Dem's fightin' words. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in New Jersey to campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, sparked a battle of words with Chris Daggett yesterday when he publicly said no one should vote for the independent because he's got "no chance of winning," according to a published report.
The latest polls show Christie and incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine are locked in a dead heat, with the candidates running at 43 percent and 44 percent, respectively. Daggett has only 6 percent of the vote, according to the Fairleigh Dickinson poll released Friday.
Experts believe Daggett's votes would go to Christie were the independent candidate not in the race, so it's not surprising that Rudy is telling everyone to forget the third guy, reports The New York Post.
Not so willing to be dismissed, Daggett told Giuliani to get out of the Garden State.
"I'd ask him to withdraw from New Jersey," Daggett told the Post. "I don't know why he's coming into New Jersey and trying to tell us how to run our state."
As for the recommendation that he mind his own business, Giuliani just laughed.
"I feel very welcome here," the former mayor and one-time presidential candidate said at a Christie rally in Bergen County. "I understand one of your candidates told me to go home. Nobody should vote for him, there's no chance of winning."
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Ouch. Giuliani told voters that they should support Christie, a former US attorney like himself, because New Jersey is in a fiscal situation – high unemployment, high taxes -- similar to where New York was when he was elected mayor in 1993.
"You need a governor who understands what I understood when I became mayor of New York City," Giuliani said, reports the Post. "You have to cut spending, you have to cut taxes, you have to give money back to people so they can spend it."
Speaking of spending, Corzine has outspent Christie 3 to 1 throughout the campaign, including a $25 million ad blitz, reports the Post. He's also been hauling in the party's big muscle with visits from President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
"After watching $25 million worth of ads on TV, I might not even vote for me. I don't recognize myself," Christie said of the negative ads, according to the Post. And as for the Democratic muscle Corzine's been flexing, "This is the Jon Corzine 'Please save me from myself' tour," Christie said. "He wants to run everyone in here that he can so people forget he's the one that's actually on the ballot."
Obama will be campaigning for Corzine tomorrow in Newark.
