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Democrats will be able to separate the presidential contest— decided Nov. 2—from any discussion of New Jersey state corruption, put off until the 2005 election for governor and legislature.
But the Republicans are now demanding McGreevey’s resignation be tendered by early September, which would put the governorship and the presidency on the Jersey ballot simultaneously. It is unlikely they will succeed, since they have no real leverage. The legislature is in Democratic hands, so no impeachment will be possible.
Still, the GOP goal is to remind voters on a daily basis of McGreevey’s failed governorship, in an attempt to generate a backlash that might help Bush. With Kerry ahead in the Garden State by at least 10 percentage points, the only chance for Republicans to carry the state for Bush is to make Kerry a surrogate for McGreevey, using both their shared party label and association with gay rights.
The Crystal Ball’s assessment: good try by the GOP, but it won’t work. New Jersey is an eastern Illinois, once very competitive in presidential elections and otherwise, but now so deeply anti-Republican that voters will tolerate incredible shenanigans by the Democrats. Remember the Democratic party’s late substitution of exSenator Frank Lautenberg for the losing incumbent Senator Bob Ibrricelli in 2002? It worked. The voters swallowed that arrogant gambit whole, and the Democrats kept the Senate seat in a near-landslide. The national situation
After McGreevey the Democrats may have New Jersey locked up, except in the very unlikely case of a Bush landslide, but the Republicans can squeeze some advantage out of the messy McGreevey matter in some of the key battleground states. Here’s how. As of now, it appears that there will be referenda in 11 states on the subject of gay marriage, held simultaneously with the November presidential election: Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah. Notice that this includes the swing states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Oregon.
Missouri has already had its referendum on primary day, Aug. 3, and the results were stunningly one-sided: 71 percent in favor of keeping marriage between a man and a woman, only 29 percent in favor of permitting same-gen
95.6%