Fairleigh Dickinson University

Fairleigh Dickinson University's Public Mind poll has no comment on recent criticisms of their polling by PoliticsNJ.com, except for a brief e-mail from Professor Peter Woolley, the FDU polls: "I like to limit my interaction with hooded men -- or women. You are in the wrongful position of attempting to hold others accountable while avoiding accountability yourself." That hasn't stopped Wooley in the past.

Twelve days ago, PoliticsNJ.com asked Wooley to explain how one of the U.S. Senate campaigns had obtained their polling data the day before it was released to the public. That promoted him to send this response: "I already forwarded your e-mail to my top two suspects with a note saying such a thing is 'unacceptable.' But you can help me narrow it down to one person. If you would like that new information to be 'just between us' it can be."

This website told Wooley that an FDU poll associate, lobbyist Rick Thigpen, coordinated his analysis of the Senate campaign poll with Robert Menendez's campaign staff and provided the Menendez campaign with polling numbers the day before they were released to the public. To Wooley, "just between us" meant telling Thigpen that PoliticsNJ.com was his source.

In the past, PoliticsNJ.com has taken issue with several aspects of the FDU polling operation:

* Old Numbers: FDU staggers the release of their data, rolling out the results of one section of the same poll over an extended period of time. It's not a bad way to generate more media attention for their poling, but at the expense of having the most current possible data. For example, the U.S. Senate poll they released on November 2 was in the field from October 25-31 -- so some of their data had been obtained as much as nine days earlier. (That's a long time in the final week of a statewide campaign.) A survey on eminent domain released on November 13 used that was as much as twenty days old.

* Appearance of Conflict: Thigpen, who has been affiliated with FDU since 2001, was among the Democratic operatives who participated in regular conference calls with the Menendez campaign to determine a media spin strategy during the U.S. Senate race. Thigpen was also among the Democrats on regular spin calls for Jon Corzine's campaign, at the same time he was providing analysis for FDU's polling of the 2005 gubernatorial campaign. For Republican analysis, FDU occasionally uses Michael Torpey, who is Thigpen's business partner. This website also questioned the use of Trenton lobbyists who have business dealings with the Governor's office to analyze polls concerning the Governor's approval ratings. Thigpen was effusive in his praise of Corzine in an FDU poll conducted after the state budget was passed, and even the Republican Torpey said that Corzine "should be relatively happy with the data in this survey."

Methodology: FDU does not poll registered voters; they make random phone calls and identify likely voters from that pool. One Senate campaign staffer said: "We honestly didn't put a lot of stock in any of the public polls -- each one had its own flaws."

The Kean campaign said they had not been given any FDU polling numbers in advance, and suggested that providing the data to one campaign and not others gave the Democrats an unfair advantage. PoliticsNJ.com strongly stands behind our report -- and our source -- that FDU had considered terminating their relationship with Thigpen and pays little regard to any public comments by Wooley to the contrary.

Fairleigh Dickinson University may be forced to fire Rick Thigpen as their Democratic poll analyst after finding out that Thigpen coordinated his analysis of a U.S. Senate poll with Robert Menendez's campaign staff and provided the Menendez campaign with polling numbers the day before they were released to the public. FDU requires their analysts to keep their data confidential, and there is talk among the academics who run the Public Mind operation that Thigpen,a Trenton lobbyist and son of Essex County Democratic Chairman Phil Thigpen, must be replaced in order to maintain the integrity of future polls.

Thigpen was among the Democratic operatives who participated in regular conference calls with the Menendez campaign to determine a media spin strategy during the U.S. Senate race. Thigpen was also among the Democrats on regular spin calls for Jon Corzine's campaign, at the same time he was providing analysis for FDU's polling of the 2005 gubernatorial campaign.

A Tom Kean campaign staffer suggested that FDU gave Menendez an unfair advantage by supplying numbers to just one candidate before they became public.

Since the FDU polling operation opened in 2001, the Public Mind has supplemented their academic analysis with partisan analysis; Stephen Salmore, who ran the Star-Ledger/Rutgers Eagleton poll for years before becoming a GOP pollster, was the Republican analyst along with Thigpen. After Salmore's death in September 2005, FDU has alternated between Michael Torpey, a former Chief of Staff to Governor Christine Todd Whitman and Thigpen's business partner, and Dr. Mark Campbell, a Republican political consultant. Torpey and Campbell were not actively involved in the Kean campaign.

"The (Fairleigh Dickinson University) PublicMind poll of 577 randomly selected likely voters statewide was conducted by telephone from October 25 through October 31 and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points."

By Steve Adubato, Ph.D.

I expected Governor Jon Corzine to get a negative reaction to his budget proposal calling for a variety of tax hikes and cuts in state government. But I was surprised at the degree of the hit Corzine has taken to date.

Recent public opinion polls show a significant number of citizens don't like the way Corzine is handling the budget. According to the Public Mind Poll put out by Fairleigh Dickinson University, 61 percent of Garden State voters say that raising the sales tax as Corzine has proposed is a bad idea. We are talking 7 to 10 Republicans and half of all Democrats saying the sales tax hike is a bad idea. The number of New Jerseyans who say that the state is on the wrong track has increased from 47 percent only a month ago to 57 percent today.

According to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll this week, Corzine's support has dropped to 43 percent. That is 10 points lower than his margin of victory in November over Doug Forrester. Add to the poll numbers the protests, rallies and public pronouncements criticizing Corzine on a variety of specific proposals in his budget and one begins to wonder whether Jon Corzine regrets leaving the US Senate for this thankless job as governor.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that Governor Corzine should get credit for having the courage and guts to put our fiscal problems on the table and force us to deal with them like the adults we are supposed to be. Too many governors before him have ducked it and borrowed at obscene levels in order to artificially balance the budget. But Corzine hasn’t done that.

Sure, I'd rather see a proposed increase on the income tax for the wealthiest New Jerseyans as opposed to a sales tax hike which affects everyone the same, including the richest and poorest citizens. I would have liked to have seen Corzine put some of the public employee pension issues on the table given that these costs have grown out of control and contribute greatly to our fiscal mess.

We can argue the fine points, but the fact is most of those who criticized Corzine speak out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand, they say they want Corzine to make more “cuts� in state government spending before he proposes increases in taxes. Forget about the fact that you will never be able to balance the budget with cuts alone. Yet, look at what happens when Corzine proposes to cut state aid to higher ed, which would in turn mean higher tuition for students. Some of those same people who say they want Corzine to cut spending are the parents of students who are freaking out because their kids are the ones in New Jersey’s public colleges.

Look at what happens when Corzine freezes state aid to local government and school districts. A hue and cry is heard throughout the state from local government leaders and citizen groups who rail that Corzine doesn’t understand the plight of local government and its dependence upon state aid. Wait a minute, aren’t some of these the people that said Corzine should cut state spending? Again, what they mean is cut someone else but not them.

Sure, Corzine could have proposed more than a cut in 1,000 state jobs and I am confident he will over time. But doing that isn’t going to mean that state spending on higher ed and state aid to local governments can be increased. And check this out. According to the Public Mind Poll, 72 percent of New Jerseyans like the idea of an increase in the cigarette tax, while 69 percent say increasing the tax on commercial property sales over $1 million is a good idea. Nearly 60 percent think Corzine is right in increasing the tax on alcoholic beverages. And 64 percent like the idea of increasing registration fees for cars costing over $45,000. But what is really going on here?

According to Peter Wooley a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University and director of the Public Mind Poll, “Voters are willing to tolerate nuisance taxes so long as those taxes are more likely to annoy someone else.�

So what is Corzine supposed to do? He is trying to be as fair as he can and deal with the information he has in front of him. He is trying to spread the pain out as much as possible. If you really think about it, Corzine is trying to be fiscally conservative in certain areas (again, I would like him to take a closer look at the pension issue as well as other seemingly extravagant benefits given to public employees) but he is catching hell for it from those who like to call themselves “fiscal conservatives.� He is trying to cut back on what state government does and reduce the amount of spending in certain areas. Sure, Corzine probably said the wrong thing when he proposed expanding the property tax rebates to a degree he thought was possible. But now he is saying he may have wanted to do it, but to do it would be irresponsible.

So look what happens. Lots of people are saying Corzine broke his promise. Fair enough, but what is he supposed to do now? Exacerbate our fiscal problems by keeping a promise to extend the rebate to people who he now thinks shouldn’t be getting it because to do so would only make things worse? You know what Jon Corzine is guilty of? He is guilty of using the information he has today that he didn’t have when he was running and hopefully making smarter decisions as to what makes sense for the state at this very precarious fiscal time.

He is also guilty of being open enough to go out there and take the criticism and attacks for the fiscal plan that he has proposed. He is really listening to the criticism he is getting and there is a good chance that what he proposed will not actually be implemented in its current. But come on, give the guy a break. He is trying to do something virtually unheard of in government today. He is trying to be a real leader. For that, Jon Corzine is 100% guilty.

(Full disclosure. This spring and fall, Emmy Award-winning anchor Steve Adubato will anchor a series of in-depth interviews with Governor Jon Corzine as well as citizen focus groups with the governor as part of the series “Democracy Works� which can be seen on Thirteen/WNET New York, as well as on NJN-Public Television, CN8-The Comcast Network and Cablevision. Log on to www.caucusnj.org for broadcast schedules and other related information.)

The race for governor of New Jersey may be warming up but the shadow race for the Senate is stalled. According to the most recent results from the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, 44% of likely voters have no definite opinion of whom among New Jersey's Congressional Democrats they'd want to take Jon Corzine's US Senate seat. If Corzine were to win his bid for governor, 29% confess they just "don't know" who should replace him in the Senate, while another 15% say "any of them" or "none of them" or "it doesn't matter."

Press Release | Toplines

Fairleigh Dickinson University has a new poll that has the race for Governor within eight points: Jon Corzine leads Doug Forrester, 44%-36%. With leaners added, Corzine is ahead 48%-38%. Two new polls will be released on Wednesday: one from Quinnipiac University, which has emerged over the last five years as the premier independent poll in the state, and the maiden poll from a new venture between Monmouth University and Gannett New Jersey. The Monmouth/Gannett poll is directed by Patrick Murray, who was formerly associated with the Star-Ledger/Rutgers-Eagleton poll.

GOP sources say that Arthur Finkelstein conducted a poll for the Forrester campaign that came out of the field last night showing Corzine leading Forrester by a 43%-36% margin. The survey had a sample size of 500 registered voters.

The FDU poll, launched in 2001, has traditionally included analysis from each party. The death of Steve Salmore on Sunday left the survey without a Republican voice, and his role has been filled by Michael Torpey, the former Chief of Staff to Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Torpey is a business partner of the poll's Democratic analyst, former Democratic State Committee Executive Director Rick Thigpen. FDU says no decision has been made regarding future polls.