The poll of registered voters found that 90 percent agree that the state budget is in a serious fiscal crisis. Sixty-nine percent said state government has not managed its finances well over the past three years.

And 58 percent don’t think the state government is in a good position to deal with the current financial crisis.

However, only 22 percent have read or heard a lot about Corzine’s state budget plan, the poll says.

I would link the Daily Record article, but they pull their articles offline after a few days and you wouldn’t be able to get there (just go to their site and look for it today – should be one of the top stories). The article shows the inherent bias in New Jersey’s major media outlets in favor of Governor Corzine with lines such as, “Corzine has ‘not been doing a good job communicating the soundness of this budget or the necessity of the cuts that he’s making,’ Murray said.” Really? A reporter actually took this obviously biased quote from the Director of the Polling Institute and used it verbatim in the article? So anyone reading this article quickly may only recall later on that Corzine has a sound budget and that cuts are a necessity. Moronic work on behalf of Gannett.

Those of us who live in New Jersey can feel the change coming. Governor Money Bags ran on a platform of understanding that the common man in New Jersey is hurting and struggling to make ends meet under the weight of the state’s taxes with property taxes being the biggest burden. So what does he do? He increases the sales tax, does away with the property tax rebate, and adds a large variety of new taxes and fees. Governor Corzine has broken the back of New Jersey’s middle class. If such strong familial and community bonds didn’t exist throughout this state, we’d be losing people left and right to our neighboring states.

Corzine is ripe to be kicked out of office…now let’s see if the Republicans can put up a decent enough candidate in Chris Christie to actually change this state for the good!

Anyway, I bring this up because I saw the results of the poll on the Daily Record website a few days ago. Here are the results in their entirety as printed in the Daily Record:

TRENTON — U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie hasn’t said whether he’ll run for governor, but he’d start such a race slightly trailing Gov. Jon S. Corzine, according to results of a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

Corzine is favored 42 percent to 36 percent among 2,020 registered voters in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup against Christie. Much of the advantage results from the state’s overwhelming Democratic edge in voter registration, as Christie holds a 38 percent to 32 percent edge among independents.

The two had been tied in polls conducted in August and September. The new poll was done from Nov. 12 to Nov. 17, culminating on the day Christie announced he will resign his post on Dec. 1 — news that sparked talk of a long-anticipated gubernatorial run.

The poll also showed New Jersey disapproves of Corzine’s job performance by a 46 percent to 43 margin and say he doesn’t deserve to be re-elected by a 51 percent to 37 percent margin.

Those numbers are poor but improving, Quinnipiac pollster Clay F. Richards said.

“The long coattails of Barack Obama have reached down into New Jersey and helped Gov. Jon Corzine’s re-election prospects, at least for now,” Richards said.

The poll showed few voters are aware of Christie, despite his nearly seven years as the state’s top federal prosecutor. Seventy percent of respondents said they have not heard enough about Christie to have an opinion about him, compared with 11 percent who aren’t aware enough of the state’s governor.

“That will change as we move along and we get a race,” Richards said.

The poll’s margin of error was 2.2 percent.

I find it interesting that there is no mention of how these votes breakout demographically or geographically. For example, I was asked about my ethnic background as well as what type of area I live in – suburban, rural, or urban. Having studied polling and the ways that pollsters can manipulate the results of such questions, I’m surprised that there is no breakdown of percentage of voters located in urban areas who are pro-Corzine or pro-Christie vs. percentage of voters in suburban or rural areas.

Hmmm…trying to hide the gigantic gap in the number of urban Republicans and suburban and rural Democrats maybe? Everyone in the state knows that Democrats win in New Jersey because the heavily urban areas are so highly populated and are so firmly in the Democratic column that it’s not worth the money to campaign in those areas. I just wish that a respected polling group like Quinnipiac University would sort of put that information out there in the public domain as part of the results of their survey. Why not add a line stating, “As has usually been the case in New Jersey, of the 2,020 registered voters who were polled, 85% of them were located in urban areas. Of these voters, 95% identified as Democratic voters.”

We all know it’s true – just looking for some more truth and full disclosure in the media.

Republican Borough Councilman Bill Doran easily won re-election to the council Tuesday, and first-time Republican Dr. Stephen Sadow will also be joining the council in January.

Both Republicans bested Democrats Robert Silkes and David Karpman in Tuesday’s election.

Doran received 1,052 votes, while Sadow garnered 1,068 votes. Silkes received 920 votes while Karpman received 834 votes.

According to Borough Clerk Linda DeSantis, there were also a total of 513 write-in votes, which were not tabulated Tuesday night because they did not add up to enough to denote a winner. Republicans Steve Lardiere and Christopher Kelley both waged unsuccessful write-in campaigns, posting signs around the borough urging their election to the council.

Sadow will replace Republican KerriAnn Mulligan on the borough’s governing body. Mulligan did not seek re-election to the council.

In the race for U.S. President, Sen. Barack Obama received 1,034 votes while Sen. John McCain received 1,449 votes.

Of about 3,600 registered voters, a total of 2,483 cast votes Tuesday. That’s a voter turnout of about 69 percent.

Nice to see a voter turnout of 69 percent – that’s not bad in America, though I expected it to be higher given that this is a Presidential election year and given the historic race where both a woman and a black man were on opposing tickets. As is usual, Mount Arlington voted decidedly Republican in this year’s elections. I find it interesting that write-in candidates for Borough Council received 513 votes. That’s nothing to scoff at and since the write-in candidates were both Republicans, they certainly helped to close the gap between the Republicans and Democrats in this race. In fact, the Democrats only lost one of the elections by 149 votes – a very impressive vote tally for the Democrats in Mount Arlington.

Anyway, with all of the posts and discussion about the Presidential election I just wanted to comment on the local election, too!