Why is Menendez having a hard time closing the sale in NJ?

[WI_DEM]

He is the incumbent. He is a democrat in a solidly democratic state, and yet a new poll has Kean leading 44-39 percent?

www.rasmussenreports.com

This is a reversal of a 2-point Menendez lead a month ago. Other polls show the race close as well.

I've heard that people are not happy with Gov. Conzine and it is spelling over into this race. Is there anything to that?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. The polls have been flip-flopping daily between the two of them.

One of my theories about Menendez having a hard time is the fact that he comes from probably the most corrupt county in a corrupt state. A lot of the politicans he started out with ended up getting indicted, but Menendez was not one of those corrupt ones. My father actually was good friends with the guy when he was a politican in Union City.

However, with Corzine we don't seem to hate him any more than our other governors. Unfortunately, Corzine ended up with a totally bankrupt mess of a state and he's getting the fallout from what others left for him.

[rfranklin]

2. Menendez is part of the Dem machine and associated with...

all the negative crap that the Dems have been responsible for over the years.

[Jersey Devil]

3. The Kean name is very popular in NJ

I think that is part of it. If 46% of the American public thinks Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11, a number I read over the past few days, then consider how many people probably still think that Kean Jr is the former Governor and Chairman of the 9/11 Commission. Also, Menendez is far from a household name in NJ and if you asked who he was before his appointment to the Senate probably very few people would have recognized his name.

Another part is that Kean is heaping dirt on Menendez, trying to tie him to every scandal to ever hit New Jersey (and there are plenty of those), including the latest one involving the resignation of the NJ Attorney General (who Menendez supported) for trying to fix a traffic ticket for her boyfriend.

Kean is also making a huge effort to distance himself from Bush on Iraq.

NJ is not the "blue" state that you think. As recently as 6 years ago we had a Repub governor and both houses of the legislature were GOP as well.

Past experience with polling in NJ, however, has almost always indicated a whisker close race until the actual vote when the Dem usually runs 6-10 points ahead of his polls. I still think Menendez will win, but it will be pretty close.

[SheilaT]

4. Be prepared for some

"unexpected" results come November.

[Idioteque]

5. Corzine should have stayed in the Senate

Codey sbould have run for governor. They were both doing a good job, there was no reason for them to switch.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Corzine really angered me when he left the Senate. These guys...

don't understand the stakes in this game we're playing.

[Jersey Devil]

7. As I said earlier, they think Junior is Daddy

Not only is Kean Sr. a onetime governor -- he's the former president of Drew University in Madison and the acclaimed chairman of the federal 9/11 Commission that investigated the terrorist attacks. That's a great resume for the U.S. Senate.

The candidate, however, is his son, Kean Jr., a state senator...

A poll by the Eagleton Institute of Politics earlier this year gave some credence to that argument. It noted that the race was a virtual dead heat, but also that when voters definitely knew the candidate was Kean Jr., Menendez had a lead of nine percentage points, 42 to 33.

http://www.mydd.com/