Jersey Shore season unofficially ends on Labor Day, but Barack Obama is said to be heading toward the beach four days after the holiday to raise money, with a little help from Jon Bon Jovi.
Obama is planning to visit New Jersey Sept. 5 for two fund-raisers at the Shore homes of rocker Bon Jovi and Democratic National Committee Finance Chairman Philip Murphy.
Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, chairman of New Jersey's Democratic party, told the Newark Star-Ledger of the trip and confirmed it to the Associated Press.
Tickets for the event with Murphy will be $2,300 a person. Bon Jovi's event will come with more of a premium: $28,500, according to AP.
Obama has not been to New Jersey since just before the state's February primary and Republicans have tried to use his limited appearances here as political ammunition. John McCain came to North Jersey to raise money earlier this month.
New Jersey has been one of the most giving states to both candidates. Obama had raised $6.4 million here by the end of June while McCain had raised $2.8 million.

Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex) today called on the New Jersey attorney general and education commissioner to investigate school officials who receive diplomas from unaccredited online colleges. His request comes after the Asbury Park Press detailed how some administrators bumped up their resumes and salaries by obtaining the degrees, with taxpayers picking up the tab.
"Giving these individuals the benefit of the doubt that they may not have known all the details about these cracker jack universities, if they really want to save taxpayers' money, they should give back their salary increases and reimburse taxpayers for the money spent to take these so-called courses," Codey said in a statement.
He said he would introduce a bill to require school officials to receive degrees from accredited universities if they want pay increases and tuition reimbursement.

Days after the state Department of Education released a report showing the salary, retirement buy outs and other perks for the state's top school administrators, the Asbury Park Press' Alan Guenther had this report showing that some school leaders use so-called "diploma mills" to boost their resumes and pay. The easy-to-get diplomas were, in some cases, paid for by the public:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808170437

Also this weekend, The Star-Ledger's Claire Heininger takes a look at Gov. Corzine's recent flurry of national television appearances. He says it gives him unfiltered access to a large audience, while critics say it may look like he cares more about being on TV than running the state.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-11/121903412098810.xml&coll=1

   Democratic Sen. Barack Obama tops Republican Sen. John McCain 51 percent to 41 among likely New Jersey voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning.
   Obama won support from 94 percent of black voters and had a 15 point lead among women voters, the poll found.
   Republicans have talked up their chances of taking New Jersey's electoral votes for the first time since 1988, and Tuesday a washingtonpost.com map labeled the state a "battleground," but this is the second poll of the summer giving Obama a double-digit lead. A Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll released in July had Obama up by 14 points.
   "New Jersey continues to wear its true blue stripes and appears to be solidly in Sen. Obama's corner heading into the fall campaign. Like most strong Republican contenders, Sen. John McCain can wish, but it is unlikely that he can swing the tide in New Jersey unless he swings the tide dramatically nationwide," said Clay Richards, assistant director of Quinnipiac's polling institute.

   Both New Jersey and Pennsylvania are labeled battleground, at least according to a map of the political landscape created by the Washington Post.

   The map lays out the field in the presidential race, marking 16 states as "battlegrounds."

   New Jersey has a strong Democratic party and hasn't supported a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, but Republicans here have been making noise about making a run at the Garden State's 15 electoral votes after President Bush came within 7 percentage points of John Kerry in 2004.

   Sen. Bill Baroni, the chairman of the McCain campaign in New Jersey, laid out his case for taking New Jersey in an Inquirer profile of him Sunday. 

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/26481709.html

   And Sen. John McCain is scheduled to visit North Jersey today for a fund raiser.

   Democrats, however, point to their huge advantage in registration and say the sagging economy makes voters hungry for new leadership in Washington. Despite the Post's analysis, a recent Monmouth University poll gave Barack Obama a 14 point lead in New Jersey. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/

   U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie would be virtually tied in a race against Gov. Corzine according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning.

   The poll found that 41 percent of registered voters would back Christie compared to 40 percent for Corzine.

   Christie, who has made his reputation as a corruption fighter with a series of high-profile prosecutions, is widely considered Republicans' best shot in next year's governor's race. He has not said whether he will run.

   "Gov. Jon Corzine is in trouble. Since most New Jersey voters say they don't know a lot about Christopher Christie, Gov. Corzine's record and inability to unscramble the state's budget mess is pulling him down," said Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

   The poll found New Jersey voters disapprove of Corzine's job performance 48 percent to 42, an improvement over the 52 percent disapproval he faced in a June 11 poll.

   The poll surveyed 1,519 registered New Jersey voters and has a 2.5 percent margin of error.

   On the U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg leads Republican challenger Dick Zimmer 48-41 among likely New Jersey voters. The poll included 1,468 likely voters.

 

   If you’ve even thought for a moment of holding public office, New Jersey officials provided a key lesson last week in the dos and don’ts of traffic stops.

   She blocked a lane of traffic for around seven minutes, and when she didn’t get satisfaction from the cops promised to call "the real police" – meaning the Newark Police Department – and promptly did, summoning more officers to the scene of a routine traffic stop.

"The scene unfolds in an almost excruciatingly slow fashion," a judge would later write.

   "You don’t know who I am?" Rone asked at one point.

   "She was relentless and obstreperous in her conduct," Essex County Superior Court Judge Patricia K. Costello would conclude.

Rone wound up getting herself arrested, and convicted, for obstruction of justice and fined. Tuesday Costello added the finishing touch, writing in a ruling posted online by The Star-Ledger that Rone had abused her office, potentially damaged the public trust and must forfeit her council seat, never to hold public office again.

   That stands in sharp contrast to the actions of Attorney General Anne Milgram, the boss of the state police, who, pulled over Friday for doing 69 miles-per-hour in a 50 m.p.h. zone in her 1994 Honda Accord, accepted her ticket and put out a news release informing the public of the situation and acknowledging her mistake Monday.

   "I made a mistake and I know what I did was wrong," Milgram said in the statement. "I take responsibility for driving too fast." she said in the statement.

   My bad. Sorry about that. Fuss averted.

   (One of Milgram’s predecessors, Attorney General Zulima Farber, lost her job after intervening in a traffic stop involving her boyfriend, also arriving in a state vehicle flashing her lights).

   The enduring mystery, however, for anyone who has ever driven the area on Route 1 where Milgram was ticketed, is this: how in that maze of Central Jersey strip malls, fast food joints, traffic and stop lights, does a driver get moving faster than 50?

   That’s a lesson I’d love to learn.

 

GOP challenger Dick Zimmer can be expected to indirectly - at least - raise Democrat Frank Lautenberg's age, as he does in this advertisement, now on his campaign web site. Note Launtenberg stumbling his way through that sentence, and the not so subtle reminder that his U.S. Senate career dates to 1982.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwUfBBJkQq8

The videos on Lautenberg's web site date back to the primary campaign. He being the favored incumbent, there is no mention of Zimmer. Here is a sample of what Lautenberg was telling voters this spring.

http://www.lautenbergfornj.com/multimedia/video?id=0005