Corzine’s Campaign Strategy

The Corzine campaign released a ‘State of the Race’ memo “intended to give you a sense of where the Corzine for Governor campaign is and how we see the political lay of the land.” You can also read the New Jersey GOP response by Steve Berlin on the same page.

In a nutshell, Corzine plans to run against President Bush, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the hot-blooded right-wing rhetoric coming from the national Republican leadership and we suppose, a Republican candidate for governor.

We’ll post a more thorough analysis when time permits, but for now here a few money quotes from the memo written by Tom Shea, a senor advisor to the Corzine campaign. We couldn’t help adding a few quips of our own.

Even though New Jersey is a solid blue state, this election is considered a partial referendum on President Bush’s second term, and a sound victory by Jon Corzine can impact his agenda.

We can hear Karl Rove now. “Mr. President we have to change our agenda, Jon Corzine was just soundly elected Governor of New Jersey.” Corzine has no record to run on, so he has chosen to “partially” run against President Bush.

For instance, Pat Robertson, a popular conservative figure just referred to the Federal judiciary as worse than terrorists, which is consistent with the hot-blooded right-wing rhetoric coming from the national Republican leadership.

Popular? We didn’t know any conservative figure was popular? Heaven knows, whenever we think of a major conservative figure, Pat Robertson is the first person that comes to our mind. We wonder if Robertson’s comment is similar to Corzine’s likening Vice President Cheney to Saddam Hussein?

The campaign is structured to allow broad participation. Many of our fundraisers are low-dollar, there is a lower-than-the-legal-limit ceiling on donations, and in an effort to promote transparency we are not accepting corporate checks.

Amazing how far the nickels and dimes from the common man can go in a modern campaign - how does Corzine do it? Corporate checks won’t be accepted, but bags full of cash may be dropped in the usual spots as directed by George Norcross.

While the Republican candidates cannot completely escape their socially right-wing base, we believe the eventual nominee is quietly handling the divisive social issues in the primary and will emphasize cutting property taxes to the exclusion of all else during the general election.

Shush, we’re trying to handle those divisive social issues, you know like abortion and guns. Would someone please tell Corzine, the governor can’t change the second amendment or the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling. Do it quietly, we don’t want to embarrass the Senator.

Look for Corzine to talk about everything but property taxes.

After the Republican primary, the Republicans will settle on one candidate and close ranks against Jon Corzine. Expect a vicious negative ad barrage as they turn their fire on this campaign. Don’t be alarmed if our lead narrows; this is natural and expected.

We’d be alarmed if Corzine’s lead didn’t narrow. It would be only natural and expected that once New Jersey voters begin to concentrate on Corzine’s record and his tax increasing agenda, for his lead to evaporate into a loss. We enjoyed the “vicious negative ad barrage” bit.

Additionally, Jon Corzine has created the 'Corzine Connection' to bring more people into the political process, and over the next few months we will be rolling out internet tools to allow for even broader reach.

Speaking of vicious and negative …. Have you ever read anything by Matt Stoller?

Regardless of what they do, Jon Corzine will set the agenda during this campaign. This will be a (sic) election based on ideas and broad participation. The reason is not pie-in-the-sky idealistic, but practical in nature.

What happened to power to the people? Corzine will set the agenda and pie-in-the-sky idealists need not join the “Corzine Connection”? How will the base react to that? “Practical in nature” will be the new code phrase for “raise your taxes.”

Broad participation is a key driver of an effective agenda for New Jersey, especially during a time of massive budget deficits, high property taxes, and a Federal government intent on punishing blue states like New Jersey. So when the Republican candidate attacks Jon Corzine, we will see it not just as an attack on the candidate, but as an attack on all of us and our desire for a better New Jersey.

Corzine votes against tax cuts and the federal government is punishing the “blue states”. How long will the media allow the Democrats to get away with this myth? And here’s a new twist – from “I feel your pain”, to “make sure you feel my pain”. We’ve said it before, it’s all about Jon Corzine, and it should be crystal clear by now.