NEW JERSEY STAYS BLUE

With 83% of the vote counted, Jon Corzine was announced to be the victor in the Garden State gubernatorial race. He currently leads Doug Forrester by a margin of 11 percentage points, 54% to 43%, which is an unexpectedly comfortable win for Democrats.

So what happened? What about property taxes? What about Democratic corruption? Extra-marital affairs? Didn't the GOP have enough to nail this guy? No. The only way to counter a weak Democrat in this state is with a strong Republican.

Forrester was counting on people to be fed up with state government. However, what he found is that swing voters are more disenchanted with federal government, which is run by the GOP. Forrester is going to lose New Jersey by a significantly larger margin than Bush did, which means that this state might be considerably more liberal than we previously thought. Perhaps people who voted for Bush on the national security card voted in favor of their social and economic principles in the governor's race. Unless statistics show that voter turnout was especially low among Republicans and conservative Independents, it's impossible that a small but significant portion of Bush's supporters are also Corzine supporters.

Rising Donkey

52% of likely voters say that they would vote for a Democrat for Congress if the elections were held today compared to 37% for Republicans.

This poll is incredible. While it isn't surprising that the Democrats received a favorable rating, considering the ineffectiveness of the president and his party, the extremely low support for Republican congressional candidates is extraordinary. 37% represents roughly the entire population of registered Republicans. If this poll is accurate, the Democrats are virtually in control of the independent population.

Clinton vs Giuliani

If you've been tuned into the governors race lately, you've probably noticed a trend that is unique but not unheard of in politics: hidden candidates. This happens when both candidates for office are so bad that it's better for them to sit in the background and allow other politicians to conduct the public relations. Al Gore coult have benefitted from it in 2000 and Jon Corzine is probably going to win because of it on Tuesday. Why? Because he has Bill Clinton and Forrester only has Rudy Giuliani. Corzine has Barack Obama and Forrester has George W. Bush.