THE STATE HOUSE, THE SOAP OPERA

Intrigue, romance, money, power, allies turning on friends, a life-altering decision being made behind closed doors….it’s all happening in the State House these days. How much cash did Governor Jon Corzine give to his former girlfriend and state worker union leader Carla Katz? Powerful Democrats, like Assembly Transportation Committee chairman John Wisniewski speaking out publicly against Corzine’s still secret monetization plan.

It is not the above mentioned items that really make the State House seem like a soap opera, it is the fact that all of this was going on six months ago and there is still no resolution in sight. I have friends and colleagues who have left their State House offices to cover the legislative races in specific districts. Some have been gone for over a month, but if they returned to Trenton today, they’d see they haven’t missed a thing.

The State House may be worse than a soap opera or at least slower moving. I’m guessing that in the last six months, on Days of Our Lives, General Hospital etc., there are characters who have been married and divorced five times, survived two comas, won, lost and won back fortunes and fought off evil twins they thought died a decade ago in a tragic bow-hunting accident. Here, time stands still. At least if you’re a soap opera fan you can tape the episodes and fast-forward through the commercials. Reporters in the State House have to live through this real-time.

I’ll let you know what everyone is really talking about these days and that is reality TV, the only reality TV that counts……sports. The Yankees begin their playoff run tonight against the Indians (I’m hoping for a slow news day so that I can at least be in the car by first pitch at 6:30). The Phillies try to even up their series with the Rockies this afternoon and the Mets try to put the collapse of 2007 behind them and look toward 2008.