FEATURED STORY

State of Distress

These days, as he pleads with New Jersey voters for a second term as governor, even moments of satisfaction in Jon S. Corzine’s world seem to extract their small humiliations. In early September, for instance, on the day that President Obama delivered his heralded (and controversial) televised pep talk to public-school students, Corzine traveled to Camden, one of the country’s poorest cities, his government-issue black S.U.V. weaving through a postapocalyptic landscape of overgrown fields and shuttered row houses. The neighborhood was celebrating the opening of the sparkling new H. B.  

FEATURED ESSAY

An Out-of-Office Message for Republican Candidates

Some 30 months from the next presidential election, the field of potential challengers to Barack Obama is like a solar system in its infancy — unformed, gaseous and lacking a dominant star. One characteristic, however, stands out. In a recent CNN poll that tested the strength of possible Republican hopefuls, only one of the seven most likely candidates (that would be Representative Ron Paul) will actually hold an elected office by the end of this year. The two leading candidates as of today, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, haven’t held a political job in more than three years.