By Carl Golden

'Don't look over your shoulder," the legendary baseball pitcher Satchel Paige is quoted as saying. "Something might be gaining on you." For Gov. Corzine and Republican challenger Chris Christie, that something is independent gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggett.

Initially dismissed as a gadfly on an ego trip, Daggett has emerged as a significant - and potentially deciding - factor in the New Jersey race.

Daggett's climb from the third-party wilderness began when he raised the $350,000 required to qualify for public matching funds. His viability was further solidified when he was declared the clear winner in the first gubernatorial debate. He's since received the editorial endorsement of the Newark Star-Ledger and been the subject of a flattering biographical piece in the New York Times. Though he remains in single digits in some polls, he has reached as high as 17 percent of the vote in others.

Daggett's candidacy has become serious enough that opposition researchers working for the Corzine and Christie campaigns have reportedly begun looking into his private business dealings in search of anything damaging. Moreover, Christie recently began referring to the "Corzine-Daggett" tax and budget proposals, tying his two opponents together as fiscal ne'er-do-wells while pushing the message that he's a tax cutter.

Gadflies do not draw that level of attention and concern.

Christie's also been forced to abandon the strategy of ignoring Daggett or portraying him as an inconsequential irritant not worthy of his attention. Recently, he flippantly described the Daggett campaign as an "amusement" - a characterization he may come to regret. It betrayed arrogance and the demeanor of a man in a perpetual state of anger.

Corzine and Christie underestimated the Daggett campaign because they viewed it through the prism of conventional political wisdom and against the background of historical precedent. This fundamental miscalculation was based on past third-party runs, which involved candidates on the ideological fringes promoting ideas and beliefs unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of voters.

Daggett is a moderate, pragmatic personality, dramatically different from those who have sought the governor's office from outside the mainstream parties in the past. His message that New Jersey deserves a governor with the political will and courage to confront the problems afflicting the state has achieved a far greater resonance than those that went before.

His property-tax relief proposal drew an astonishingly favorable response, not so much because of its elements, but because he was the only candidate who stood tall and actually offered a plan. It reinforced his independence and drew sharper focus to what many see as Corzine's disappointing efforts to address the issue and Christie's refusal to offer anything substantial or specific.

A new political environment has developed in New Jersey, and Daggett has benefited enormously from it. More people are deeply disillusioned with a political establishment that they believe is uncaring and interested only in power. There is a growing belief that both major-party candidates have become completely beholden to special interests and, as a result, are incapable of placing the public interest first.

Daggett is not part of the political establishment, nor is he perceived as seeking power exclusively for the sake of it. So the changed political environment works in his favor.

Some continue to dismiss Daggett as a trendy pick, typical of New Jersey voters' tradition of flirting with unorthodox candidates before coming to their senses and understanding that it's a waste to vote for someone who has no practical chance of winning.

It is a Sisyphean task to pry voters away from their partisan beliefs and the political parties of their parents and grandparents. But it's a less onerous task to win the support of unaffiliated voters who take a fierce pride in their lack of strong ties to either political party, and it is to this bloc that Daggett is most appealing.

Daggett cannot compete with the fund-raising and spending of Corzine or Christie. And he can rely on no political party infrastructure to generate voter turnout, financial support, or the level of volunteer involvement that's crucial to successful campaigns.

Consequently, the people who spend their time pondering all these circumstances have concluded he cannot win. Remember, though, it wasn't all that long ago that the world's greatest thinkers were convinced that the Earth was flat.

Carl Golden is a Republican strategist who lives in Burlington Township.