The news that Jon Corzine’s campaign is trying fat jokes against Chris Christie comes as something of an improvement over his past attempts at humor:
Jon S. Corzine, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in a state where one of every four Democrats is Italian-American, acknowledged today that he had made disparaging remarks about Italians as recently as two weeks ago.
Mr. Corzine, whose ethnic background is unclear, apologized after an attack by the head of a group that opposes negative portrayals of Italians in the media. Mr. Corzine’s opponent in the primary, former Gov. Jim Florio, himself Italian-American, called Mr. Corzine’s remarks ‘’startling” in their insensitivity.
Emanuel Alfano, chairman of the Italian-American One Voice Committee, issued a statement saying that Mr. Corzine had made offensive remarks twice, the first time at an Italian restaurant in Newark several months ago, ”where Mr. Corzine was courting the support of six prominent Italian-Americans.”
According to Mr. Alfano, when someone in the group introduced Mr. Corzine to a lawyer named David Stein, Mr. Corzine said: ”He’s not Italian, is he? Oh, I guess he’s your Jewish lawyer who is here to get the rest of you out of jail.”
Mr. Corzine today flatly denied making any mention of Mr. Stein’s religion. And Mr. Stein said in a brief telephone interview that he did not recall what Mr. Corzine had said, though he remembered the meeting.
But no one present disputed Mr. Corzine’s reference to Italian-Americans. One man who heard the remark was Sam Formosa, a past president of the New Jersey Sons of Italy. ”No one said anything at the time,” Mr. Formosa, of West Caldwell, recalled. ”At the moment, it went over my head. I didn’t want to get involved with it. But in retrospect I was very offended — because he did it again.”
The second time was about two weeks ago, Mr. Alfano said. He said Mr. Corzine was introduced to an Italian-American man who said he was in the construction business. As Mr. Alfano related the exchange, ”Mr. Corzine turned to the Italian-American contractor and quipped, ‘Oh, you make cement shoes!’ ”
Oh, that’s okay; New Jersey doesn’t have too many Italian-Americans or Jews.