It looks like Forrester is really reaching now. Fresh off his
flip on embryonic stem-cells, Forrester is preparing to use personal comments from Corzine's ex-wife against him.
Joanne Corzine magically decided that yesterday was the day that she would
break her silence about the Corzine marriage. Surely it's just a coincidence that she chose to do this 5 days before the election. And, oddly enough, her comments mirror exactly the Forrester talking points about Corzine being tied to the 'bosses'. Take a step inside for some excerpts.
I linked to today's article in the Ledger above. Here are some of the important bits, emphasis mine:
U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine's ex-wife said yesterday he "compromised his ideals" to get elected by cutting deals with political bosses, and that his pursuit of power "destroyed" their family.
Joanne Corzine said she was reluctantly breaking her silence because her ex-husband is giving an inaccurate portrayal of himself in his campaign for governor.
For the first time, she also said her ex-husband's affair with Carla Katz, president of New Jersey's largest state workers union, led to the breakup of their marriage.
"I think the relationship between Jon and Carla was the catalyst to our separation," she said.
She added of her ex-husband, "He was very Machiavellian in what he wanted. Whatever it took to get there was what he was going to do."
GOP strategists privately acknowledged that calling attention to the ex-wife's comments is politically risky. But Forrester said her comments are fair game in the campaign because "anything that talks about his engagement with the political bosses goes directly to the heart of governing."
And this is my personal favorite: Forrester added, "With regard to the disappointments that have to do with his marriage, I prefer not to comment ... private life is private life."
The Forrester campaign was working to produce a new television ad featuring Joanne Corzine's quotes, according to two of his advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity.
So Forrester's approach is: Private life is private life, except in my campaign ads!
I'm not really surprised that the Forrester campaign waited until the last minute to pull this out. In my opinion there's really no question that this was coordinated. Forrester has personally attacked Corzine throughout the whole campaign on these exact items, and Joanne Corzine "reluctantly" decided a few days before the election. Right.
Corzine needs to simply go back to the main issues. The polls indicate that the state is firmly in his camp on the real issues, hence Forrester's stem-cell flip and unending personal attacks. Corzine has already begun doing this, in the article linked above.
The State of New Jersey does not want to be represented by Doug Forrester. We told him 3 years ago and he didn't listen. Come Tuesday, he'll get the message again. This time in the form of a Corzine victory.