What this practice does is really put candidates on guard wherever they are, and make delivering speeches even to groups of supporters even harder.

When people look at local government, they're not looking at party affiliation or ideology. They're looking at the character of their local officials and the quality of services they receive. I guess we could throw in tax rates as a third factor. And if it happens to be that Republican office-holders are satisfying local voters, then so be it. People will cross party lines.

Yeah, it could be. Interestingly, some national polls show that John McCain would beat Hillary Clinton.

In a situation where the state is facing budget problems, it's hard to convince voters that you can do a lot. If it was so easy to provide property-tax relief, surely they would have already done so. It's easier to attack.

Both candidates were running as agents of change, but instead of using their wealth to sell their agendas, these multimillionaires have squandered money on attacks. It's not that the charges are scandalous; this is the usual stuff we see in New Jersey. It's the amount of ads these guys have paid for.

These are millionaire candidates who we thought would run above traditional politics, and instead they have super-sized their negative campaigns. What citizens have gotten is a very conventional campaign dominated by name calling and exaggerated criticism of both candidates.