Saturday at Corruption Junction
Paul Mulshine takes a walk down Trenton's memory lane and concludes

I can't help but note that the drunks and lotharios of that era ran the state just as well without an income tax as the current drab crowd does while raising taxes every year.

Jim looks at Golan Cipel -- a day at the office. You know things have been rough that this headline is news Friendly reception for McG at bill signing. Mark Steyn says Kerry has made a big mistake in campaigning on his Vietnam war record, and compares Kerry to McGreevey,

The Kerry campaign’s bumbling ineptness this last month is a bit of a stunner to those of us who followed Bill Clinton for eight years. The Democrats may not know how to run a school district or a highway department, but they’re supposed to be able to run scandals.
Consider, by way of comparison, James E. McGreevey, Democratic Governor of New Jersey. A couple of weeks ago, Governor McGreevey turned up for a 4 p.m. press conference with his wife loyally standing by his side and declared, ‘My truth is that I am a gay American.’
The following day it emerged that other folks’ truth is that McGreevey’s a corrupt sexual predator who got the hots for an Israeli poet, put him on the payroll as the state’s $110,000-per-annum homeland security adviser, a position for which he had no obvious qualification, and allegedly forcibly performed oral sex on him as well as other acts, one of which may or may not have been responsible for the Governor mysteriously breaking a leg on the beach this summer.
I thought McGreevey’s moment-of-truth press conference performance was completely revolting, even before it emerged that ‘I am a gay American’ was a phrase ‘developed’ by the Governor in consultation with a gay rights group that tested it in focus groups.
At one level, this is utterly contemptible. But at another it’s magnificently professional. The New Jersey Dems have arranged things to deny the people an early chance to vote on McGreevey’s replacement and, by the time they do get their say, the hack machine pol who’ll be taking over from him will be running as an established incumbent.

John McLaughlin says that as long as the governor keeps his pledge to stick around, John Kerry ought to be able to carry New Jersey easily. Corzine's off to Sudan this weekend -- maybe. Update: Meanwhile, the GOP turns up heat on McGreevey to leave, while a website wants him to stay.

In the "is this news?" department, the Star Ledger says

Republican politicians vying for their party's nomination next year are using the convention as a profile-boosting opportunity, hitting pre- and postconvention parties, making contacts with potential campaign contributors and showering New Jersey delegates with favors large and small

One only hope the favors are not too large.

John, however, writes about the new NJ jokes, while Barista -- in a not-totally-unrelated post -- plugs Weird New Jersey. Kathleen offers support.

Six days: "New Jerseyans have six days to persuade Gov. James E. McGreevey to leave office and allow a special election to be held to fill the remaining year of his term. Unless that happens by Sept. 3, an unelected politician will serve both as acting governor and Senate president until January 2006"