Green Is Not the Color of Teflon

Sex, money and power make for the best political stories, and U.S. Senator Jon Corzine's admission that he forgave a sizable loan to former girlfriend and powerful state union boss Carla Katz meets those criteria. Now we're learning that the two live in the same tony Hoboken high-rise; the house that Ms. Katz bought with Mr. Corzine's money is empty. Ms. Katz's union has endorsed Mr. Corzine's candidacy for New Jersey governor.

New Jersey is a machine state: A handful of pols wield incredibly disproportionate influence over government, affecting how votes turn, who gets hired and how contracts are awarded. Mr. Corzine's gubernatorial campaign has emphasized his aloofness from machine politics -- an incorruptible force so rich that he can't be bought or influenced by the usual suspects. But he's never been a Democratic version of Bret Schundler, the independent-minded former Jersey City mayor who ran against and often beat machine candidates from both parties. Rather, Mr. Corzine's strategy has been to wrest control of the machine by way of his fortune, distributing valuable gifts that empower him and manipulate the recipients.

Look at his relationships with a few key characters: His mentor was former Sen. Robert "the Torch" Torricelli, who withdrew from a re-election campaign after being admonished by the Senate for accepting gifts from a convicted felon. One of his closest allies is South Jersey political boss George Norcross, who claimed in a secretly taped conversation that Mr. Corzine would bend to his will because he "has no choice." Mr. Norcross is now believed to be the subject of a federal criminal investigation.

Then there's Mr. Corzine's campaign operations chief, Susan Bass Levin, also the focus of a federal probe. The feds are looking into a pay-to-play scheme in which an engineering company reimbursed employees for contributing to Ms. Levin's failed 2000 congressional campaign in exchange for no-bid contracts worth millions of dollars. She was mayor of Cherry Hill at the time.

Though Mr. Corzine is not guilty by association, his image as Mr. Clean is looking pretty hollow. So far, his dealings seem unlikely to derail his front-runner status for the governorship, but that could change if he's forced to admit -- after claiming otherwise -- that the relationship with Ms. Katz is continuing. Already stories are surfacing of convivial sightings in Washington in the months before the story broke. Noteworthy too is the silence of two people who might defend Mr. Corzine. One is New Jersey's other U.S. Senator and Democratic elder Frank Lautenberg. The other is Acting Gov. Richard Codey, credited with erasing much of the bad odor lingering from former Gov. Jim McGreevey's resignation after he admitted placing his gay lover on the state payroll.