The First Tuesday After the First Monday in November Comes but Once per Year

My uncle Bob, the smartest person I know, once explained to me his approach to the most sacred franchise of citizenship. I collect literature, he said. I consider endorsements, he went on. The Monday before the election I give everything I have read and heard careful consideration. And then on Tuesday I enter the booth and vote a straight Democratic ticket.

I continue to find Uncle Bob’s practice eminently sound. It should also be helpful to voters in New Jersey and Virginia in the week ahead.

After a campaign of barely five months duration (A cry of “is that all?” rings across the Garden State.), the choice facing New Jersey voters comes down to the fat one, the incumbent and the other one. Yes, Mr. Christie and his allies have spent tens of millions of dollars to persuade the people of New Jersey that Mr. Corzine is indeed the incumbent. While Mr. Corzine’s campaign has expended even larger sums to bring to the attention of New Jersey voters that Mr. Christie is fat. (Mr. Corzine and his staff have been gobsmacked to learn that ad hominem does not mean “false.”)

The other guy pretty much flew under the radar until two events changed his fortunes. First, the people of New Jersey, or at least 15% of them, discovered that they had a choice other than the incumbent and the fat one. Second, Mr. Christie realized that a candidate who couldn’t even get the endorsement of the Newark Star-Ledger might not be needing that gracious, funny, self-deprecating acceptance speech.

Since pointing at Mr. Corzine and shrieking “incumbent! Incumbent!” wasn’t doing the trick, Mr. Christie turned on the other guy, shrieking “other guy! other guy!”

As neither candidate is fat nor the incumbent, the people of Virginia would seem to face a more difficult and subtle choice. Nothing could be farther (or further, I don’t have my Strunk and White handy) from the truth. Any woman who votes for Bob McDonnell deserves to spend the rest of her life in a chador. As, of course, does any man.

Although there are many municipal elections being held across the country on Tuesday next, they aren’t worthy of your attention or mine as none of those candidates will receive endorsements from the paper of record or the second one, nor the benefit of campaign/fund-raising appearances from our latest Nobel-laureate. And, clearly, nothing brings out A-list checkbooks like a whiff of the Nobel-prize.