Can someone kindly tell me what these knuckleheads are up to?

[Julien Sorel]

But the fun never stops in New Jersey, where Gov. Jim McGreevey today faces a growing chorus of Dems demanding he resign now, forcing a special election this fall that could create a titanic race between Sen. Jon Corzine and ex-Gov. Tom Kean and, possibly, throw a skunk into John Kerry's Garden (State) party.

...

Part of McGreevey's thinking when he said he'd step down November 15, aides say, was to make sure Corzine, who's leading his party's bid to take back the Senate, and Kerry, who's leading his party's bid to take back the White House, could finish their current assignments.

...

But this is Jersey, of course, where few elections pass without some performance in the theater of the absurd. Hoping to provide the requisite hijinks, Democratic "party bosses" (gotta love this state and its "bosses") spent last weekend preparing this week to push McGreevey out by the end of this month and draft Corzine.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/16/mon/index.html


So McGreevey, at great personal cost, steps down, but elects to hang on for a few more months to help the party, and these yahoos are trying to force him out so someone who is already in the senate can run to take his seat? The Republicans are doing everything they can
to gouge us out of every office they can, and the New Jersey Democratic Party seems hell bent on helping them. Am I missing something here, or is that what's going on?

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Thereare already a bunch of threads about this...

and it has little to do with national politics. Joisey politicians rarely see beyond the ends of their districts-- not unlike many other places. Our congresscritters are bit players in the drama.

There's a big corruption trial going on, run by a Republican US attorney who's muttered something about running for office, and many of the players in the McG business are involved in that trial. Republicans don't have a lot of power around here, but do have a good sense of smell when blood is involved.

The Democratic party in NJ is run by a bunch of local county leaders who tend to hate each other. McG has pissed a few of them off. Others may be on their way to jail.

I think the main reason McG wants to stay around until November is that he wants to wait until after the election to set things up for the new interim governor.

New Jersey has no lieutenant governor, and the governor has extraordinary powers, including legislative assignments. Being the most powerful governor in the country has certain advantages when settling scores.

The screaming and scheming from all sides is all local, with everyone looking for an advantage, or a quick score. It won't settle down for a while, and will be fun watching.

I just don't understand the timing of this. It's bad for all sides coming this close to the election. Methinks it wasn't actually planned, but just kind of got out of hand.