Welcome, failed-Gov Palin to New Jersey! Your Halloween arrival seems so appropriate this weird weekend, Last year, you were a laugh-eliciting trick or treat costume in many neighborhoods; we missed you and Joe the Plumber this season when kids were back to being real Super Heroes and princesses.
Your bizarre attempt to chase Chris Daggett out of the gubernatorial race in favor of your preferred Chris is laughable enough. The former is in fact the Republican in the race more attuned to New Jersey voters. Of course, because your fellow wing nut ultra-Conservatives always prevail in state primaries, Daggett could not have hoped to be nominated by his party. Hence, the independent race.
What Palin and shrinking band do not get is that ideology is not what interests voters who can read. Their Fox-uninformed followers live in a world of myth; voters here look for solutions to long-standing problems- not red meat sloganeering from their candidates.
The drop in candidate Christie's poll numbers immediately followed his reluctance to offer alternatives strategies for dealing with tax, health insurance, economic and education issues. The incumbent laid out his record in these areas and has been able to point to some progress. While Christie continues to benefit from the anxiety of an electorate suffering from national problems, his campaign strategy seems to consist solely of being the "non-governor."
Daggett, by approaching the race as serious public business, offered a real contrast. While his tax proposals might not make much of a dent in the state's fifty-year fiscal mess, at least he has proposals. As the New York Times, Bergen Record and Philadelphia Inquirer concluded in their endorsements of Governor Corzine's re-election bid, New Jersey has its problems- but the incumbent has worked hard to apply reason and reform to making things better.
Tomorrow, we will learn if he has earned the voters' support for that effort. Hopefully, the sudden appearance of the Wicked Wench of the (North)West will turn out to have no more impact than a Halloween prank.
