jerseyhoya wrote:I don't think Hoffman=Kucinich is even close to being a reasonable comp

He's a bit to the right of the district, and isn't an experienced politician, but I think he's probably fine

He's more than a bit to the right of the district and doesn't even live in the district.

He lived in the district till it was redistricted last time, and has lived in that region of NY his whole life. Now he lives just outside of the district lines. I think the business he owns is in the district, and if he were to drive north, east or west from his house he would be in the 23rd. I don't think the fact that he lives in one of those weird cut outs they drew into the congressional map last time around should have much to do with this at all.

Two really good polls out for Christie this morning. Quinnipiac, which had him down three last week, has him up two. PPP has him up six.

jerseyhoya wrote:Two really good polls out for Christie this morning. Quinnipiac, which had him down three last week, has him up two. PPP has him up six.

Christie is dead now that he's lost the Python vote:

Chris Christie Rips Off Monty Python, Troupe Threatens Suit

swishnicholson wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Two really good polls out for Christie this morning. Quinnipiac, which had him down three last week, has him up two. PPP has him up six.

Christie is dead now that he's lost the Python vote:

Chris Christie Rips Off Monty Python, Troupe Threatens Suit

strange, I was sure he'd lost the Python vote sometime before this....

jerzer, help us with the calculus on this: in what realm of risk assessment does a swing of, at most, dozens of voters from "undecided" to "Christie" - or hell, let's go all the way, from "Corzine" to "Christie" - sufficiently qualify this kind of gambit, enabling staff to say, "aw phooey on your worries about permission challenges! It's soooo cool!", given the time/expense of bothering to put an ad together, get it run, etc ? Or was this just some bitsy internet goof no one thought anyone would even see?

I can't make sense of it

I have no idea

Can't have enough Sarah Palin/Michael Palin confusion in this world.

Know what'd be cool? Watching them debate.

dajafi wrote:Can't have enough Sarah Palin/Michael Palin confusion in this world.

Know what'd be cool? Watching them debate.

I would DEFINITELY vote for that, multiple times

So is this monty python thing a something or a nothing? And given its timing, it smacks of October surprise, but then again, it seems even the nefarious Corzine couldn't pull that off.

So I entered the 2008 Presidential and 2005 Gubernatorial results into a spreadsheet, calculated the Democrat's two party vote share, adjusted those for statewide margin of victory and then averaged the two numbers together to get a rough idea of what percentage of the vote each candidate would need to get from a county for the race to be a tie. Obviously a flawed method because it says nothing about turnout from the various counties. If Corzine does 1% worse than he should in Essex but bumps turnout by 10% relative to the rest of the state, that's a huge win for him.

Anywho, the four counties that were within 1% of being 50/50 were Atlantic, Bergen, Burlington and Glocester so if one candidate is winning all four of those, that's a good sign for them.

Counties listed in order of preference, Dem to GOP
Hudson
Essex
Camden
Mercer
Union
Passaic
Cumberland
Middlesex
New Jersey avg
Atlantic
Burlington
Bergen
Gloucester
Salem
Somerset
Monmouth
Cape May
Morris
Ocean
Warren
Hunterdon
Sussex

The one thing that really jumped out at me me was Cumberland is actually more Democratic than the state is on the whole.

No surprise the four northwestern counties are four of the five most Republican in the state, but Ocean has passed Morris as the most important statewide county. McCain won a 50k plurality in Ocean County. Monmouth is going to be extremely important for Christie to get a big margin in as well, as his LG candidate is the sheriff there. He'll probably want to get 60% of the two party vote share there.

One thing the GOP might have going for it in Hudson is they've been so beset by arrests in the Dem machine there that their turnout operations might not run as smoothly as they always do. Obviously the Obama trip this weekend to the northeastern part of the state was to gin up enthusiasm among the Dem base up there. We'll see how that works.

I guess no surprise Bergen is the most important swing county. It's the biggest county in the state, and Christie really needs to win it if he wants to be governor. Weinberg is from there, but I think their Dem party boss going to jail cancels that out.

I'm glad tomorrow night is a travel day so I can get my political junkie on in peace.

a) ELECTION DAY!!!

b) Anyone from Jersey have an opinion on the bond question? I haven't thought a whole lot about it.

jerseyhoya wrote:a) ELECTION DAY!!!

b) Anyone from Jersey have an opinion on the bond question? I haven't thought a whole lot about it.

You've probably already read Crashburn's thoughts on it, but

jerseyhoya wrote:a) ELECTION DAY!!!

b) Anyone from Jersey have an opinion on the bond question? I haven't thought a whole lot about it.

a) Christie better win this (unfortunately, I am not confident about that though)

b) I hate this question because I am torn. Obviously voting YES will increase taxes even more, but voting NO will just continue to make South Jersey look like North Jersey. At this moment, I think I am going to vote YES. I grew up on Long Beach Island and have long hated how every single piece of nice land got destroyed just so they could put up more houses for New Yorkers to come down and act like they owned the entire island (more than half of those "necessary" houses/shops are not even occupied currently).

Open space preservation programs, if implemented correctly, can, even in the medium term, reduce local or prevent increases in local spending. Now, that being said, you could argue that those municipalities that would benefit for the program ought to pay for them. Indeed, I would think that if the open space preservation piece of it was a kind of match--say requiring the municipality to pay half the acquisition costs--it might be more likely to work better.

But with anything like this, the devil is in the details.

I voted against the bond thing. State's in enough debt. Voted to buy Medford Lakes a new garbage truck. They wouldn't ask unless they really needed one, right?

Also, is it a requirement that poll workers be in their 70s? The lady who checked me in had trouble maneuvering the 2 pound sign in book.

It's a beautiful day out there, which will probably help turnout some. Boy I love voting.

jerseyhoya wrote:b) Anyone from Jersey have an opinion on the bond question? I haven't thought a whole lot about it.

I'm not from Jersey, but Connery was the best IMHO

I might not vote today. For NYC mayor, I just would have voted for some third party weirdo, as Bloomberg's spending and general power grab has turned me off and Thompson, the Democratic candidate, comes pre-corrupted like all NYC Dems. Though I did just hear about a ballot initiative--for the first time, which in a way reinforces the problem--that's of interest to me: allowing prisoners to work for non-profits. I've done some work on prisoner re-entry issues, and getting them working ASAP is pretty much the best way to cut recidivism, which is good because it means my tax $$$ doesn't go to keeping their asses in lockdown.

As for the NJ race, I recommend this article from the NYT magazinea couple weeks back. It's definitely biased toward Corzine--portrays him as a good public official who happens to be an awful politician--but if its facts are correct, Christie's both run a truly disingenuous campaign and is much more likely to make NJ's problems, which are structural, worse rather than better.

jerseyhoya wrote:a) ELECTION DAY!!!

b) Anyone from Jersey have an opinion on the bond question? I haven't thought a whole lot about it.

Voted No, a) for the taxes, and b) for free enterprise -- why deny someone the right to sell their land that they own at a fair profit if they can. Make it a local decision.

Voted Christie, although I don't like the idea of removing insurance mandates. It actually doesn't affect right now anyway, with Vox working in DE. I'm 50-50 on vouchers. I like it because it would personally give me a financial break, but at the same time, I don't like the idea of VoxJr's school being inundated with new enrollees.

And that sums up all the homework I've done on the election....

MrsVox wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:a) ELECTION DAY!!!

b) Anyone from Jersey have an opinion on the bond question? I haven't thought a whole lot about it.

Voted No, a) for the taxes, and b) for free enterprise -- why deny someone the right to sell their land that they own at a fair profit if they can. Make it a local decision.

.

Again, I don't know the particulars, but most of these programs do allow land owners the option to sell their land outright to the government (thus giving them a fair profit) or it allows them to sell the development rights (thus allowing them to keep the farm in the family without being wiped out by property taxes--land that cannot be developed will be assessed at a much lower value than land that can be used for housing.)

The opposition comes from developers and their cronies in local government, not the land owners. Again, the specific provisions on what is being proposed may result in re-evaluation.

I haven't voted yet but:

a) Tough call for me here. There is no way I am voting for Corzine and I have heard absolutely nothing from Christie that indicates to me he is a better choice than Corzine. Daggett has no chance to win. I may end up either not casting a vote for Governor or voting for Daggett (knowing full well that I am in effect voting for Corzine, which leads me to not voting for Gov at all).

b) I usually vote for open space refs and probably will this time too.