‘Lesser of two evils’ prevails

By Nick Ballasy

Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine defeated Republican challenger Doug Forrester Tuesday in the most expensive and negative governor’s race in the state’s history.

The candidates together spent more than $70 million on the campaign, which included an array of negative ads where they painted each other as unfit to serve as New Jersey’s next governor.

“The negative campaigning seemed completely unfair because personal matters should be left out of the race,” said Lauren Brenner, a junior at Rider. “They are both crooks, but I voted for Corzine because Forrester supports Bush.”

Corzine received an honorary degree from Rider in 2001 and addressed students in the Bart Luedeke Center in 2004.

With 97 percent of the vote counted, Corzine had 1,152,347 votes to 948,372 for Forrester, a 10-point margin. Turnout was a dismal 44 percent.

Corzine’s support was strongest among women, Hispanics, blacks and independents, according to AP-Ipsos. Corzine voters said the economy and jobs were most important to them. Forrester’s supporters cited property taxes and corruption as top issues. Property taxes in New Jersey are the highest in the nation.

“Forrester’s 30 percent in three years plan for property taxes seemed more feasible than Corzine’s general promise to reduce property taxes by 40 percent with no plan on how to do it,” said freshman Sean Rainey, a TV reporter for the News at Rider. “Every time I compared the issues, Corzine never gave reasons on how to fix the corruption in New Jersey, but Forrester had examples on how he would do it.”

Analysts debated whether Corzine received a mandate. Dr. David Rebovich, a political scientist at Rider, who did practically nonstop media commentary on Election Night and the following day, said the new governor has a special task.

“The winner will have to spend time on developing a mandate, a mandate that he did not necessarily earn in this very negative campaign, as voters chose the lesser of two evils,” Rebovich said.