U.S. Attorney

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie is in a statistical dead head with Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in a 2009 gubernatorial poll: Getty Images Photo
A new Quinnipiac University poll released early this morning shows Gov. Jon Corzine and U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie are in a statistical dead heat in the 2009 race for Governor.  Corzine leads Christie 41%-40%. 

"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 F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.  

There's another statewide campaign in New Jersey next winter: the race to succeed Christopher Christie as the United States Attorney - a post that holds considerable power and visibility, and potentially a launching pad for higher public office.   By tradition, federal prosecutors submit their resignations to coincide with the inauguration of a new President. 

If John McCain wins, possible candidate for U.S. Attorney include McCain state campaign director Rick Mroz, a former Chief Counsel to Gov. Christine Todd Whitman; and State Sen. Bill Baroni, the Chairman of McCain's New Jersey campaign.  Mroz runs former Assemblyman/BPU Commissioner Edward Salmon's consulting firm, and is associated with former Cumberland County GOP Chairman Lawrence Pepper's law firm.  Baroni is a Seton Hall University law professor, and has been on Team McCain since 1999, when he worked on the national campaign staff as McCain's advanceman. 

McCain could also go with one of Christie's deputies, like First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra or Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Brown.

Some political insiders say that U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, a likely candidate for the 2009 Republican gubernatorial nomination, might have crossed the line last weekend when he criticized Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello, a candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, in a speech before a non-political group last weekend.  "I don't think it's helpful when a mayor of a town in New Jersey stands up at a rally and calls people he believes to be undocumented 'pinkos' and communists,” the Daily Record reported him as saying.