C. Sawicky,
You wrote:
"NJ had its chance at the revolution when Florio was governor. He pushed -- in hindsight too aggressively -- for a strong school equalization program and came to grief for it. There's a high quotient of assholes per capita in NJ, its past glories notwithstanding. Its main virtue is it provides an exit strategy for New Yorkers."
Florio is an interesting case. I think the Republican anti-Clinton strategy was prefigured by the anti-Florio strategy. I think I saw my first "Dump Florio" bumper sticker before the man had even been inaugurated. Florio was so relentlessly and mindlessly demonized from the very first that he could not hope to govern effectively, able politician though he was.
I believe you may be thinking of the court case that was banging around the New Jersey system for about, what, a decade? It is based on the words in the NJ constitution guaranteeing a "thorough and efficient education" and points out the the worst school districts were neither and that the state had a responsibility to rectify that. Obviously this is a tremendous can of worms for any governor to try and deal with. It was far easier for Trenton to duck its responsibility, put its head in the sand and go back to the legal fight. Whitman tried to bounce that ball away from herself also but it came back. Now the case has been decided and state money is starting to flow. Who knows, though, how long that will last.
I think what you can blame Florio for is not realizing that he was destined to be a one-term governor anyway and just acting on his liberal impulses. Still, that's a lot to ask from a politician. They don't get to be governor if they think that way.
Likewise Clinton, no?
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