'm fat, and he's really bald." It made the irrelevant personal attacks look even more ridiculous. Corzine and the Democrats outspent Christie by nearly three to one, and brought President Obama in for multiple personal appearances. In the end, it was all to no avail, and all the personal attacks, bigtime spending and reliance on appearances by celebrities (led by the president himself) could not outshout Christie's clear and concise campaign pledges.

Christie is to be congratulated on a great, and very much unexpected, clear victory over the corrupt Democrat machine. And I will admit that I feel a little sheepish having demonstrated a cynical view of the New Jersey electorate. I learned a lesson, and I hope Republicans in other states will learn the same lesson.

16 comments:

Joel Farnham said...

LawHawk,

What I am surprised about is that there is not a group doing their level best to over-turn this election. Could it be that the larger percentage means that ACORN and Company have no chance to perform their specialty?

Does this also mean that future elections must be won by a high enough percentage that they wont be tempted?

Unknown said...

Joel: I'm somewhat amazed that Corzine was so docile in defeat. The ultimate victory was within the range where I expected at least some sort of wrangle.

The answer to your question about future elections is answered by the understanding reached after the 2000 presidential election debacle. One of the rallying cries for practical Republicans in 2004 was "if we win by enough, they can't challenge." It didn't stop a minor dustup in Ohio, but it didn't go anywhere. The fact is, that in heavily Democratic dominated precincts, there is always the chance of hanky-panky, and New Jersey is well-known for doing that. So I remain a little surprised that there are no rumblings coming from the crooks in the Garden State.

HamiltonsGhost said...

Lawhawk--Your article is still a good study in crooked politics, and their frequent negative results. You guessed the margin wrong, but it doesn't negate any of the substance of the article.

Like you, I was sure there would be a fight, and even the 4% final margin would have been low enough to expect a challenge. The Democratic machine in New Jersey is capable of pulling 5% more phony votes out of their hats. By the time I went to bed last night, my main thought about Corzine's concession speech was not relief, but a nagging question about what he's really up to.

Unknown said...

HamiltonsGhost: I felt the same way. All things considered, my assessment of the three key elections is that Virginia is a stunning win that shows that good government trumps "hope and change" every time. New Jersey teaches the same lesson, plus teaching that sounding like a Democrat while running as a Republican is a bad strategy. The key independents and moderates will swing to the forthright good government candidate despite all the seeming odds on the side of the Democratic machine. New York 23 only proves that backroom deals tick off the voters, regardless of which party is in control.

This was not a referendum on Obama. There were just too many important local issues involved. But it should warn Blue Dog Democrats that their electorate is watching them, and even in Congressional elections, all politics are local. It also shows Republicans that a conservative can win a nomination, conduct a good campaign, and win without alienating all those independents who switched sides in a period of less than a year.

AndrewPrice said...

I guess it's a good thing the margin was high enough that we aren't staring at jump-suit clad mobsters counting hanging chads.

Unknown said...

Andrew: Amen to that. I't still in shock that Corzine gave in so easily. I had visions of the Yale statistician again testifying to how he could statisically determine how many Florida voters would have voted for Gore had they not voted for Bush. It was even more bizarre than the chad-counting.

rlaWTX said...

I just hope that there aren't any Sanfords lurking in the newly elected folks!!! I know - that's a depressing, cynical reaction on this lovely day (and I was in a better mood one Commentarama column ago), but I got to thinking as I read this article that a whiff of corruption or scandal around Christie would hurt badly...

Writer X said...

Wonder how many politicians running for office in the future will be asking Obama to campaign for them? That's looking like the kiss of death.

LL said...

The New Jersey victory was landmark for the reasons you stated. Good and honest people wanted a good and honest man in office and they voted in large enough numbers to assure that it happened.

What a concept!

Unknown said...

WriterX: You caught it too. Does that sound like any other [former] President? Even when he was riding high in national popularity, Bill Clinton couldn't positively affect a local election for dog catcher. It got so bad that many Democrats were quietly begging him not to "help." He could get himself elected, but not anybody else.

Unknown said...

LL: I know whereof you speak. It had reached a point where many politicians didn't even offer a pretense about discussing serious issues and solution. Just go for the other guy's jugular. What a refreshing change Christie is, particularly in a get-in-the-mud-and-fight state like New Jersey.

Tennessee Jed said...

It is a shame that we can almost never rest easy in these things. After Franken, you just never know anymore. Maybe Jersey could pass a law which essentially states if a liberal concedes, it is like giving a putt in golf, e.g. it cannot be overturned.

In the meantime, I have just been enjoying a splendid day, politically.

DCAlleyKat said...

In the meantime, I have just been enjoying a splendid day, politically.

Me too TennJed, tis nice to savor the body politic every once in awhile.

Unknown said...

Tennessee and AlleyKat: That pretty much sums up my feelings. I have particularly been enjoying the MSM trying to spin Virginia and New Jersey as having no national importance, with NY23 being proof of the civil war within the Republican Party which will ultimately destroy it. Talk about desperate.

StanH said...

Late to the thread! Thank God the margin was wide enough that the corrupt NJ machine didn’t kick in and steal an election.

DCAlleyKat said...

I have particularly been enjoying the MSM trying to spin Virginia and New Jersey as having no national importance, with NY23 being proof of the civil war within the Republican Party which will ultimately destroy it. Talk about desperate.


Some civil war - Hoffman got 46% of the vote. I'd say Private Hoffman needs a few new stripes on his uniform!

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