I drove out to the middle of New Jersey yesterday morning to attend a board meeting. Everywhere I went, I saw "dump corzine" messages. It was clear the governor was in trouble.
And this morning, we wake up to the news that Corzine has indeed been dumped and Mayor Bloomberg barely got 50% of the voters in NYC to pull the lever for him
Both of these men are wealthy. Both of these men grew up on wall street in the 1970s. Both of these men moved from wall street to public service about a decade ago. Both of these men spent heavily to get re-elected. Bloomberg made it, Corzine did not.
It's worth spending a minute thinking about the message the voters sent here in one of the most liberal parts of the country. The voters aren't happy. The voters aren't comfortable with rich guys who can spend their personal fortunes getting elected. And most of all, the voters want change.
This may well be a referendum on Obama, but I see it more as a referendum on the status quo. It's a throw the bums out moment in this country. It's too bad that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Mitch McConnell, and John Boehner didn't run for re-election yesterday. Maybe they would have been sent home as well.
It is not a positive to be an incumbent right now. And that's a good thing because the track record of our government sucks. I hope the anti incumbent mood continues to be honest. We could use a good house cleaning throughout our government.
