"What did you think when the governor comes out with this ad [about] you 'throwing your weight around'?" Fox News' Sean Hannity asked in a recent interview.

"I wish he'd just step up and admit it," Christie said. "I mean, admit that's what they were trying to do. And the fact of the matter is, I've struggled with my weight for a good number of years."

I feel for you, Chris, being a bit, ahem, portly myself. But hey, what about your ads accusing Corzine of "being in bed" with the unions? Isn't that a reference to Corzine's old girlfriend, former Communications Workers of America Local 1034 president Carla Katz?

Neither innuendo did much more than produce a few chuckles. Christie has dropped from double-digit leads in the polls to a statistical dead heat due to two factors - an attractive third candidate who is pulling voters from both Christie and Corzine, and voters' realization that Christie is full of hot air.

He still hasn't produced the specifics about his budget plans that his opponent in the Republican primary, Steve Lonegan, began asking for nearly a year ago. Christie no longer even promises to be more specific, saying Corzine hasn't revealed all his plans either.

But Corzine has a record as governor that voters can look to in evaluating how he would handle their money. Christie has no such record and won't produce specific plans. Trust me, he's saying. But that's not enough to put him in charge of the state.

Christie says he will cut taxes, cut spending, and keep handing out property-tax rebates. But he won't tell voters how. Will he drop the top income-tax rate? Will he reduce the number of tax brackets? He won't say, and voters are taking that to mean he doesn't know.

That's hard to swallow when Christie has plenty of criticism for the very specific tax plan of independent candidate Chris Daggett. Voters may not like Daggett's idea to expand the sales tax to more businesses, but they like that he is at least offering an idea that could lower their property taxes.

All Christie is offering is platitudes, and that's not enough to warrant putting him in Corzine's place.

Christie knows this. So, his whole campaign has been designed to pull attention from him by focusing on Corzine. He's hoping voters won't remember that much of the economic mess Corzine inherited can be traced to another Christie - former Republican Gov. Christie Todd Whitman.

She was swept into office after campaigning, much like her namesake, to cut taxes and spending. She cut taxes all right, but tripled the state's debt. That pattern continued through the administration of Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey, who even wanted to borrow money for operating expenses.

Who brought some sanity to the situation? Corzine.

He is the first New Jersey governor in 60 years to actually reduce the size of government. The state has 8,200 fewer employees. He has cut state spending two years in a row, with a budget for fiscal 2010 that is $1.8 billion smaller than his first budget in 2006, yet he has increased school funding.

Speaking of schools, it took Corzine to finally get rid of the long-criticized dual system of funding education that gave a disproportionate share of state dollars to the "Abbott" schools at the expense of other schools that had almost as many poor students. It was an outstanding achievement.

There's more. The unions' bedmate has increased the retirement age for state workers to 62 from 55, has state employees for the first time contributing to their health care, and negotiated a 7.5 percent wage cut for public employees. Meanwhile, he's added 90,000 more children to the state's health insurance program.

Corzine's background in finance has been an asset in the recession. You can't discount his leadership in New Jersey's having a home-foreclosure rate 50 percent lower than the national average.

And Corzine is correctly pointing out that Christie's mantra to cut spending is only a partial answer. The state's massive debt must be addressed. It has grown from about $5 billion when Whitman became governor in 1994 to more than $30 billion now, requiring $3 billion in annual debt service.

Give Corzine credit for a constitutional amendment that requires all new borrowing by the state to be approved by voters. He also issued an executive order that requires new spending to match recurring revenue.

Unlike past governors, he has not shirked the state's duty to fulfill its pension obligations, and he's made New Jersey a leader in reducing carbon dioxide pollution.

So, if Corzine is all that, why is he in a dead heat with Christie, with Daggett nipping at their heels?

First, property taxes are too high. Then, there are the fear and anger that come part and parcel with a recession, much of that anger rightly aimed at public officials at all levels, whom the public had trusted to keep tabs on Wall Street (where Corzine headed Goldman Sachs).

People want to throw all the bums out, and Corzine just happens to be the only governor up for reelection this year. Members of Congress, you're next.

Corzine also has been hurt by Christie's attempts to tie him to every corrupt Democrat that ever crawled from under a rock. Christie wants voters to ignore Corzine's executive orders that have closed loopholes in pay-to-play laws and tightened financial-disclosure rules.

Corzine's ads accusing Christie of "throwing his weight around" as U.S. attorney to avoid paying penalties for traffic, tax, and ethics-rules violations may have helped him some. But that tactic originated with Lonegan, who questioned Christie's ethics with radio ads that said he gave pals no-bid federal contracts.

So, who's going to win? Months ago, I couldn't go to my gym in Turnersville without hearing someone say Corzine had to go. But now - maybe because people would rather talk about the Phillies and Eagles, maybe because they're tired of all the TV ads - they're not complaining about Corzine.

Ergo, the collapse of Christie's lead.