In the Right

What’s really interesting, though, is what voters said when asked if Obama’s visit would make them more or less likely to vote for Corzine — 12 percent of the likely voters surveyed said it would make them more likely, 14 percent said less likely, and 73 percent said it wouldn’t affect their vote one way or the other.

But among the remaining undecided voters? Just 5 percent said it would make them more likely to vote for Corzine, against 14 percent who said it would make them less likely. For every one undecided voter the Corzine campaign will gain by bringing in Obama, it will lose three to GOP challenger Chris Christie.

If you were running the Corzine campaign and you were presented with that data, you’d have a hard time thinking the final Obama visit would help you win. The data just doesn’t back it up.

Ah, but that’s because you made the mistake of thinking you were running the Corzine campaign — but you are not running the Corzine campaign, these guys and this guy are, and at this point in the race, they don’t care much about undecided voters.

They care about their base voters, and they care about motivating and mobilizing that base.

And according to the Monmouth University/Gannett survey, Corzine’s base still isn’t quite where it needs to be just yet — he’s only pulling the support of 66 percent of the black and Hispanic likely voters surveyed, while Christie is pulling 17 percent, and independent Chris Daggett 9 percent.

So on Sunday, two days before the election, Obama will appear at rallies in Camden and Newark, with Corzine at his side.

Camden will provide the pictures for south Jersey via the Philadelphia TV stations that will cover the event; Newark will provide the pictures for north Jersey, via the New York TV stations that will cover the event.

Corzine strategists are hoping that between the two of them, Camden and Essex counties will provide a 130,000-vote margin for Corzine, as they did in the Democrats’ last two winning campaigns for governor.

Christie strategists, by contrast, are hoping to hold the Democrats’ combined plurality coming out of Camden and Essex to just 80,000 votes, as they did in their last statewide victory, in 1997.

But there’s one final X-Factor here — on Sunday, at a time still to be determined (but most likely at night), the Philadelphia Phillies will host the New York Yankees for game four of the World Series. The New Jersey Turnpike will be jammed all day, as Yankee fans travel the 80-plus mile/90-plus minute route to the Citizens Bank Center in southeast Philadelphia.

That means there are going to be two major events in close proximity to one another, within hours of one another, with tens of thousands of cars moving on limited thoroughfares through the same space.

Getting tickets to a World Series game is a pretty big thing. Imagine how upset you’d be if you showed up late because of a traffic jam that, somehow or other, was said to be the fault of the Corzine campaign, because they chose to bring Obama to Camden on the same day as a World Series game in Philly.

Obama and Corzine had better hope there are no accidents on I-295 leading to the Walt Whitman Bridge, or I-676 leading to the Ben Franklin Bridge — or, worse, on one of the bridges itself. That could end up being the best thing to happen to the Christie campaign all day.

UPDATE: A faithful reader informs me that in addition the the Yankees-Phillies game and the Obama visit on behalf of Corzine, there’s a football game in Philadelphia on Sunday, against the New York Giants.

Location: The Lincoln Financial Services Field, which is a Tiger Woods three-wood away from the Citizens Bank Center where the baseball game will be played.

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