Monday, November 02, 2009

New Jersey Governor's Election: Corzine or Christie?

Tomorrow's the big day - when New Jersey residents pick between incumbent governor, Democrat Jon Corzine, or outspoken opponent, former US Attorney Chris Christie.

I've already written about Republican Chris Christie - and how his shameful record of corruption makes him a horrible choice for Governor. Fortunately, I'm not the only person to realize this - and recent opinion polls have shown that Christie's dropped from the clear favorite to running neck-and-neck with Jon Corzine.

(Unfortunately, independent Chris Daggett doesn't look like he has much of a shot.)

Christie's reversal of fortunes can largely be blamed on the incompetence of his own campaign. Bickering with Corzine over negative campaign ads is childish enough - but even more so when Christie's major whine was that Corzine's commercials 'emphasised his fatness.'

Christie also scored an own-goal when fellow Republican Joe Wilson arrived to press-the-flesh and support Christie's campaign. Wilson is best known as the man who yelled 'You lie!' at President Obama during a joint session of the houses - a churlish, irascible bully whose behavior doesn't win him much favor in 'civilised' New Jersey.

And just when you thought Christie's campaign couldn't get any more farcical, it does. Rather like a sketch from their popular 70s TV show, Christie's now being sued by none than Monty Python themselves - for copyright infringement.

A Christie campaign ad used cuts from Monty Python sketches to ridicule Jon Corzine - but permission to use the footage was never asked for, and certainly never paid for. It was shameless misappropriation of somebody else's intellectual property and the ad was swiftly pulled from Christie's website - but the damage had already been done.

Terry Jones, former Monty Python star, told the Huffington Post:

"It is totally outrageous that a former US Attorney knows so little about the law that he thinks he can rip off people. On the other hand -- another of Bush's legal appointees was Alberto Gonzales and he didn't seem to know much about the law either..."

Chris Christie is a joke. I'd even rather take insidious weasel Jon Corzine over this loud-mouthed, blustering clown - and hopefully the majority of voters will decisively agree with me when they head to the polling stations tomorrow.

Vote 'Chris Daggett' for New Jersey Governor!

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