Is Chris Christie really going to fight corruption?

November 3rd sees New Jersey's general election, in which the people will get to choose between keeping incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, or ousting him in favor of Republican candidate Chris Christie.

Christie and the Republicans are launching an aggressive campaign to overthrow Corzine - largely based on the promise of 'stopping corruption in its tracks.'

On his website, ChristieforNJ.com, the corpulent candidate highlights his three step plan to reform the New Jersey legislature:

• Eliminate the Legislature’s conflicts of interest
• Eliminate loopholes to strengthen laws banning 'pay to play'
• Demand greater transparency and accountability in government

Ironically, though, some argue that appeal to 'battle corruption' flies in the face of precedents Chris Christie has set during his own political career. Is he really the man New Jersey can trust?

Chris Christie is most famous for his career as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey - a position he was nominated for by fellow Republican George W. Bush.

During his six years in office, he successfully prosecuted 130 public officials (both Republican and Democrat) for corruption - never losing a single case. He was also the man who set the groundwork for last month's astonishing corruption arrests.

But Christie's also demonstrated blatent favoritism to friends and political allies during his time in office - making a mockery of his 'desire' to end 'conflicts of interest' and 'pay to play' in NJ.

For example, as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Chris Christie awarded a multi-million dollar contract to former U.S. Attorney David Kelley, without allowing any competiting bids.

Coincidentally, David Kelley had recently investigated Corzine's own brother, Todd Christie, for financial fraud - and declined to prosecute him despite Todd being ranked the fourth most significant suspect in the allegation (and the three higher ranking suspects - and the eleven below Christie - all facing charges in court.)

Was the multi-million dollar contract a pay-off for letting his brother off the hook?

Christie was similarly criticized in 2007, when he awarded another no-bid contract - worth over $50 million - to former boss and political ally John Ashcroft. The House Judiciary Committee even began hearings on the matter - but Christie was conveniently bailed out when the Bush administration rewrote the rules on such appointments before testimony was called.

The U.S. Justice Department wasn't so forgiving when Chris Christie negotiated with pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb over their $311 million fraud settlement. Christie deferred criminal prosecution in exchange for the company dedicated $5 million to his old alma mater. The Justice Department later wrote specific guidelines forbidding such practices as a result of Christie's decision.

In the lead up to his gubernatorial campaign, Christie's been hit once more with accusations of 'cronyism' - awarding a lucrative federal monitering contract to a company that has donated $23,800 to his election campaign (earning him $47,600 in public finance matching funds.)

So serious are these allegations that Christie himself was hauled in front of a congressional panel in June to explain his blatent favoritism. After being peppered with questions for two and a half hours, a visibly frustrated Christie stormed out of the hearing with his entourage in tow.

“It is very telling that Christie got up and walked out as he began to be questioned about the multimillion-dollar, no-bid contract given to the former U.S. attorney that refused to charge his brother,” said New Jersey Democratic chairman Joseph Cryan.

“If Christie tried to answer for all the other multimillion-dollar, no-bid contracts he gave out to friends, he would have been testifying until Election Day, and none of his statements would have matched.”

In short, while Chris Christie talks big about ending corruption in New Jersey, his record tells a starkly different story. Blantant cronyism, political machinations and questionable ethics are all simply part and parcel of the way this former U.S. Attorney conducts his business.

Perhaps in New Jersey, the 'Soprano state', such activities are simply par for the course. But I find his promise of 'ending corruption' leaving a rather unpleasent taste in my mouth.

Washington Runs as Normal

I've been very disappointed in the goings-on (or, rather, lack of them) in Washington D.C. recently.

The Republicans derailed Obama's push for a rapid reform of America's health care system - but this was clearly motivated more out of partisan politics than meeting the needs of America's health care consumers.

Delaying the vote until after the summer recess smacks of laziness and self interest. From the very beginning, postponing the vote was the Conservatives' sole objective. If the Republicans really had America's best interests at heart, they'd have put their nose to the grindstone and hammered out a bipartisan solution, instead of doing what Washington does best and procrastinating.

But likewise, it's business as normal in DC for the Democrats as well. Today, Democrats Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad got caught lying to America about their preferential treatment by Countrywide Financial Corp. - the organisation blamed for throwing America's mortgage industry down the toilet.

As I wrote in this post, it was corruption, greed and sleaze on behalf of the Democrats which brought down America's housing market - not President Bush's so-called 'unregulated' market. It was politicians like Dodd and Conrad who fought to maintain the grossly overinflated mortgage market - and today's findings prove that they did it entirely for their own selfish ends.

The fact that Chris Dodd heads the Banking Committee and is responsible for solving America's foreclosure crisis would be funny if it wasn't so terrifying. He helped create this debacle. Isn't he the least qualified man in America to fix it?

Funnily enough, the list of Countrywide's 'VIP members' is filled with those responsible for perpetuating the Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac farce. James Johnson, a former head of Fannie Mae, also received a 'sweetheart' deal on his mortgages, as did Franklin Raines, who also headed Fannie Mae. It's so blatantly transparent that corruption, sleaze and double dealings were going on that I'm frankly astonished that nobody's been carted off to jail yet.

Don't get me wrong - the Republicans have their share of corruption going on. Let's not forget that the war in Iraq proved hugely profitable for Halliburton, coincidentally [or rather, not - Editorial Bear] former employer of Vice President Dick Cheney.

But even that blood-soaked, foreign quagmire pales in comparison to the level of greed and corruption that hurled America into an economic pit unrivalled since the days of the Great Depression.

It's a chilling reminder that Barack Obama's 'change you can believe in' hasn't yet materialized - and whatever your political sensibilities, anybody with half a brain can see that Republicans and Democrats are, at the end of the day, pretty much as worthless and corrupt as each other.

Somebody's cleaning up New Jersey...

New Jersey has had a long-held reputation as being somewhat sleazy. It was birthplace to slews of mobsters, gangsters and mafia thugs long even before HBO advertised that fact in their Jersey-set drama The Sopranos.

But what happened today really took the biscuit - with the FBI raiding mayoral offices in Hoboken and Secaucus (two incredibly wealthy commuter suburbs of New York City) and arresting over 30 people - included both Mayors!

Peter Cammarano III (Mayor of Hoboken) and Dennis Elwell (Mayor of Secaucus) are both spending their Thursday in Claremont Tower, the FBI's NJ headquarters. They've been arrested on charges of corruption, amidst allegations of international money laundering.

Also nabbed in the raid were Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini and state Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt - leaving some people to wonder who exactly is left to run the state while some of their biggest movers and shakers are behind bars!

What elevates this story from 'obscure' to just plain 'bizarre' is that a slew of rabbis from New York City and New Jersey have also been arrested - raising many eyebrows and leaving most of us wondering just what this conspiracy was and how far it went.

Newark Major Cory Booker (a former Oxford alumni) described the events discreetly: "It's been an unbelievable morning so far."

That politics in New Jersey are corrupt is no surprise - but the fact that the FBI is actually doing something about it is. I think this is going to be a pretty explosive story when we finally learn more!