New Jersey: Welcome to the Big, Slow, Stupid Target

Joy-see. Not so much The Big Easy as The Big Easy-to-Hit.

Yeah, yeah yeah, everybody likes to insult New Jersey. Well, can you blame us?

So, the Grate Garden State of Jersey has:

1. Paid a "consultant" 260,000 clams for a slogan they canned ("New Jersey: We'll Win You Over").
   
   
2. Actually, the state didn't so much turn down the consultant's creation as did the acting governor, Richard Codey, it appears.
   
   Don Codey sez, "It makes me think of when I was young and single and asked a girl out. She turned me down. I said, 'Give me a chance, I'll win you over.'"
   
   Yeah, Dick, I'm sure the good people of NJ are happy your childhood inadequacies are guiding their tax dollars. Allegedly.
   
   
3. The chance to choose one of these five finalists:
   
   
   
   • "New Jersey: Expect the Unexpected"
     
   • "New Jersey: Love at First Sight"
     
   • "New Jersey: Come See for Yourself"
     
   • "New Jersey: The Real Deal"
     
   • "New Jersey: The Best Kept Secret"
     

But why waste time on those? After all, we all want to know the rejected slogans. Here's a list of everything I could find:

• "New Jersey: How You Doin?"
  
• "New Jersey: Most of Our Elected Officials Have Not Been Indicted"
  
• "New Jersey: We can always use another relative on the payroll"
  
• "Come to New Jersey: It's not as bad as it smells"
  
• "New Jersey: We Hate You, Too"
  
• "If Living Here Were Easy, It Would Be Another State"
  

This Codey character is quite the wag and many of his finest lines accompany this story:

"The top five lines hint at our marvel and our beauty and, if nothing else, it should get us a second date."

But I think nothing beats Codey's final word on the matter, a real toxic word dump: "As a state, we are complex in many ways, but we don't have a complex. We have a big heart and a passion for life. We just need to remind others that the door remains open."

If you happen to be a proud resident of New Jersey, I did not write any of this. Somebody hacked into my blogging account and tried to make me look bad. I mean worse. You, however, can fight back! You can vote on your choice of wonderful slogan here.

New Jersey: We'll Make You An Offer You Can't Refuse.