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Doug Forrester, the Republican businessman who lost the governor's race to Jon Corzine in 2005, has launched a new health benefits company for public-sector employees, unions and small businesses in New Jersey.   Called Integrity Health, it is designed to fix the problems Forrester and his wife encountered when their teenage daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury and soon after was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. "I had to hire somebody to figure out the bills," said Forrester, who, as state director of pensions, ran the state's employee benefit program for six years until 1990. "The bills are impenetrable. A lot...

Disclosure reports: Corzine gave cash gifts to top aides The Associated Press Published: Saturday, May 6, 2006 Updated: Saturday, May 6, 2006 TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey's multimillionaire governor dipped into his personal fortune to give nearly $100,000 cash gifts to top aides late last year, just weeks before his Jan. 17 swearing in, according to recently released financial disclosure reports. Officials in Gov. Jon S. Corzine's administration acknowledged that each gift was kept under $11,000 so that neither the staffers or Corzine would have to pay taxes. "A gift is just that, and a number of Jon Corzine's...

Former Gov. Christie Whitman believes the Republican Party is in deep trouble. The GOP, she says, is now where the Democrats were a dozen years ago in Washington when they lost control of the House for the first time in 40 years. President Bush's popularity is at a low ebb and several GOP leaders have been snared in ethics scandals. "We're at a critical point," she said. "We're starting to see polls that look just like the polls looked to Democrats in '94." From a converted hayloft of the barn on her family estate in Oldwick, Whitman works each day...

Corzine Ready To Lower Tax Boom On N.J. CBS 2 Speaks To Upset Residents, Many Hint At Leaving Image Marcia Kramer Reporting (CBS) BERGENFIELD New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine unveils his belt tightening new budget on Tuesday. But even before the announcement, New Jersey taxpayers were expecting the worst. When Corzine voted for himself to become governor of New Jersey he knew that one day he would have to make some difficult and unpopular budget decisions. That day is Tuesday. And already people are lining up to oppose his expected tax hikes. ”It’s utterly ridiculous we have to have the...

A pair of big-spending, notably nasty races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey entered their final hours Monday, as candidates made last-minute blitzes and brought in political heavy-hitters to help campaign. In New Jersey, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine and Republican Doug Forrester spent the day stumping for votes in coffee shops, train stations and senior citizen centers after a week dominated by allegations of infidelity and corruption. A Quinnipiac Poll released Monday gave Corzine a slight edge, 53 percent to 45 percent. The Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll put the two closer, with Corzine leading 43 percent to 37 percent. Forrester,...

This WNBC/Marist Poll reports: Hotly contested race for governor is thisclose: Jon Corzine and Doug Forrester are in a statistical dead heat among New Jersey voters likely to vote on Election Day. Corzine receives the support of 44% of likely voters compared with 43% for Doug Forrester. 13% are undecided. When undecided voters are asked which candidate they are leaning toward, the results become 47% for Jon Corzine and 45% for Doug Forrester. 8% of likely voters remain undecided.

The latest Rasmussen Reports election poll finds that Senator Corzine attracting 45% of the Garden State vote while Forester earns 38%. That's the closest the race has been since the day after both men emerged victorious from their party primaries.

The New Jersey governor's race, which was expected to be a slam-dunk for the Democrats, suddenly has turned into a competitive contest, with Republican businessman Doug Forrester running closely behind Sen. Jon Corzine. Earlier this year, few, if any, analysts thought the Republicans had a chance of winning back the governorship in a state where about two-thirds of the voters are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents and one-third are Republicans. But a Quinnipiac University poll last week found that the liberal senator's seemingly insurmountable lead had shrunk to four percentage points, with Mr. Corzine leading his Republican rival 48 percent to...

August 8, 2005--In the race to be New Jersey's next Governor, Democrat Jon Corzine's lead has shrunk to single digits. Senator Corzine now leads Republican Doug Forrester by eight percentage points, 45% to 37%.In July, Corzine held a 12-point lead.  Since then, the Garden State Senator's support has dipped five percentage points, from 50% in July to 45% today. Forrester's numbers have held steady--38% last month, 37% now.It's interesting to note that both candidates have slightly less support in this poll than they did the night after they were nominated in a statewide primary. This is the opposite of a...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A millionaire businessman won New Jersey's Republican gubernatorial primary yesterday and earned the right to face Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine in November -- the state's first race for governor since James McGreevey resigned in a homosexual scandal. Doug Forrester edged former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler after spending millions of his own fortune to finance a campaign that took aim at the state's highest-in-the-nation property taxes. Mr. Corzine, with 88 percent of the vote, easily won the Democratic primary after facing only token opposition.

WEST WINDSOR, N.J., May 25 - They were both Republican mayors who took office as development was beginning to explode in their communities. But beyond that, Bret Schundler and Douglas R. Forrester, the leading candidates in the Republican primary for governor in New Jersey, have about as much in common as a skyline and a subdivision. Mr. Schundler was a political maverick from Wall Street who brought a burst of energy and conservative ideas to the state's second-largest city, Jersey City, in 1992. In his nine years as mayor, he slashed the city payroll and built charter schools. He persuaded...

LONEGAN FOR GOVERNOR www.loneganforgovernor.com -- “If Forrester’s record is the worst, then mine is the best!” LONEGAN COUNTERS SCHUNDLER’S $250 CHALLENGE AGAINST FORRESTER WITH $250 OFFER AGAINST HIS OWN RECORD. Listen to the latest radio ad about Illegal Alien Driver's Licenses Steve Lonegan Quote of the Day:     "When my grandparents came here from Italy and Ireland, they came here legally. They learned the language. They worked hard to build a better future.     "The operative word here is illegal. These are people who violated our immigration laws. I believe we should use our Homeland Defense funds to tighten...

In January, shock jock Craig Carton caused an uproar by insulting the acting governor's wife. More recently, he took aim at Asian-Americans. On Thursday afternoon, the NJ 101.5 WKXW-FM radio personality switched off his irreverent persona and turned on his serious, public-service side to host a live, two-hour debate among five of the Republicans running for governor of New Jersey. "Hopefully people know that at times we have the ability to be serious and straight and at other times, when it warrants it, to have a good time and not be so straight," Carton said during a commercial break at...

Thursday, May 05, 2005 Any day now I expect Bret Schundler to call a press conference and, with his family gathered around him, make the following confession: "Throughout my life I have always grappled with my identity. At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and grasp the truth. And my truth is that I am a liberal American." Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it does seem a little strange to see a candidate who has been tagged by the media as a right- winger taking the...

By PETE McALEER Statehouse Bureau, (609) 292-4935 CHERRY HILL - Five of the Republican candidates for governor courted votes Thursday night in the Democratic heart of southern New Jersey. In the end, Doug Forrester captured the Camden County Republican Party endorsement - and the party line on primary ballots - by narrowly beating Bret Schundler and John Murphy in a three-hour convention that required two runoff votes. After the win, Forrester called Camden County's Democratic regime a symbol of what has gone wrong in New Jersey politics. "New Jersey deserves better," Forrester said. "It really does." After hearing five-minute speeches...

Today I formally announce my candidacy for Governor of the great State of New Jersey. I am running to stop the waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars. I will put an end to Trenton’s institutional acceptance of lying, cheating and the outright stealing of taxpayer money. Reckless borrowing and increased taxes have funded out-of-control spending. There is no accountability to taxpayers and no regard for the future. I will restore the integrity and fiscal responsibility that is missing in Trenton. New Jersey faces some of the toughest problems in its history and the Democrats are committed to the status...

Cap Corzine's campaign cash? By Fred Snowflack, Daily Record When people talk about U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine's campaign for governor next year, the conversation starts with money. Corzine, who became a millionaire many times over during a career on Wall Street, spent about $70 million to win his Senate seat in 2000. So, how much will he spend next year? No more than $6.4 million if Morris County freeholder and gubernatorial candidate John Murphy has his way. Murphy sent a letter to Corzine this week suggesting that the senator accept his proposal to limit campaign expenditures to $6.4 million. "I...

On paper, it looked like a winning formula. Determined to avoid mistakes that buried them in recent elections, New Jersey Republicans would rally behind a candidate who could win the independent swing voters needed to reclaim the governor's office in 2005. Above all, that candidate would be a crime-busting prosecutor whose zeal for putting politicians away would appeal to a scandal-weary electorate. It seemed just what the beleaguered Republicans needed: a law-and-order nominee running against a Democratic Party whose governor had resigned in disgrace. But the GOP plan to ride U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie back to power in Trenton...

He is running an ad saying that Dan Rather must resign or be fired. On Fox & Friends now.

Trenton—Conservative businessman Doug Forrester was informed that CBS has refused to air his television commercials calling for Dan Rather to step down from the CBS Evening News. "This is another example of liberal bias. Dan Rather is free to defend a program that used false documents, but a conservative businessman can’t even pay to offer a contrasting point of view,” said Doug Forrester. Yesterday Doug Forrester announced that he would begin running television and radio spots on New York and Philadelphia stations calling for Dan Rather’s retirement. Forrester has also begun an internet campaign to collect signatures in support of...