Corzine-Weinberg Lies, Deceipt And Manipulation
The latest Corzine-Weinberg campaign e-mail is so chock full of lies, deceipt and manipulation I couldn’t let it go. The e-mail begins by touting Corzine’s 5-point lead in a ‘widely-respected poll.’ So respected is it that the name of the poll isn’t mentioned, nor is a link provided.
Next, Corzine-Weinberg attempt to demonize Christie on the issue of health insurance mandates. Their campaign has been banging the drum on the mammogram issue for some time now. But their e-mail is a clear attempt at the politics of fear; attempting to manipulate people into thinking that no government mandate would mean insurance companies would not offer coverage of mammograms and autism screenings at all.
Likewise, they attempt to scare people by claiming that Christie would let hospitals discharge moms 24 hours after giving birth. Again, the impression Corzine-Weinberg want to create is a scenario in which a mother and newborn child would be pushed out the door even if they were in no condition to be discharged – as if any well-respected doctor or hospital would allow such a thing. The irony, of course, is that this is exactly the kind of rationing of healthcare we will see if Obamcare becomes the law of the land.
As for paid family leave, what Corzine-Weinberg won’t tell you is that it is a tax for a benefit that most workers will never use in their working lifetime. Paid family leave also puts more pressure on businesses who have to compensate an inactive – and thus unproductive – employee. Moreover, paid leave is unfair to those who work in small companies – something I documented here.
Corzine-Weinberg claim Christie supports a constiutional amendment to ban abortion. I’ve never heard him say such a thing. I have heard Christie say he’s pro-life, but that’s about it. Moreover, even if Christie supported a constitutional amendment, he would have no say in the matter. Such an amendment would have to be passed by Congress and then ratified by the state legislatures.
The Corzine campaign also continues to perpetuate the falsehood that he has cut property taxes. NJ remains worst in the nation for property taxes. Corzine all but elininated our rebates. State aid has been cut to places like my hometown of Hackensack, resulting in considerable increases (when I moved here in 2005 my taxes were over $2500 less than they are now).
On top of this, the Corzine team would have us believe they took stimulus funds and used them to keep property taxes from escalating further. The reality is they took the funds and used it as a one-shot gimmick to plug a gaping budget hole. In other words, Corzine put off the tough choices and, now, the state is staring at a $8B hole next year. And at the same time he raised taxes by a billion dollars! But the idea promulgated here – that rejection of the stimulus funds would result in a $2B increase in property taxes – is pure bunk.
Of course, none of this should be too surprising. When your record is one of abysmal failure, resorting to outright lies and distortions to get re-elected is probably the only card left to play.
Corzine has provided more reasons to vote for Christie than Christie himself.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:02 pmDi Marco:
I was thinking the same thing. In fact, I wrote a comment (or a post, I forget) a while back in which I begged the Corzine operatives to stop making Christie’s case for him by making Christie out to be more Conservative than he is.
But for those of us like me who prefer Corzine to Christie, it is because Corzine is the lesser of the evils, not because he is good. Of course Corzine is doing a horrendous job. And with the low bar that Corzine set, it should have been easy for Christie to articulate policies that made for a clearly better choice.
But Christie refused to do so and continues to do so to this very day. Instead of reacting defensively to Corzine charges about mammograms, Christie could have talked about the policies he would pursue instead of government mandates – and he could have defined government mandates as the imposition on our liberties that they are. But unwilling to challenge the Democrats’ moral demand to force someone other than the patient to pay for another’s health care, he rushed to assure everyone that under a Christie Administration the health care fairy godmother would continue to visit everyone whenever they wished. Such reactions prove the lie that Christie will do anything more to cut spending than Corzine has done. He will not.
Moreover, Chris Christie’s “I’m not Jon Corzine” and “Jon Corzine is a failure” themes are also the epitome of the politics of fear. Mr. Christie’s entire campaign argument has been that we should be afraid of another 4 years of Jon Corzine. There is no positive message offered whatsoever by Mr. Christie. Empty rhetoric devoid of anything meaningful is not a positive message – it is a way of masking the politics of fear on which you are running. It is a way to try to fool people who think you are positive because you can smile and read a script into a camera.
Why Chris Christie refused to identify how he would make New Jersey better – instead of pointing out how Corzine (and now Daggett) will make the state worse – is a question that only he and his campaign operatives can answer. Winning under those circumstances, though, even if they are able to do so, would be a very empty feeling to me because I know they could have had so much more.
Moving New Jersey in a more positive, Conservative direction was within the grasp of Mr. Christie. Instead, he chose to hide any Conservative credentials he has (if he indeed has them) – making him either a liar if he has them, or if he doesn’t it makes him a sleazy opportunist for attacking Jon Corzine while sharing so much fundamental agreement with him.
Regardless of whether Mr. Christie has lied to the public in an attempt to fool them into voting for a Conservative – or if he despises Conservatives as much as his supporters here indicate – voting for him is not something any Conservative can do without walking out of the voting booth feeling dirty and ashamed.
Don’t waste your vote on Chris Christie. Republicans do not believe in welfare – and Mr. Christie has not earned your vote.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:39 pm