My colleague Eric Fettmann has a splendid piece today in the New York Post on the trouble New Jersey Senator and gubernatorial candidate Jon Corzine has gotten himself into. Corzine has now “forgiven” nearly $500,000 in a loan to a former girlfriend who also happens to be the head of the state’s premier public-employee union. Her union then endorsed him. Now, that union wasn’t about to go ahead and endorse Republican Doug Forrester, but still, this adds to the impression that the New Jersey Democratic party is a tangle of larceny and corruption in which personal relationships trump professional responsibilities (as in resigned Gov. Jim McGreevey’s assigning his Homeland Security position to his boyfriend). What all this means is that unexpectedly, Republicans may end up gaining the Trenton statehouse — with a pretty conservative governor, yet.