Garden State Patriot

We turn from polls to tolls! Looks like Corzine might have made a major blunder in the waning days of the campaign. In a New York Times article, the Governor actually hinted that was willing to revisit his failed plan to monetize our roads:

The Democratic governor, Jon S. Corzine, says he may revisit his plan to lease the New Jersey Turnpike to raise cash — a proposal that he abandoned last year in the face of intense opposition from lawmakers and voters.

“We’ve been prepared to come up with more outside-of-the-box ideas, and we’ll come up with more,” he said. “But in the seeds of this there are unattractive alternatives.”

Mr. Corzine’s most ambitious effort, a plan to pay down debt by selling the New Jersey Turnpike, died in the Democratic-run Legislature in 2008. Now he calls the idea “too big, too fast, at the wrong time” and says state residents, already sensing the coming recession, were unwilling to accept the toll increases it would entail.

“This idea worked,” the governor said, adding, “So maybe we just need to scale it back.”

Christie was quick to jump on this saying:

“As if $9 billion in new taxes, the highest tax burden in the country and the highest property taxes in the nation isn’t enough, Jon Corzine wants to pay off the debt he’s created by making suffocating New Jerseyans pay even more in the form of an 800 percent toll hike. Let’s face it, Jon Corzine likes raising taxes and he’s never going to stop doing it,” said Christie in a statement this morning.

Of course, the Corzine camp is trying to backpedal on this as fast as possible. But it’s too late. The proverbial horse is out of the barn. And Chris Christie ought to make as much hay out of it as possible all the way up until 8pm Tuesday.

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!