The man in the photo is not Jon Corzine nor Chris Christie, yet he is a candidate for governor of New Jersey this November.
Incumbent Corzine (D) and challenger Christie (R) are, predictably enough, getting all the attention. But this man is in the race, too.
He is Chris Daggett, an independent candidate who has gained just enough traction to have qualified for entry into the debates and to have received at least one major endorsement (the Sierra Club) and a number of minor ones.
Like all third-party or independent candidates, his chances of winning are negligible. So, while the Corzine-Christie campaign has become a mud-fest, the only real criticism of Daggett so far has been that his chances of winning are negligible.
Most of the attention given Daggett is speculative, about whether his role as a "spoiler" will have a larger effect on Corzine or Christie. Corzine is not a particularly popular incumbent, and Christie is not a particularly galvanizing alternative.
Daggett may in fact be a credible candidate, but even if he is able to further raise his profile in the coming weeks, he is likely to remain a doomed candidate.
