Corzine's Recent and Victorious Journey

Several conservative blogs have recently been interpreting this article, by NYMetro.com, in a manner that is quite unflattering to Jon Corzine. The consensus among conservatives is that Corzine is a power hungry politician who has carefully planned his means of ascent since his earliest days as a millionaire bank president. Reacting as if encountering an ambitious U.S senator is truly shocking, Enlighten-NJ denounces Corzine's candidacy due to his "bizarre behavior" as the CEO of Goldman Sachs as well as his openness about his dissatisfaction with his less-than-influential role in the senate.

Enlighten has a good point. Corzine is definitely rich and definitely ambitious. He probably made it into the senate due largely to his enormous campaign funds and he probably thinks about his interests before anyone else's. What Enlighten is trying to say is that he's a politician. However, a pragmatic New Jersey voter should be attracted by this (not so unique) quality in a senator, not repelled by it. A man who knows that his idealistic messages that he delivered on the campaign trail do not carry as much weight during his freshman term as they would when he's the chairman of a committee knows what he needs to do to deliver to his district. Of course, if Corzine vacates his seat to run for governor he will simply replace himself with another freshman senator with limited leverage in congress. Sometimes it's refreshing to hear politicians be blunt about their motivations. When John Kerry was on the 04 campaign trail, I strongly doubt that he told his aides that he wanted to be president so "America would be safer at home and more respected in the world".

Does Doug Forrester have this quality? Maybe. Does he know how to be an effective leader in a state dominated so heavily by local political organizations? Or does he truly believe that he can just abolish it the way he promises in his rhetoric. He's already spent twice as much money as the Democrats and not only because he's a rich man. He's a politician too and if he wants to survive in New Jersey he will not fight what he promises to fight. Now all that's left is ideology..

NJ Conservative also has some commentary.