President Obama heads to New Jersey today to bolster the political chances of Gov. Jon Corzine, the Wall Street rich Democrat (and no-seat-belt-wearing car accident survivor) who is up for reelection this year.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll this week shows Republican challenger Chris Christie pulling away, with a 53% to 41% lead over Corzine -- up from a 10-point lead in last month's survey. One possible reason: Corzine recently signed a $2- billion budget that increased taxes and cut tax rebates.

Christie, mindful of Obama's popularity in the state, welcomed the president in a video ad that makes no mention of the governor.

While Obama tries to raise money and votes for Corzine, Vice President Joe Biden is stumping in Virginia, the other bellwether gubernatorial election this year. Attending a fundraiser in Richmond for Democrat Creigh Deeds, who is running behind Republican Bob McDonnell in the latest Rasmussen Poll, Biden hopes to sway red-state-turning-blue Virginia to remain in the Democratic column.

Politicos are watching both races. As MSNBC's First Read noted this morning, if Republicans win both, it would dim Obama's luster and give the GOP an opening for a political comeback. If the Democrats win both, of course, it would increase Obama's reputation as a commander in chief with long political coattails.

And if it's a split decision? Look for both to claim moral victory.

-- Johanna Neuman

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This week's weekly remarks open with President Obama in Africa opening on foreign affairs. But by the second paragraph out of 20, he gets to what he really wants -- needs -- to talk about: domestic business in general and the economy specifically.

His polls numbers have slipped, especially among seniors and even independents. People still like him a lot (though they now like his wife better).

But they're increasingly worried about some of his programs and these numbers with more digits than civilian calculators can display -- all the spending and unemployment still growing, reform of healthcare that some 70% of Americans are satisfied with now.

You can tell what White House polling has told them by the subjects ticked off in Obama's remarks: We inherited this mess, the economic stimulus bill so urgently pushed in February wasn't really designed to fix the economy, and the switching of terms about jobs. It used to be about creating and/or preserving jobs. Now, preserving jobs comes first, which, like murders not committed, is difficult to prove or disprove without numbers. Which is the point.

Be patient, Obama urges, more spending will kick in this summer. I promise healthcare reforms won't add to the deficit. We're cutting waste. We need clean energy. Etc.

The Republican remarks, provided this week by Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, are in many ways the mirror image.

They see their own poll numbers. It's been six months; the economy belongs to Obama now. Where are the promised jobs? Unemployment at 9.5% is already higher than the 8.5% the administration promised as max. The stimulus bill was larded with pork. We can't afford all this spending and borrowing. The federal government this year alone has borrowed $10Gs for economic stimulus from every American family. Do you feel better knowing that?

This is an argument we will all hear in varying forms from now until next year's midterm elections, when the White House party historically takes a hit in Congress.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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This week, we’ve made important progress toward the goal of bringing about change abroad and change at home. During my visit to Russia, we began the process of resetting relations so that we can address key national priorities like the threat of nuclear weapons and extremism. At the G-8 summit, leaders from nearly 30 nations met to discuss how we will collectively confront the urgent challenges of our time, from managing the global recession to fighting global warming to addressing global hunger and poverty. And in Ghana [see arrival photo below], I laid out my agenda for supporting democracy and development in Africa and around the world.

But even as we make progress on these challenges abroad, my thoughts are on the state of our economy at home. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today. 

We came into office facing the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. At the time, we were losing, on average, 700,000 jobs a month. And many feared that our financial system was on the verge of collapse. 

As a result of the swift and aggressive action we took in the first few months of this year, we’ve been able to pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink. We took steps to restart . . .

There are lots of reasons why Terry McAuliffe, national campaign director for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign last year, lost his own debut in electoral politics in Tuesday's race for governor of Virginia.

First, there was the carpetbagger issue. Though he has lived in tony McLean, Va., with wife Dorothy and their children for 17 years, the fast-talking McAuliffe was raised in Syracuse and comports himself with the manic energy -- and speed talking -- of a New Yorker.

Second, there was the fact that the victor, state Sen. Creigh Deeds, simply crushed his two Democratic opponents, winning the right to face Republican Robert McDonnell in the fall.

Deeds, a down-stater with ties to rural Virginia and an awesome team, won nearly 50% in the three-man race, beating the better-financed McAuliffe and rival Brian Moran in every region of the state. And he did it by besting them not only at the outside glad-handing game but at McAuliffe's alleged strong card: the inside political game. When Deeds, the only Dem in the race not from the vote-rich, left-leaning northern Virginia suburbs of D.C., won the endorsement of the Washington Post on May 22, it must have been a huge wake-up call to the McAuliffe team.

Among those who Think Deeply about politics, there was even speculation that McAuliffe, as he did in directing Hillary's campaign last year, waited too late to attack -- in this case, on Deeds' record as a gun supporter. Late in the campaign, relatives and survivors from Virginia Tech -- scene of that horrific mass shooting in 2007 that killed 32 -- issued a statement condemning Deeds' pro-gun stance. The question to the McAuliffe folks, who helped disseminate the statement, why wait till election day?

But to many, some with more glee than others, the McAuliffe loss in Virginia is the last nail in the coffin to the Clinton machine that once catapulted a little-known governor from Arkansas and his Ivy League-educated ambitious wife into the White House.

One problem for McAuliffe in advertising his Clinton credentials, as Hotline noted, is that Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by 29 points in the Virginia primary and then became the first Democrat in 44 years to turn the state blue in the general election.

Another is that Bill Clinton, who stumped for McAuliffe in Roanoke and Richmond, rich with African American voters, is no longer the rock star he once was in that community. Fairly or not, the former president's remarks during Obama's historic run for the presidency have dimmed his star and, with it, those of his acolytes.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Jared Soares / Roanoke Times

Terry McAuliffe, the money man of the Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaigns, is running for governor of Virginia. Yes the behind-the-scenes back-slapper is looking to move out front.

With two other competitive candidates in the Democratic primary, McAuliffe has borrowed a page from Barack Obama's playbook, organizing a massive grassroots effort, campaigning (as seen above) with backing from will.i.am, stumping as an agent of change, someone who can "shake up" politics and business in the Old Dominion.

Now comes Ralph Nader, the bad boy of Democratic politics, to shake up McAuliffe.

A onetime car safety advocate and perennial presidential candidate, Nader is widely viewed as the spoiler who robbed Al Gore of the controversial 2000 election eventually decided for George W. Bush by drawing votes away from the Democratic vice president in Florida.

Now, Nader is telling reporters that in 2004, when McAuliffe was the Democratic National Committee chairman, he offered presidential candidate Nader an unspecified amount of money to spend in 31 states if he promised to stay out of 19 battleground states where he could potentially hurt Democrat John Kerry.

Although McAuliffe's staff has not denied the allegation, it's clearly are not happy about this.

"It looks like Ralph Nader misses seeing his name in the press," said spokeswoman Elisabeth Smith. "Terry's focused on talking with Virginians about jobs, not feeding Ralph Nader's ego."

Nader made the charge in an interview with the Washington Post, calling to verify the allegation, which was made in a recent book by Theresa Amato, who was Nader's national campaign manager in 2000 and 2004, called "Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny."

Nader not only confirmed it, he made clear he thinks the former DNC chairman and Syracuse, N.Y., native now running for Virginia's governor is unfit for office. Nader's actual words: “Terry McAuliffe is slipperier than an eel in olive oil.”

With the primary election on June 9, it's not clear how much such an allegation will hurt among the Democratic base, who regard Nader with all the warmth of a skunk at a family reunion.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo credit: Bill Tiernan / Associated Press

Just when you thought you were out, you jump back in.

Bill Clinton, the ex-president whose chief political fundraiser now wants to run for office himself, will provide some payback next week in Virginia.

Terry McAuliffe would like to become the next Democratic governor of Virginia, succeeding Tim Kaine, whose gubernatorial career will be terminated by term limits next year.  We noted back in December McAuliffe's prefabricated commonwealth listening tour to confirm that he was going to run and was prepared to spend a whole lot of other people's money to win.

Terry's real good at raking in money for Bill Clinton and also for Hillary, though she lost anyway and is still working on the rest of her 2008 primary debts with some bizarre showbiz gimmicks.

But here's the little trick to Virginia state campaigns: There are no limits on how much anyone can give anyone.

The governor's office is out for bid.

So next Monday Big Bill, who hasn't been out campaigning for someone in days now, will hit the trail for McAuliffe in Richmond and Roanoke. Polls show McAuliffe in a close three-way Democratic June primary struggle with R. Creigh Deeds, a state senator, and Brian Moran.

In a debate last weekend, all three agreed on most issues, but Deeds tried to enhance his profile by making an issue of his opponents' expansive fundraising, especially from wealthy out-of-staters. In fact, the Democratic trio spent much of the intra-party debate time denouncing their Republican opponent, Robert McDonnell, mentioning him 23 times.

So, if you're scoring at home, Bill Clinton, who used to be a governor, is going to help Terry McAuliffe, who used to be chairman of the Democratic National Committee, become governor of Virginia because the new Democratic president, Barack Obama, who beat the former president's wife, the former first lady, has named the current governor of Virginia as the new part-time chairman of the Democratic National Committee, which would seem to make Kaine also a part-time governor of Virginia. But voters can't do anything about it since governors there are only allowed one term anyway.

By becoming full-time DNC chair next year, Kaine will earn some DC creds in case Obama wants a younger fellow Harvard lawyer in 2012 to replace an old VP, Joe Biden, who became a senator way back when Obama was learning about flax in sixth-grade geography class.

In case you're from the Chicago school of politics and think that money has any connection to winning elections, in the first three months of this year Deeds reported collecting $730,000, Moran $800,000 and McAuliffe $4.2 million, including nearly $3.4 million (80%) from people who can't vote in Virginia. With ballots anyway.

"I've got a lot of friends," McAuliffe said.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Steve Helber / Associated Press (left to right, Deeds, McAuliffe, Moran).

Backlash?

Terry McAuliffe's ability to raise campaign money -- complete with help from his political megastar patrons, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton -- is already becoming an issue in his race to become governor of Virginia.

As the Ticket pointed out, McAuliffe has raised more than $940 million over the last 18 years for the Clintons and the Democratic National Committee. With that track record of IOU's, there's no telling what he'll be able to pull in during this year's gubernatorial race in Virginia, which has been titling from red to blue in recent elections.

Over the weekend, at the Virginia Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, rival Brian Moran all but accused McAuliffe of trying to buy the governor's mansion. In remarks to the party loyal, the 12-year veteran of state politics said:

We must decide what our party stands for. Will our party be dominated by big money and those who raise it, or will we be the party of the people?

Later he added, "We need a fighter, not a fundraiser."

Moran never mentioned the Clintons by name, but the former state lawmaker -- tied at 18% with McAuliffe in the latest Public Policy Polling survey -- made clear he thinks McAuliffe’s bid to run for governor after years of managing campaigns for others is about “personal gain,” a brazen attempt by an outsider to capitalize on the hard work of state Democrats over the last decade in turning around the party from backwater to powerhouse.

"It took us a generation to build this party. ... This was no overnight success," he said, referring for Gov. Tim Kaine and Sen. Mark Warner, who both worked their way up the ladder before achieving statewide office.  "They earned the trust and loyalty of Virginians through their works, not their word. And it is a trust that no one can buy. Mark and Tim, they didn't just show up when it was easy and the battles had already been won."

The line was a hit with the party regulars, but whether it will score on the campaign trail is the big unknown. Here's a look at another Moran appearance before Virginia Democrats last week:

In any event, no one thinks this race will come cheap. California's Jesse Unruh called it a long time ago: "Money is the mother's milk of politics."

-- Johanna Neuman

Credit: Jae C. Hong / Associated Press