The Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, has had a pretty bad week.
It is showing very few signs of improvement:
The government watch-dog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has jumped into the fray against former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who is now the Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey. CREW is now calling for an investigation by the Office of the Special Counsel, into Christie's recently-revealed conversations with Karl Rove about a potential run for governor while Christie was a U.S. Attorney.
This does a little bit of damage to Christie's protestations yesterday that ethics complaints against him for his Rove connections were merely the rantings of desperate Democrats facing disappointing polling data. CREW is not a partisan organization, and named a number of Democrats to their 2008 edition of the "Most Corrupt Members of Congress." In particular, they have been very critical in the past of not only Bill Jefferson, but also Charlie Rangel and John Murtha.
Christie's connectivity to Rove in this matter presents a pair of political problems for the Republican.
For one thing, it taints a meme that he has been working double-time to establish--one of the (relatively) nonpartisan slayer of corruption. The recent
flood of arrests in the Garden State seemed to be a pitch right in Christie's wheelhouse. Now, the fact that this story is not going away is allowing the press to investigate exactly how much of a corruption fighter Christie really is. For example, over the weekend, The New York Times ran a fairly unflattering profile of Christie's earlier political career, which found that his ethics reform rhetoric did not exactly translate to actual performance in office.
The second problem for Christie is on a base political level. It is not easy for a candidate to win in New Jersey as a flag-waving Republican. Every minute Christie is tied to Rove, he is being tied to a party whose brand name in New Jersey is positively abysmal.
Polls, entirely conducted prior to this story catching fire both locally and nationally, gave Christie a solid lead. That GOP edge in the state, however, has been far from decisive.
One thing is for certain: the last week could not possibly have helped Christie's political aspirations. Jon Corzine may well prove to be the luckiest man in politics if Christie's campaign rationale continues to unravel.