Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 65

Sunday, June 5, 2011 courierpostonline WEB EXTRA MHM Visit our Web site and add opinion to read more views. um Opinion 2 Perspectives 3 cpeditcourierpostonline.com Editorial Page Editor Mike Daniels (856) 486-2418 Bob Ingle Polities Patrol aott ft slhw Governors have always loved to fly 1 tt vc-m" mmJ 'Coptergate' has sides facing off By JIM NAMIOTKA New Jersey Press Media It's often said that Americans pick their political parties the same way they root for their favorite ball-clubs. Phillies or Mets, Eagles or Giants, it's my team right or wrong. We champion our guys, vilify the opposition. When our pitcher wins, he dominated.

Our pitcher loses, he just had a bad day. Are politics and sports really so different? The hullabaloo over Gov. Chris Christie's use of a state helicopter to attend his oldest son's baseball playoff game last week is a timely illustration of the way pundits and politicians can view the same event through wildly different lenses depending on which team they root for. The Christie administration and New Jersey State Police have been forced to defend the excursion as Democrats have called for an investigation and demanded that Christie reimburse the taxpayers for the cost of the flight. Meanwhile, the governor's backers have called talk radio stations to defend him, calling him a "family man" who deserves public support for his devotion to his children.

Rewind to 2002, when Democratic Gov. James McGreevey reimbursed the state more than $18,000 for personal trips taken on state helicopters. At the time, state Sen. Joseph Kyr-illos told our State House bureau the trips were "abuses" and "The governor (McGreevey) has his hands caught in the cookie jar, yet again." A Kyrillos spokesman said the Republican leader would have no comment on the Christie helicopter flap. "That's out of our control," he said.

Similarly, Republican Sen. Anthony R. Bucco, R-Morris, said in 2002: "For the governor to say that taxpayers need to do more with less, and then use state tax dollars to pay for his CHRISTOPHER COSTAAP Photo from Patch.com Gov. Chris Christie disembarks from a state police helicopter Tuesday that transported him to watch his son's high school basebal game. Christie then used the helicopter to fly to Princeton for a political meeting.

TRENTON Chris Christie is far from the first New Jersey governor to catch flak for using a state helicopter for personal reasons, which makes one wonder why at a time when the focus should be reforms he champions, Christie would risk so much grief. The governor and his wife, Mary Pat, took a chopper to Bergen County to watch their son play baseball. They left in the fifth inning to get back to Drum-thwacket for a meeting with Iowa people trying to convince Christie to run for president. Before those Iowans could leave for the airport the outrage had begun. Some of us heard it before.

Democrat Brendan Byrne flew in a state helicopter to a Yankees game. Republican Tom Kean Sr. flew more than 1,000 times in his second term. Democrat Jim Florio was critical of that but when he succeeded Kean he used state choppers more than 2,000 times. Republican Christie Whitman, who wanted his job and got it, accused Florio of using choppers too much.

That didn't keep Whitman from using them, even taking one to a hockey game. In Democrat Jim McGreevey's first 10 months, he used the state birds 272 times. Laura Kaessinger, of our Trenton bureau, compared McGreevey's official trips with the times he used the choppers and found that 14 of the ones she checked had nothing to do with government McGreevey refused to say what the other private trips, at a cost of $1,200 an hour in those days, were about The Democratic Party rushed to the rescue with a check for $18,200 to cover the costs. Democrat Dick Codey refused to use them After Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine was almost killed in a 91 mph crash on the Garden State Parkway, a commission recommended that he use helicopters more.

When he did for personal reasons, he reimbursed the state and at oth-' er times rented private choppers. The State Police says Christie has used state choppers 35 times since he took office. The one he and the Mrs. took to the ball game and back cost $2,500 an hour to operate, and in his defense state trooper chief Rick Fu-entes said the birds would be in the air anyway since the pilots have to fly to maintain proficiency The administration at first said Christie wouldn't apologize or pay the state for the personal rides, then announced Thursday that the GOP and Christie would pay for "two helicopter trips to his son's ball games." Were I paid to advise a governor I would tell him to avoid use of state helicopters unless it is an emergency. A governor can't do much, especially if it is radical change, without public support, the underpinning of which is credibility.

In Christie' case, he can't afford to be perceived as telling people they have to sacrifice and not lead the way. In today's world perception is reality. Assemblywoman Joan Quig-ley, D-Hudson, called for him to reimburse the state, but more than that, managed to tie this incident being called Chopper-gate, to his being in Florida when the big blizzard shut us down in December. Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Gloucester, was acting governor after the blizzard. He said other officials tried to get him to use one of the choppers to survey the state.

"I told them I didn't need to fly over it to see what a lot of snow looks like." The man knows his history. Bob Ingle, senior political columnist for New Jersey Press Media, can be reached via e-mail at bobinglenjpressmedia.com and heard on New Jersey 1 01 .5 FM at 5 p.m. Fridays. personal trips here and abroad, is a serious miscalculation." Bucco's office did not respond to requests last week for comment on the Christie controversy. Your team, my team.

Professor Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, believes there is merit to the description of modern-day politics as a team an era of hyper-partisanship, loyalty to your team in this case, your party becomes paramount," Dworkin said. But, Dworkin said, there's a reason for the us vs. them team aspect "Politics has become a collective endeavor because it's such a complicated and elaborate process." "It's almost impossible to run without some sort of infrastructure of supporters, fundraisers and campaign workers," he said. MEL EVANSAssociated Press At a press conference Thursday, the governor answers questions from reporters about his helicopter flights, which he said he would reimburse the state for. over Christie's helicopter trip is a reflection of the ongoing polarization of New Jersey politics, where See POLITICS, Page 3D in it and we're successful when our team wins." Joseph Marbach, a political scientist and provost at La Salle University in Phila-.

delphia, said the tempest "The party system is the best way to put that all together. So there's a collective responsibility if you want to be successful." "Everybody has a stake Former governor pulls few punches in book eh fW' TT v1 behind-the-scenes deals that have helped shape New Jersey for nearly four decades. Codey devotes a full chapter to the circumstances leading up to the resignation of Gov. James McGreevey and his becoming acting governor in 2004, and the political calculations and conversations that led him to decide not to seek a full term as governor and defer to Jon Corzine instead. For readers uninterested in politics, the book offers an amusing glimpse of Codey's life as a youth growing up in Orange.

He recounts how he picked up bodies for his funeral directorcoroner father, worked as a part- By RANDY BERGMAN New Jersey Press Media Part biography, part political kiss-and-tell, former Gov. Richard Codey's book, "Me, Governor, My Life in the Rough-and-Tumble World of New Jersey Politics," already has sold 7,500 copies since hitting bookstores last month, and is now in a second printing. The book is alternately funny, poignant and revealing about the personalities who have controlled the levers of power in Trenton since Codey first entered the Legislature as an assemblyman 38 years ago. He sheds new light on some of the pivotal events and time chaffeur for former Gov. Tom Kean's parents and assisted someone who guessed weights and ages at a local fair.

For tip money, on Easters, he filled Coke bottles with water and gave them to widows to water the flowers at their husbands' grave sites. He speaks with candor and humor about his academic shortcomings. He attended three high schools, all beginning with the letter Orange, Our Lady of the Valley and Oratory. (He says his father wanted him to be true to his Irish heritage.) He also recounted a See CODEY, Page 3D V- I iM nJ Courier-Post file Former state Senate President and Gov. Richard Codey, D-Essex, hasn't pulled punches about the underbelly of New Jersey In promoting his new book about his 38 years as an elected legislator In state government..