Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney, a Gloucester County Democrat who is poised to become Senate President, said today that Democrats should focus on the economy, not same-sex marriage.

"One of the things that’s wrong with the Democrat party is that the focus is on this issue when we have many others that should be really taking priority," Sweeney said at the New Jersey League of Municipalities convention in Atlantic City. He called same-sex marriage "an important social issue that will have its day," but said that after November's election his party should realize that the economy is the most important issue. 

His comments may further chip away at the chances for same-sex marriage passing in New Jersey. Gay rights advocates had hoped to move marriage legislation through the "lame duck" session of the Legislature that kicks off Monday. For them, the timing has become more urgent because Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie, who takes office in January, has said he would veto a same-sex marriage bill.

Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex) and Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts (D., Camden) have said they would not put the bill up for a vote unless it has the support to pass. Roberts, also on the panel with Sweeney, said he supports same-sex marriage, but reiterated that he won't bring it for a vote until it has sufficient backing.

Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R., Morris), said the issue should be put to voters, drawing applause from a number of municipal officials watching the panel.

The topic came up at a leaders' panel hosted by NJN's Michael Aron. After Aron led a political discussion for NJN'S On The Record television show, the audience got to ask questions. When one person asked about the lame duck session, Aron specifically asked about same-sex marriage.

"I thought you were finished with your questions," Roberts quipped, winning laughter. 

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The post-mortems are in, and the consensus among reporters is that Gov. Corzine lost for three big reasons:

- he failed to ease the property tax burden and repair state finances, two of the key promises of his 2005 campaign

- he never mastered politics, standing aloof from the political players he needed to help move his agenda, backing off of too many fights and failing to connect with the public he was leading

- he was hit with an economic storm that made all his inherent problems worse.

Here are some takes. Tom Moran of the Star-Ledger says it was a "pointed personal loss" for Corzine, who he described as the state's "unabashed liberal leader."

"He promised to ease the burden of property taxes and failed. He promised to use his Wall Street savvy to fix the state’s ever-broken finances, and he failed again," Moran wrote.

The Record's Charlie Stile writes that "For all his smarts, ambition and, of course, his money . . . Corzine never mastered the art of politics." He says the governor didn't learn he had to promote his own ideas, failed to take care of image problems and was stubbornly attached even to "politically radioactive" ideas.

Ross Baker, a Rutgers political scientist, told David Kocieniewski of The New York Times that Corzine was too timid to see his visions through. Kocieniewski writes that Corzine's "inability to stare down the state’s free-spending Legislature and its public employee unions doomed his efforts to straighten out New Jersey’s troubled finances."

My story took a look at how economic issues -- taxes, the recession, Corzine's ill-fated attempt to deal with state debt -- cost the governor who was sold as having economic expertise.

Those stories examined the four year arc of Corzine's time in Trenton. The particulars of Election Day came down to two big story lines: motivated Republicans turned out huge for Christie, while unenthusiastic Democrats delivered diminished margins in their party's strong holds.

We look at how the GOP-heavy Shore counties gave Christie a massive boost. The Star-Ledger examined the low turn out in Democratic bastions.

The most thorough vote break-down I have seen comes from Patrick Murray of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. On his blog, Murray takes a look at region-by-region results. His biggest conclusions: turnout was down overall, but way up among Republicans in Ocean and Monmouth counties, and down in key Democratic counties, Hudson and Essex. And that Middlesex, which swung from a 17.6 point Corzine win in 2005 to a 2.7 point loss this year, may be the state's new bellwether.

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Republican Gov.-elect Chris Christie spent the second day after his election much like the first: with a Democratic leader in a Democratic town talking about bipartisanship.

Christie went to Woodbridge Thursday, a blue collar Middlesex County town, one of the biggest municipalities in the state, that typically votes Democratic but backed the Republican Tuesday. Christie greeted residents on Main Street alongside Democratic Mayor John McCormac, a former state Treasurer. The previous day Christie was greeted at a Newark charter school along with Democratic power broker Steve Adubato, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo.

The message today was just like Wednesday's: Christie said he would work with anyone who is effective, Democrat or Republican. "New Jersey's problems are too big for the petty kind of politics of the past," he said. It's a practical message -- Christie will still have to work with a Legislature controlled by Democrats.

Christie has always been a forceful presence, and it appears that that will continue, including in his dealings with the press. While reporters normally shout over one another to get their questions in, the former prosecutor was in control of his press availability, calling out reporters by name to take their questions and imposing some order on the normally chaotic scrum.

Christie said he had spoken with President Obama, who campaigned for Gov. Corzine, and that there are no hard feelings between himself and the president. He said he also spoke with Corzine and expected the transition to go smoothly.

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