[aaus-list] NJ Governor's race

[Max Pyziur]

Greetings,

We did have an impromptu discussion of Dem-prykhylnykiv at the Ukrainian 
Restaurant on 2nd Avenue after President Yushchenko's Museum speech and 
award ceremony this past Tuesday.

As important things come to mind from our discussion, I'll try to share 
them with you. One thing, in particular, is the NJ Governor's race. 
During our discussion, it was noted that the Obama administration is 
particularly concerned about holding on to Democratic governorships; these 
include two close races in 2009: the one in Virginia and the one in New 
Jersey.

Looking at today's headline from NJ, it says:
Chris Christie holds on to seven-point lead over Gov. Jon Corzine
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/09/christie_leads_corzine_48_to_4.html

Corzine seems to be actively trying to court East Europeans; hoping to 
establish a NJ East European Ethnic Heritage commission. To that end, 
on September 14th there was a bit of festivities at Camilla Huk's home in 
Rutherford, NJ. Along w/ Ukrainian-Americans, other ethnics attending were 
Macedonians, Poles, Hungarians, and Belarusians.

Stories and photos here:
Gubernator New Jersey szuka glosow u  Polaków
http://www.dziennik.com/news/metropolia/4634

Governor Corzine at Cami Huk home
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10608468@N00/3921139019/in/set-72157622373266636/

and

http://www.svoboda-news.com/arxiv/pdf/2009/Svoboda-2009-39.pdf (p. 3).

One material concern in NJ is that Rutgers-Newark is slowly scuttling 
(as I understand it) its East European studies program, now down to one 
professor. In the process, it is trying to raise the level of Spanish and 
Portuguese-related studies under the rationale of the number Hispanics and 
Brazilians living in north Jersey. However if numbers are the criteria, 
then there should be enough, at least by population to justfiy the 
retention of an East European program at the campus. (Hopefully, we'll 
have more information on this soon.)

I don't know if the governor can directly intervene, or influence, these 
sorts of decisions. However, if so, I would think that it would have 
better chances under a Corzine administration than a Christie one.



fyi,

MP
pyz at brama.com