Enemies List? Jersey's New Lord High Executioner Has Death Lists -- And You Might Be On It!

It was not unreasonable for some people in Democratic political circles to fear a New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, for the reason that as the sitting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey his office was rather efficient at investigating, indicting and prosecuting corrupt public officials (whether elected or appointed).   But this one analogy attributed to a Democratic political operative in northeastern New Jersey is just "over the top" and so funny that it warrants your attention.

Another prominent Hudson/Bergen Democratic operative compared Marra’s appointment to “Pompey, the executioner for the Roman dictator, Sulla.”


He added, “Personally, I think it sucks. When Sulla invaded Rome with his legions, he posted the death lists all over the city with names of prominent Roman Republicans who were to be executed. Christie will do the same thing except that they won’t be executed; they will be criminally prosecuted by his attorney general. So it is good that I am no longer active in politics. When they are done, expect that half of the Democratic leaders that survived U.S. Attorney Christie will be gone.”

(The above passage is courtesy of the Hudson Reporter; for the full story click here.)


One wonders whether this was part of the motivation for some Democratic efforts this past election.   If that presumption is correct, then it would indicate Jon Corzine's support was worse than the numbers indicated, and indicate a possibly significant anti-Christie vote.   (Remember that Corzine's "unfavorable" rating was consistently in the high 50s and sometimes over 60% -- with those numbers it is remarkable that this race was even competitive.   And money is sometimes no factor; check out the results for former California congressman Michael Huffington and former New York gubernatorial candidate Thomas Golisano for two examples of big-spending, small-vote candidates.

So Christie's attorney general will (if the report holds true, it's been a week and no announcement) be his deputy and interim replacement.   If true, this indicates that at least a prime objective of the Attorney General's office would be further investigations -- under state law this time -- of public corruption and other assorted chicanery.

Some people -- in both parties -- may remain worried.   But it's not as if there haven't been other ambitious, efficient prosecutors looking to make a case to build a reputation.  

And I can't help but think that for every person worried about an investigation, there's at least three people sniffing an opportunity to move up if an "open seat" should suddenly materialize.   Among the ambitious, there are few true friends.

Boy oh boy!   The Governor Christie years might be really fun to watch.