Christie's 46k loan to a friend? And Corzine's 470k loan to a major union negotiator.

According to the New York Times, Chris Christie made a loan and failed to declare it on his campaign forms. From the Times:

A contrite Christopher J. Christie, the Republican former prosecutor running for governor on a platform of corruption busting and ethical reform, apologized Tuesday for failing to report a $46,000 loan to a top aide on his tax returns and financial-disclosure forms.

Christopher J. Christie, the Republican candidate for governor, on Tuesday.
“When I make mistakes, I’m going to admit them,” he said, adding that he had already amended some of those filings and would finish the rest by Friday. “It was certainly nothing that I was trying to conceal or hide.”

Ok. I suppose that he is guilty of some administrative violation and maybe poor judgement in helping a friend. But let's balance that against Jon Corzine's 470,000 loan to Carla Katz his alleged girlfriend and a major union representative from the states top union. Remember this?

Senator Jon S. Corzine provided a $470,000 mortgage to the president of a union that represents thousands of New Jersey state employees in late 2002, then forgave the debt two years later.

Senator Jon S. Corzine with Carla Katz at a ball in the Pierre Hotel in 2002 .
The union president, Carla Katz, was Mr. Corzine's girlfriend at the time. The senator said on Wednesday that an investment company he owns gave her the mortgage, then canceled it in December 2004, several months after they had stopped dating.

So he made a loan and forgave it for ten times what Christie has allegedly done. And this loan and other communication is at the heart of ethics charges against Corzine. And Christie is still collecting on the loan to a friend. Seems like Corzine has picked chosen an outrageously stupid bone to pick.

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Corzine's Palin Problem - and each NJ Citizen's $60,656 bill

A spokesman for Jon Corzine was quoted in the Associated Press attempting to use the typical New Jersey bogeyman argument against Christie by invoking Sarah Palin:

For their part, Democrats in both New Jersey and Virginia were eager to link their rival GOP contenders to Palin.

"Her positions are certainly consistent with where Christie's been," Corzine spokesman Sean Darcy said. "They would both deny a woman the right to choose and they oppose new gun control legislation. And like Palin, Christie's staked out Conservative right-wing positions on rejecting the federal stimulus money, which would create thousands of jobs."

The first thing about this quote is that it is so trite that it boggles the mind that any intelligent human being could believe it. However, that clearly doesn't represent a lot of people in New Jersey because they routinely fall for this drivel. Let's get something straight. Two of three topics referred to in this quote (gun control and abortion) are federal issues. The governor of this state really has little say in the matter and therefore their position amounts to mere window dressing for partisans.

As for "rejecting federal stimulus" money, I think that a large number of New Jersey residents would like to hear in detail what stimulus money is coming to our state. Along with that, we would love to hear what the corresponding debt load assigned to our residents would be especially since the citizens of this state receive roughly 61 cents for every dollar we send to Washington (from the Tax Foundation). So, following that reasoning, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the average citizen now owes $37,000 dollars because of the stimulus that didn't stimulate. Given New Jersey's productivity in government contribution, that equals a debt load of $60,656. Sure, let's talk about that Mr Corzine.

But all of this is really silly. Talk of abortion and gun control is just changing the subject and may be fine during the good times. But these aren't good times. And frankly, we have plenty to talk about. Namely, Jon Corzine's record. He can trash Christie all he wants but he now has a real record and interestingly enough, that is the last thing he wants to run on.

He doesn't want to run on his ethically challenged relationships while negotiating multi-million dollars contracts with unions. He lies to the people about saving money this year in the budget which is far more than the last budget Gov Codey submitted. He doesn't want to run on the massive debt he has added to our state and its choking debt service. And he doesn't even want you to see him in person because he only looks and sounds halfway decent after an ad agency touches up his photo, voice and adds music. This man inspires no one. He has not led this state and has been and utter and complete failure. His claim to fame of being a successful businessman has been thoroughly debunked by his complete lack of business sense. That is the record we should be discussing.

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Lonegan goes back to purely negative campaigning...

While driving back from an aborted trip to New York this morning due to train issues, I heard a new Lonegan ad attacking Chris Christie and accusing him of assorted violations of something or other. The problem with this ad is that it is just like the sea of other negative ads Lonegan unleashed. This one got a job, that one got a job...blah blah blah.

This negative ad is exactly what has been wrong with Republicans in the state for too long. Instead of competing with ideas, Lonegan is throwing mud. Does he not know that this didn't against Menendez, or Corzine or anyone else lately. To become Governor, each of these candidates needs to describe why and how they will be different than Corzine. However, Lonegan's attack ads just sound like more losing Republican strategy from the same losing Republican NJ strategists.

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The Corruption of NJ's Supreme Court

Let me state up front that I find the entire legal discussion over the Governor's email with his former girlfriend and the lawsuits regarding their disclosure to be a bit of a joke. The fact that Corzine allowed himself to get into this situation is more indicative of his mettle (or lack thereof) than the result of this political legal action. These are details that the public in this state do not get.

But here is what REALLY bothers me. The Governor of this state negotiated with the head of a union (that happened to be his girlfriend). The Union fired her for conflict of interest (they thought something was fishy). Corzine said everything was on the up and up. And the NJ Supreme Court said none of it was relevent. This smells really bad. And again, no one cares.

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Christopher Christie for Governor-No longer rumors

We have it from a reliable source that while the official announcement will not be made for a few weeks, Christopher Christie is filing papers to run for Governor of New Jersey.

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Please say it is so....Chris Christie for Governor

I received this in my inbox yesterday:

Subject: Message from Senator Kyrillos

Dear Friend,

I spent time over the weekend with my good friend, former US Attorney Christopher Christie and I am very encouraged by what I heard.

Chris is being urged to run for Governor by Republicans, Independents, and even some prominent Democrats. They've read what the newspapers wrote about what Chris achieved as our state's US Attorney, and they're telling Chris that he can provide the leadership and make the tough decisions needed to fix our broken state.

Chris's record of integrity and effectiveness has been praised by virtually every paper in the state, as well as the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer.

By contrast, NJ Monthly's January profile had this to say about Jon Corzine:

"It's hard to imagine a governor more qualified to fix the state's finances and less able to get the job done."

Our state's problems are too great, our taxes too high, our economy too distressed.
We need a leader like Chris Christie. Stay tuned! I have a feeling we will hear some good news real soon.

Sincerely,

Senator Joe Kyrillos

If an announcement is imminent, this is great news for the state of New Jersey.

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