I’m working on a piece on what ails the Chris Christie campaign in New Jersey, now barely hanging onto his lead over Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine — who, strangely enough, is still stuck at 42 percent or less in every poll.

My readers in the New Jersey area are throughly underwhelmed by commercials like this one:

From Campaign Spot reader Bill:

Christie had better wake up and get back on offense . . . he has fully exploited the ethics and integrity issue . . . now he is on defense with health care and mammograms and his television commercials, in a word, stink (we get the Philadelphia market) . . . whining about Corzine’s “unfair” attacks as if this will nail down the female vote — which it will not. Christie had better swing hard on taxes, spending, and jobs — with a Blueprint for Action. If he is too stupid to exploit the Corzine economic record, then he deserves to lose. Currently, Christie is trying to be all things to all people and is misreading the electorate — voters want a platform of anti-Trenton leadership and action.

From Campaign Spot reader Alexander:

I’ve been noticing many more negative ads from Corzine the past few weeks, and Christie’s response ads have basically been to the effect of, poor me, this is so unfair! Which, in turn, re-focuses attention on Corzine’s original attacks. Corzine, in other words, has set the tone for the past month. Christie needs to stop with the “poor me” response — he needs to get out there, make huge ad buys refocusing attention on Corzine’s performance and the terrible state of the NJ economy, and what he is going to do to fix the situation. As can be seen in answers to the other questions in the polls, he certainly has a receptive electorate to work with. In short — enough of being on the defensive. The best defense is a good offense!

Today’s web ad is more of the same — teachers who support Christie saying the NEA’s criticism of Christie is baseless:

I realize that we on the right often complain about media bias, but there’s something fascinating to witness in both governor’s races this year. In both cases, you have Democrats who are not natural campaigners or guys with a ton of charisma. One is an incumbent running during a deep recession, the other is of the party controlling the governor’s mansion. You would think these guys would be on the defensive, trying to persuade people that they’ll do better than the miserable experience of the past four years.

But in both cases, the Democrat has said, “X is an important issue” — X can be McDonnell’s thesis or Christie’s speeding tickets, or a loan to a subordinate — and not only has the press concurred, but the public and the Republican candidate have behaved as if the point was valid. It’s not just that the media says this is important; both Democrats have demonstrated a fascinating ability to set the terms of debate and dictate the narrative that you wouldn’t expect them to have, after their states have been run into a budgetary chasm . . .