The Fat Lady Sings

Or, was it the fat guy?

As a lifelong resident of the Blue State of New Jersey, I often feel like I live in a parallel universe – Bizarroland, as made popular on Seinfeld.

People vote for higher taxes, corruption and status quo. We embrace the Sopranos because they are cool. We are the butt-end of jokes, as in ‘What exit?’. We are the red-headed stepchild to New York.

Face it – when Rodney Dangerfield came up with his mantra of “no respect,” he must have been thinking of New Jersey.

Then, yesterday happened. Chris Christie, the former US Attorney for New Jersey, who almost single-handedly sunk his nomination by forgetting to run FOR something other than ‘not being Jon Corzine’, pulled off a 5-point victory over the Democrat incumbent. This is big news, I’m tellin’ ya!

The last time a Republican won the governorship from an incumbent Democrat here in New Jersey was 1993. Another Christie, as in Christie Todd Whitman, narrowly defeated Jim Florio. What was the secret? Florio had barely won back in 1989 and decided to announce the largest tax increase in New Jersey history during his first year in office. That didn’t play well in Secaucus.

Florio spent much of his next three years pealing “Florio free in ’93″ bumper stickers off cars here in the Garden State.

Whitman was down by double digits in most every poll going into the last week of the election. But how would she pull off a victory? Taking a page from the Reagan playbook, she pledged to reduce taxes by 10% per year for three years. It was that promise that gave her a razor-thin victory in this deep blue state.

This time around, Chris Christie remembered in time that being conservative in a state awash in red ink and some of the highest taxes in the nation needed a different kind of stimulus. In the last two weeks, he started to campaign more like a conservative than a wishy-washy moderate. After all, if voters wanted someone who was already that way, we could have just re-elected Corzine.

Sensing victory may not be his after all, the embattled Governor reached out for help in President Barack Obama. The President made multiple trips to stump for Corzine, who had become part of his ‘Goldman Sachs alumni’ financial brain trust. Fearing that the status quo would force New Jersey into another four years in the abyss, independents threw their support behind the big guy – reversing a 15% spread that voted for Obama just a year ago.

The White House advisers, none strangers to tossing people under the bus, stated today that Corzine’s loss was not in any way due to them or the President. In fact, Democrat pundits claim that if Obama didn’t stump for Corzine, he would have lost by double digits. Imagine that.

So, last night, the fat lady guy did sing, and his name is Chris Christie.

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New Jersey boy Michael Fidanza is the host of The Armchair Energist Show on RFC Radio and can be heard at 11am-noon ET. His website is www.ArmchairEnergist.com

Michael Fidanza

Michael is the CEO of Parcbench

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