Popularity slipping, Corzine has work to do

Many voters don't like Democratic Gov. Corzine, despite his progress on promises to cut state spending and to support tougher ethics laws, two areas where residents wanted action.

Critics say he hasn't kept his promise to fix the state's despised property-tax system, which stands as the top issue in New Jersey.

Independent polls show voters blame the governor for high taxes, whether he has a major role to play in them or not, and even for the sour economy as a whole. All this comes as he seeks reelection against the lesser-known Republican Christopher J. Christie, who has been beating him in polls since last summer.

In a stunning analysis, the Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute reported last month: "Voters say 49-43 percent that he does not care about their needs and problems and say 52-29 percent that he is cold and businesslike, not warm and friendly. Voters also say 50-44 percent that because of his wealth, Corzine is unable to understand average New Jersey residents."

Perhaps that is why when Corzine kicked off his reelection campaign he didn't stress his Wall Street background, instead talking about his life as a farm boy and retired Marine.

"It's not Corzine's fault that he's not a back-slapper, but he's not, and people do like to feel comfortable with the people they elect," said Maurice Carroll, director of Quinnipiac's Polling Institute. "I don't think people are going to vote for you just because you are a nice guy, but they like the person they vote for to be a nice guy."

Corzine's slump began in early 2008, when he unveiled a plan to hike tolls in a state dependent on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike, said Patrick Murray, director of Monmouth University's Polling Institute.

"He has no real middle-class accomplishments, according to voters, and his proposal to raise the tolls really just shot him in the foot," Murray said. "He lost all credibility with middle-class New Jersey."

Worse, voters started thinking that Corzine "doesn't get it. He doesn't understand what we're going through to put food on the table, to pay our taxes," Murray said.

His analysis of Monmouth's poll and two other universities' polls shows that as Corzine was putting out his plan to raise tolls and use the toll roads to back billions in bonds, his approval ratings fell. Public opinion became even more negative as Corzine traveled the state promoting his plan.

Even though Corzine never followed through on the bond plan, voters persist in saying they don't approve of the job he's doing.

"He was never able to rebound, like other politicians who'd say, 'Listen, I heard your anger, here's how we're going to resolve it.' That's probably a communication problem," said Ingrid Reed, head of the New Jersey Project at Rutgers University. "This is difficult to deal with because he was never able to engage in an emotional way, like 'I feel your pain.' "

Christie's campaign has been pushing hard on that vulnerability by saying that Corzine doesn't understand New Jersey's pain. Republicans also are trying to link the governor to negative perceptions of Wall Street.

"You would think someone would have been on top of this, especially someone who sold himself as a financial wizard," Christie said at a May news conference, a statement he has often repeated on the campaign trail.

A cable-television ad financed by the Republican Governors Association plays scary music as it accuses Corzine of being a "Wall Street banker."

Corzine's loyalists argue that no one foresaw the depth of this recession, that New Jersey was the first state to pass its own economic-recovery plan, and that the governor has worked hard to protect the state's most vulnerable.

As for the middle class, Corzine took an unexpected windfall from a tax-amnesty program and scrapped plans to cut property-tax rebates for many citizens. And his administration got the state Supreme Court to agree to a new school-funding formula, which redistributes money based on enrollment with extra funds for districts with at-risk children.

But in the only poll taken after Corzine reinstated property-tax rebates for many, voters still weren't embracing him. Fairleigh Dickinson University pollster Peter Woolley found that 54 percent of his respondents had an unfavorable view of the governor.

The one uptick in Corzine's approval ratings came in the final months of last year, as the governor campaigned for Barack Obama for president and shortly after Obama won.

Rider University political scientist Ben Dworkin said the Corzine-Christie race was still forming.

"Jon Corzine needs to convince all these registered Democrats - which vastly outnumber the Republicans - that he needs them to come home," Dworkin said.

It looks like he's starting that early. On July 16, the governor plans to hold a campaign rally with President Obama at Rutgers University.