Last night while en route to the meeting between the Rutgers Ladies Basketball team and Don Imus at DrumTHWACKet (The governor's mansion in Princeton), Governor Jon Corzine was in a serious car accident. His Chevy Tahoe was headed north on the Garden State Parkway when a mysterious red pickup truck suddenly merged into traffic from the right hand shoulder. A white pickup truck swerved to avoid hitting the red truck and as a result, the state trooper driving the Tahoe clipped the white truck and Corzine's Tahoe lost control and hit a guard rail. Governor Corzine was allegedly not wearing his seatbelt so I am sure that the state trooper immediately issued him a ticket with a summons to appear in court because a personal injury was involved, but I digress. The Governor was airlifted to a trauma unit and suffered from a compound fracture to his femur, several broken ribs, broken clavicle, sternum and cracked vertebrae.
The red pickup truck got away and police are now looking for the driver for leaving the scene of an accident.
But this is not the first leg injury to befall our recent NJ governors. So, the question must be asked, who has it in for the Governors of the Garden State?
More below the fold...
Recent history shows that every elected NJ governor since 1999 has suffered from a broken bone in the leg. This article details the following suspicious leg injuries:
- In 1999, Christine Todd Whitman broke her ankle while skiing in Switzerland. She was a Republican so this might be just a warm up for our serial limb breaker's nefarious plans.
- In 2002, Jim McGreevy, during one of his straight moments, was walking on a beach in Cape May with his wife Dina, when he "tripped" over a grain of treacherous sand and broke his femur. But it was only a simple break and only at one spot. Nevertheless, our breaker is getting bolder.
- Yesterday, Corzine's leg was broken in two spots and the injury penetrated the skin. Clearly, the culprit has perfected his technique and has apparently gotten away with it.
But has he?
As noted before, the police are still looking for the owner of the red pickup truck that got away from the scene. Could it have been driven by this man, Richard Codey?
Richard Codey is the president of the state senate and a Democrat. In NJ, we do not have a Lieutenant Governor and won't get one until 2010. Until then, the State Senate President is our backup. Codey became acting governor after Jim McGreevey discovered he wasn't straignt after all in August 2004. He served until January 2006 when Corzine took over. His term was marked by competence and popularity. He defended Brooke Shields over her use of medication for postpartum depression and threatened to work over a talk radio host who made fun of his wife Mary Jo for her postpartum depression. He signed into law a no-smoking ban, which made him popular with the soccer moms and non-smokers. He increased money for stem cell research, mental health and sports. He even endorsed John Edwards on the same day that Corzine endorsed Hillary Clinton.
Oh, sure, he says he's not ambitious and Corzine clearly had the edge financially in the governor's race but the man finally had a taste of success and probably an inkling that he could have been a contender. That incident on the ski slope was just a warm up. Cleary, a slippery, specially designed grain of silica was meticulously placed to trip McGreevy up and cause him to question his sexuality and whether he could hide it any longer.
So, where was Codey last night? Was he anywhere in the vicinity of Atlantic City? Did anyone actually see him yesterday before the accident? Does he drive a red pickup truck? And MOST damning of all, how is it that Codey himself has never suffered from a broken leg when he was governor? He is now acting governor, once again, while Corzine recuperates. Will he escape unscathed? What legislation will he sign while he is in office this time? And will this embolden him to ditch state politics for the US Senate to replace the octogenarian Frank Lautenberg? (Should Frank stay off the beaches, ski-slopes and NJ Turnpike?)
Enquiring minds want to know...