Morning Nosh

  1. Is it just us, or does Chris Daggett's name seem to be evaporating from news stories regarding the gubernatorial race?
  2. An exception: the Star-Ledger reports that Daggett is getting calls from high-placed officials in the GOP asking him to drop out.
  3. Corzine is attacking Christie over his lack of support for free public preschool, and vowed to fund another 71,000 slots. Okay. At $11,000 a tot (it's actually closer to $12K for start-ups), that's a mere $781,000,000. Yet we're cutting school aid. You do the math.
  4. The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Corzine up 5 points.
  5. In the Lobby notes that New Jersey is home to 7 of the 10 highest-taxed counties in the country: Westchester County, NY ($8,404); Hunterdon County, NJ ($8,347); Nassau County, NY ($8,306); Bergen County, NJ ($7,997); Rockland County, NY ($7,798); Essex County, NJ ($7,676); Somerset County, NJ ($7,676); Morris County, NY ($7,310); Passaic County, NJ ($7,095); and Union County, NJ ($7,058).
  6. From Politickernj:

    The outcome of the 2009 campaign for Governor of New Jersey is not historically significant to Barack Obama's presidency. It is almost twice as likely that New Jerseyans elect a governor who is not a member of the president's party. Indeed, the party of the incumbent president is 15-26 in New Jersey gubernatorial races since a Democrat won in Abraham Lincoln's mid-term election.

  7. The Star-Ledger on how the next N.J. governor has the opportunity to remake the court: It’s not the hottest issue on the campaign trail, but how the candidates for governor stand on the appointment of state Supreme Court justices could have an impact on New Jersey for years to come.That’s because the next governor could remake the seven-member court by appointing as many as four justices — and loading a majority of the bench to suit his political philosophy as New Jersey struggles with complicated issues such as taxes, gay marriage and school funding.
  8. The New York Times cautions that when Arne Duncan closed failing schools in Chicago, there was little meaningful academic achievement for students.