Wednesday, October 28, 2009

HORSERACE

The Quinnipac Poll Makes a Bit More Sense Now...

One of my readers applies the way Quinnipiac has the vote breaking down among Democrats, Republicans and Independents, and concludes that a split around 42 percent Democrat, 28 percent Republican and 30 percent Independent yields the result they offer today, Corzine up 5. (Note that under this math, Republican Christie is taking more than half the folks who refused to say their party or who didn’t know. It’s possible, but a little strange.) So the Q-poll's 40D-25R-29I split works, somewhat.

But will the electorate split that way on Election Day?  Could the electorate be 14 percentage points more Democrat than Republican? It’s not unthinkable – last year, it was 16 percentage points more. As I wrote this morning, this year’s electorate seems volatile and getting the right mix of each party seems a little tougher than usual, but it’s hard to see Democratic turnout efforts in New Jersey topping their efforts from last year; beyond that, I have a feeling that Garden State Republicans are more driven by “I hate Corzine and his @#$%&* tax increases” than for “I really want to see John McCain be the next president.”

Having said that, every day or so I get an e-mail from a frustrated New Jersey conservative who finds Chris Christie’s campaign lame, boring, uninspiring, and not appealing to them at all. Some readers mention they preferred Steve Lonegan in the primary, some don’t. Every once in a while, they indicate they’ll stay home, dissatisfied with their choices and determined to “send a message” to Christie that he should have emphasized their preferred issues more. (Because that’s the way to political power: staying home. Nothing demonstrates your ability to impact the political process like inactivity!)

I don’t know if there are enough dissatisfied conservatives in New Jersey to make a difference in the race. But I note the irony that Corzine has spent millions in ads trying to make the case that Christie is a right-wing extremist on guns, abortion, the stimulus, etc.; and these folks may stay home because they find Christie too mushy on guns, abortion, the stimulus, etc.

Life rarely gives you a chance to go from a very liberal governor to a very conservative governor. You don’t see the equivalent of a 90-yard Hail Mary pass in the political realm very often. Politics and its related policy fights are fought in the trenches, each side advancing a few yards at a time. (Jets fans, Giants fans, you know what I’m talking about, right?) Anyone who wants New Jersey government to go anywhere rightward has one legitimate choice for posing on November 3; everything else is just posing.

10/28 12:54 PMShare