Posted on 07/16/2005 7:55:17 AM PDT by Liz
Before he was pushed out as CEO of Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine had never lost at anything, and his unassuming mien masks a deep hunger for redemption. The Senate isn’t enough. Now his road leads ever deeper through the swamp of New Jersey politics.
On a beautiful friday evening recently, Senator Jon Corzine, the former head of Goldman Sachs, a man worth some $300 million, was sitting in his silver SUV on Route 1, somewhere deep in the wilds of central New Jersey. Without a GPS or a visible road sign, it was difficult to tell exactly where he was, since one stretch of Route 1 looks more or less like any other: mile after mile of fast food, strip malls, and car dealers.
Corzine, who is running for governor, was between campaign stops. After wrapping up a public meeting at Monmouth Regional High School, he had dinner at the East Brunswick Hilton. Following a salad and chicken potpie, he stopped at a few tables to shake hands—the surprised diners found him hard to place until he introduced himself.
Afterward, Corzine rolled down Route 1, navy pin-striped jacket off, toward his next stop, the Islamic Society of Central Jersey, where he delivered a talk about genocide in Sudan. During the Q&A, one man got up and said, “We are all human beings. All of us together, as people. I am a Muslim, you are Jewish . . . ” Corzine’s neck and face turned red, but he let the man finish talking.
“Actually,” Corzine said to him finally, with a slightly awkward smile, “I’m a Methodist.”
For a politician suffering the indignities of retail campaigning, Route 1 in central New Jersey can be a long, lonely road. And even now, more than five years after Corzine left Wall Street to enter politics, it’s still hard to understand why he chose this path. Why a man whose shoes were as impeccably white as Corzine’s once were would march into the swamp that is New Jersey politics.
Corzine, after all, reigned at the richest, most prestigious investment bank in New York. And for Corzine, the Senate isn’t enough. Being governor would put Corzine in a much more hands-on, make-it-happen role. It’s an executive position, of course, and New Jersey has the most powerful governorship in the country. It is the only statewide elected office. “As governor, I’d be able to affect people’s lives,” Corzine says. “I could set an agenda that really works to make the reason I got into politics happen.”
The event that made Jon Corzine a politician took place at the end of 1998, when he was in Telluride, Colorado, on Christmas vacation. As CEO of Goldman Sachs, Corzine had worked for nearly two years to transform the legendary partnership into a public company. Fighting significant resistance from many of the partners, he maneuvered and battled to sell the idea within Goldman. Eventually, he succeeded in his call for a vote by secret ballot, which had never been done before.
With the IPO approved but still several months away, Corzine and his family went skiing. While he was away, three members of Goldman’s five-member executive committee, led by Corzine’s co–chief executive, Hank Paulson (the man he appointed and who still runs the company), staged a palace coup, stripping him of his CEO title and his power. “They worked in secret against him all during Christmas,” says someone familiar with what took place.
Corzine was devastated. Apparently, he never saw it coming. “He came back from Colorado and simply could not believe what had happened,” says a confidante.
Corzine was so humiliated that he couldn’t bear to go to the office, even though he was determined to stay on for several months to see the public offering through to its conclusion. So, according to someone who knows him well, he developed an unusual routine. He’d get up every morning, put on his suit, step into his waiting limo, and ride from his house in Summit, New Jersey, to downtown Manhattan. He’d have his driver park in front of Goldman’s offices at 85 Broad Street—and he’d work from the backseat of his car.
He’d have secretaries bring whatever he needed down to him. “You have to understand,” says this person, “he’d always been a winner. He was president of his fraternity. He was captain of every team he’d ever played on. He’d become chief executive at Goldman when nobody except him thought that was possible. He’d never lost at anything before.”
The IPO had made Corzine rich, but after he left Goldman, he found himself in a painful purgatory. He began to put together an investment group to buy Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that had famously crashed in 1998, almost taking the world financial system with it. “I’d gone a long way down that road,” Corzine says. But then Senator Frank Lautenberg announced he wasn’t going to run for another term, and “whether I put another zero on my net worth didn’t seem nearly as interesting or as important,” he says.
"The Deal He Made"
Like an athlete who suddenly finds himself out of sports, Corzine needed to satisfy his continuing hunger to compete. Part of his passion for being a trader was the competition. He also needed a public way to save face, a way to regain power. And he needed to do it in a new arena, one in which he wouldn’t be regularly reminded of his failure.
“I like to compete, and I like to win,” he says. “And being in a campaign is the most competitive thing I’ve ever done.”
Politics can be an ugly business. There is little glamour and even less of the pampering most high-level executives are accustomed to. It is no accident that few CEOs ever run for political office.
“People who know me,” he says, “know that I’m not really much of a planner with respect to my ambitions. For me, it’s always been more about seizing opportunities when they present themselves. A lot of people had misgivings about my decision to go into politics, and it was never a sure thing. But I believed it was going to work.”
And Corzine didn’t look back. “The Goldman Sachs part of his history ended when he left,” says one former colleague, “and really hasn’t been revived much except for his continuing friendship with [former Treasury secretary] Bob Rubin.”
Colleagues were stunned by how completely he’d left his old life behind, down to his emerging liberal political beliefs. “Don’t forget,” says one Goldman partner, “this is a guy who was a free-market economist.”
Soon after Lautenberg’s announcement, an interesting friendship blossomed. Corzine reached out to the crafty, powerful then-Senator Robert Torricelli, the dark prince of New Jersey politics who was investigated for ethics violations and eventually forced out of public life. When the Senate ethics committee cited him for accepting pricey gifts (but not for more serious charges), he chose not to run for reelection.
The foundation for the friendship was laid when Corzine was still at Goldman and Torricelli was a rising New Jersey congressman in search of Wall Street campaign funds.
Contrary to the tale that has been told over and over about Torricelli and several others’ cooking up the idea of a Corzine candidacy and then pursuing him, it was Corzine who pursued them. “I actually got a call saying Jon Corzine was annoyed with me for not suggesting him,” says Torricelli, who was chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee in 2000. “And the truth is, until then, the thought never crossed my mind.”
But Torricelli quickly became Corzine’s Virgil, an indispensable guide to the world Corzine wanted to enter. He advised him on whom to hire, whom to meet with, and where to spend his money. Corzine threw himself into politics with the same indefatigable work ethic he’d had as a bond trader. “We told him he’d have to meet with 100 or 200 key people around the state,” says Torricelli. “County chairs, labor leaders, party activists. And he’d have to attend every major dinner in New Jersey. Well, he saw 500 people. He did it for weeks.”
Torricelli says he has, over the years, seen lots of businessmen who wanted to run for office. “But they almost never have the stomach for it,” he says. “They’re not prepared to invest the time and the effort. I was skeptical about Jon as well. He was a farm boy from Illinois who’d climbed to the top of Goldman Sachs. I did not imagine him going to the diners and beer halls and union headquarters and bonding with the folks who make up the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.”
To Torricelli’s surprise, Corzine took to these small interactions immediately. But his early public appearances before larger groups were so cringe-inducing that Democratic Party leaders were ready to pull the plug on his candidacy. “There were several meetings,” one insider says, “where everyone pretty much agreed it wasn’t going to work. He really didn’t have a clue.” Corzine was saved only by his money and his willingness to promiscuously spend it to get elected.
As awful as he was in front of groups, he was terrific at the more up-close-and-personal encounters. He was warm, friendly, and eager to listen. He is still at his best when he is able to make eye contact. Even his critics admit that Corzine is extremely likable.
“Jon really benefited from his professional pedigree,” Torricelli says. “The people expected a distant and arrogant figure. And the contrast between their expectations and the way Jon actually was really worked to his advantage.”
Corzine bristles at even the hint of a suggestion that there was anything untoward about his relationship with Torricelli. “I was a first-term freshman senator and he was the senior senator and he was very helpful in showing me how to get things done,” Corzine says, a touch of frustration coating his voice. “He really knew how to work the halls down here. Bob is enormously articulate about the issues he cares about, and he is a really smart guy,” Corzine says. “Was he maybe too clever sometimes? Perhaps. But it was a constructive relationship on how you become effective in the Senate.”
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REST HERE--LONG READ
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/politics/12194/index.html
Long-Term Capital Management----the Enron if its day.
What a load of old cobblers. I happen to know some people who worked in Goldman Sachs during his time there and he was infamous for his greed. He is the worst sort of person - he made his fortune, now he wants to deny that chance to everyone else.
Regards, Ivan
Yep, and Corzine is the swamp monster! If this guy were to get elected, all New Jerseyians better hold on to their wallets! Myself included!
Corzine ping
The LTM scam and its bailout was the biggest ripoff.
Say, didn't he used to work at Goldman Sachs or something?
I read the whole thing yesterday.
What I found amazing was the total absence of any sense of public duty. It's all about what HE wants to do, what would be a good career step, how to get back on his feet after the GS debacle. All personal, no sense of serving the country or state.
Oh, and the stuff about him working out of the backseat of his limo, parked out front of Goldman Sachs, and making his secretary bring papers down to him on the street...that's creepy.
Corzine could get elected in very few states. It takes a hell hole like New Jersey to lift up a Corzine.
Probably...and all those losers in New Jersey will vote for him so they will have something to complain about.
Sure don't want you to miss this--LOL!
Bump for later read!
Jewish, Methodist, whatever, you're all Kuffir, infidels.
Jeepers, politics being what it is, looks like Corzine will have to pay the political price for that little episode. We can only guess what might go on behind closed doors in the land of the free. Corzine will have to suck it up and do the deed----sticking New Jerseyans with another Golan Cipel in his Cabinet so's he can get the votes and the big bucks----just like McGreevey (snicker).
New Jersey is the richest state in the nation (per capita income) and 2 of the 4 wealthiest counties in the United States are in New Jersey (the other 2 top 4 were in Northern Virginia).
New Jersey is hardly a hellhole. I agree with you that there are some crummy areas but it also is a very beautiful state.
Unfortunately far too many people get their impressions of New Jersey from television shows, which to say the least, are very misleading.
Politically, it is a hellhole.
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