NYT: Corzine Bets a Lot in Backing a Controversial Senator
By DAVID W. CHEN
Published: November 3, 2006
....A lot at stake, indeed. Not just for Mr. Menendez, and not just because a Democratic loss in this Democratic state could cost the party control of the Senate.
For Mr. Corzine, it would be a personal rebuke, a told-you-so moment for colleagues from Trenton to Washington who had cautioned against picking Mr. Menendez. A defeat would be particularly stinging for Mr. Corzine, who had been chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
“He will become a goat in the eyes of many Democratic activists,” said Bruce E. Cain, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley and director of its Washington Center.
Mr. Corzine said in an interview on Wednesday that he had a “high degree of confidence” that Mr. Menendez would retain the slight edge he has held in polls. But after an event in Newark with Essex County officials, Mr. Corzine said he would accept responsibility for whatever happened on Tuesday.
“Hold me accountable,” he said, using the same phrase he used the night he was elected governor last year, and again in his inaugural address in January....
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/nyregion/03corzine.html