White House Looked to Codey

In New Jersey, all the election returns have been in for days, but just now some behind the scenes details about the Obama Administration's pre-election anxiety over the candidacy of Governor Corzine are coming to light. WNYC's political reporter Bob Hennelly was told by State Senate President Dick Codey that back in July, he got a call from White House Political Director Patrick Gesphard. Apparently, the White House operative was checking to see if Cody, a long time political veteran, was up for replacing Governor Corzine, who was behind in the polls.

Codey said internal party polls showed that Codey would have beaten Republican candidate Chris Chrsitie by double digits. "The White House, the political director called me and said he would be meeting with the President, Vice president, and the Chief of Staff and asked if he could say to the President that I might be interested in running if in fact Mr. Corzine got out of the race. I said yes."

That was the same month 44 people, including dozens of Democrats, were caught up in a Federal corruption dragnet. Codey said after some ambivalence, Governor Corzine told the White House he was pushing ahead with his re-election bid. Calls for comment to Governor Corzine's office and the White House were not returned.

Codey said he kept the White House's call to himself out of respect for Governor Corzine. (Not what happened in the case of the front page story in the New York Times about the White House wanting Governor Paterson out of the way.) Back in Spring 2008 in Jersey's Presidential primary, Senator Codey, an early Edwards supporter, backed then Senator Obama. Corzine and most of the state's Democratic lawmakers backed Senator Clinton.