This Newark Star-Ledger piece by Josh Margolin confirms rumors that swirled through the Garden State over the summer -- the Obama political operation in the White House was seriously considering dumping embattled incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine, and replacing him on the ballot with someone they deemed more electable.

A White House envoy was dispatched to New Jersey to conduct conversations with potential replacement candidates, including State Senate President Dick Codey.

This revelation follows by about six weeks the revelation that the Obama political operation went through the same calculation regarding embattled New York Gov. David A. Paterson -- except that in the case of Paterson, the White House went so far as to actually inform the governor that it was the president's desire that he abandon his bid for election.

New Jersey Gov.-elect Chris Christie spent a lot of time this summer and fall in places New Jersey Republicans don't usually spend time -- and where New Jersey Republicans typically don't do that well when it comes time for elections.

Camden, Essex, and Hudson counties -- home to Camden, Newark, and Jersey City, respectively -- are considered the three corners of the Democratic stool in New Jersey.

Together, they typically provide a Democratic candidate running for statewide office a 140,000-vote cushion.

But Christie decided early on to make a play for the votes of these city dwellers, based largely on shared support for increased educational opportunity for inner city children trapped in failing schools.

It's not often that one gets proof that a supposedly hare-brained supposition -- so wild, it was seen by some as evidence of an obsession bordering on paranoia -- actually was taking place.

It is rarer still when one gets the proof just a few months after the supposition was first made public.

So consider me delighted to point you in the direction of this blockbuster piece by the Newark Star-Ledger's Josh Margolin, which reveals for the first time that, in fact, the Obama White House was so concerned over the summer about New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's faltering campaign that senior Obama strategists considered dumping Corzine and replacing him with Senate President/former Acting Governor Dick Codey -- as I suggested they might, way back on July 9.

Democrats went to some length in their consideration of options -- at one point, according to Margolin, they commissioned a poll testing possible replacements against GOP nominee Chris Christie.

With less than 24 hours to go before the polls open, campaign insiders are getting phone calls from reporters and major donors and hangers-on, and the standard response to "What's your best bet?" is "I swear, it all depends on turnout -- really."

In New Jersey this year, that line has the added value of actually being truthful.

The final pre-election Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey of the 2009 New Jersey governor's race is out, and it shows a 7-point swing over the last five days away from incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine and toward GOP nominee Chris Christie.

Last week's survey release showed a 5-point, 43-38 percent Corzine advantage over Christie; today's survey shows a 2-point, 42-40 percent Christie lead over Corzine.

I wrote about it last week. PolitickerNJ's Wally Edge warned about it yesterday. And this morning, Harry Hurley, South Jersey's most influential talk radio host, says he received "more than a hundred emails from angry Eagles fans" who didn't make it to Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field in time to see what he labeled "perhaps the finest half of Eagles football in the Andy Reid era" -- and it's a safe bet that for every email Harry received, there were another 100 angry fans who didn't email.

Their gripe? Barack Obama's final-weekend visit to Camden to shore up the faltering campaign of Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine.

The Obama motorcade shut down the Walt Whitman Bridge -- the principal artery between South Jersey and Philadelphia -- and sections of Interstate 42 yesterday afternoon, long in advance of Obama's scheduled 12:55 PM arrival at the Philadelphia airport.