Down in the polls, New Jersey’s embattled Democratic governor, Jon S. Corzine, is already trying to demonize his opponent, Christopher J. Christie, a former federal prosecutor. But national Republicans sprang to Mr. Christie’s aid on Tuesday with commercials depicting Mr. Corzine as someone who will say anything to win re-election, and who cannot be trusted.

Just two weeks into what is shaping up to be an unusually long and contentious general election campaign, the advertisements running on both sides neatly crystallize the two sides’ strategies thus far. In Mr. Corzine’s eyes, his challenger is a George W. Bush clone named “Republican Chris Christie,” who would ravage the environment, curtail abortion rights and wreak fiscal havoc.

In Mr. Christie’s eyes, Mr. Corzine repeatedly broke his promises to avoid raising taxes, and failed at managing the economy despite his vaunted Wall Street experience.

That, at least, is the message of two new television advertisements from the Republican Governors Association, which is backing Mr. Christie and plans to invest heavily in the New Jersey race, particularly now that the most recent polls show Mr. Corzine trailing by about 10 percentage points and receiving consistently low approval ratings.

Mr. Christie, who by participating in New Jersey’s public financing system will be limited to spending about $11 million on his campaign, will most likely refrain from television commercials until the fall. But Mr. Corzine, who has spent tens of millions of dollars in each of his two prior races, began running ads against Mr. Christie last week, tying him to Mr. Bush and emphasizing his conservatism.

“There’s no question that Jon Corzine can’t campaign on his record as governor, so he’s going to try to buy this election like he has his United States Senate seat and his governor’s seat, by throwing false attacks at Chris Christie,” said Nick Ayers, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association.

“This is our plan to offset that,” Mr. Ayers added. “If there is a dialogue on issues throughout the summer, then we go into the fall in a very good position. But if it’s a one-way dialogue about Jon Corzine’s interpretation of who Chris Christie is, not that that’s a fair interpretation, but that’s a very different race.”

The advertisements hit back by suggesting that Mr. Corzine’s campaign commercials and promises are not to be believed. “Watch what he does, not what he says,” each warns.

It remains to be seen how intensively the air war will be waged during the summer, when voters’ attention is usually elsewhere. The new Republican commercials are only 15 seconds long, but they are running on broadcast and cable stations.

(Source: NY Times)