“the Lt. Governor filled in a did as good or better job than Corzine”
Actually, NJ will have a Lt. Governor for the first time when Kim Guadagno is sworn in, along with Chris Christie. One of the ongoing issues for many years has been the practice of putting the NJ Senate President in the Governor’s seat whenever the Governor is out of state or incapacitated.
As a result of this unusual practice, it was finally legislated that NJ should have a Lt. Governor. However, you are correct that the Acting Governor, NJ Senate President Richard Codey did do an excellent job and seemed to be very popular. I can tell you that he is a very nice, personable man, based on my limited contacts with him.
While Corzine was very unpopular, I really don’t think that the accident had very much to do with it. Voters have notoriously short memories, and I seriously doubt that many of them recalled that accident. Corzine’s unpopularity had much more to do with the fact that he was not able to undo the incredible damage done to the state’s finances by Christine Todd Whitman, and then perpetuated by her successor, Jim McGreevey.
The upshot of Christie’s victory (which was the result of his promise to cut taxes) is that just a few days ago, he issued a classic “weasel statement”, in which he said–in effect–Gee, I didn’t know that the state’s finances were THIS bad. Of course, since all of the state financial information is available in public documents, that statement indicates that he is either incompetent to read and interpret those documents, or that his campaign was based on lies, pure and simple. I think that the latter scenario is more likely.
Now, he says that he will not be able to cut taxes in his first year (not a surprise to anyone with a functioning memory of how these problems began), and his most recent statement on the topic was, “I hope to be able to cut taxes by the end of my first term”. Trust me–his first term will also be his last term, simply because of the incredible damage done by Whitman and McGreevey that is almost impossible to undo. Of course, since Christie knew this, that makes him just the latest in a long string of liars.