Gov. Jon Corzine’s poll numbers are not good. The bearded New Jersey Democrat maintains a 40 percent approval rating in a blue state. These numbers, combined with the state’s high-tax rate, suffocating property taxes, and high unemployment, make the 2009 governor’s race an obvious target for the GOP.

Enter Chris Christie, the rotund former U.S. attorney credited with taking a bite out of the rampant corruption in New Jersey and putting away 130 government officials. Republicans have looked to run Christie for elected office for years, and now he walks into the governor’s race leading Corzine 45-38 percent in recent polls. He leads Republican primary challenger Steve Lonegan in the most recent poll, down from 18 and 23 percent earlier.

Christie has received glowing early reviews from the press. For instance, the New York Times recently wrote that Christie “won widespread admiration for his aggressive fight against political corruption.”

But Newark’s White Knight is not quite the shoo-in for governor he appears to be. Christie’s tenure as U.S. attorney was marred by significant ethical lapses which exposed Christie as the same type of “pay-to-play” politician that he rails against.

The most blatant example is his rewarding former New York U.S. attorney David N. Kelley with an advantageous no-bid contract after he agreed not to press criminal charges against Christie’s brother Todd and after Kelley had left public office for private practice in 2005.

Todd J. Christie, a major Republican donor, was the CEO of Spear Leeds & Kellogg, one of the five biggest trading firms on Wall Street that was found by the SEC to have engaged in illegal trading practices from 1999-2003. When the SEC investigation became public in 2003, Todd Christie was forced out.

As a Wall Street trading specialist, Christie personally generated $1.6 million in illegal profits for his firm Spear Leeds & Kellogg and cost his customers $1.4 million through 1,670 acts of illegal trading.

“Christie ranked fourth in the commission complaint among the 20 traders who earned the biggest profits at customers’ expense. The top three were indicted, as were 11 traders lower down,” the New York Times reported. Four of the five traders who escaped indictment worked for Spear Leeds & Kellogg.

David A. Markowitz, the assistant regional director of the SEC in Manhattan, told the New York Times that Christie ranked “in the category of amongst the worst in terms of the harm cost.”

Spear Leeds & Kellogg caused $29 million in harm to its customers through illegal trading practices and paid a civil fine of $16.5 million to the SEC and restitution of $28.7 million. It was the first brokerage firm accused by the SEC of naked short selling, a particularly abusive form of stock manipulation in which an individual sells shares which are never delivered, driving a stock’s price way down.

Patrick Byrne, founder of Overstock.com and author of Deep Capture, writes that Spear Leeds & Kellogg “was long known as the most egregious perpetrator of naked short selling.” Just a few years after the SEC completed its faux investigation into Spear Leeds, the practice of naked short selling caused the monumental collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG and the greatest global financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Robert Johnson, a trading specialist under Todd Christie who was criminally indicted, caused approximately $380,000 in harm to Spear Leeds’ customers, while Christie, who was not indicted, caused $1.4 million in harm.

U.S. Attorney David Kelley, who convicted Martha Stewart based on one known instance of insider trading, declined to criminally prosecute Todd Christie, who traded ahead 610 times and admitted that “inappropriate trading” had occurred.

The New York Times wrote: “We don’t know whether this is a case of how nice it is to have big brothers in high places. But it doesn’t look good.”

Confirming the NYT’s fears, Chris Christie rewarded David Kelley - the U.S. attorney who declined to prosecute or even fine Todd Christie - with a hefty no-bid contract in 2007 to monitor Biomet Orthopedics Inc., which was accused of violating federal anti-kickback laws and paid the government $26.9 million in civil settlements as part of a deferred prosecution agreement.

Kelley has not disclosed the value of his 18-month contract but said he billed at his “standard hourly wage.”

Chris Christie was invited by Congressional Democrats to testify concerning this and other contracts Christie gave as part of deferred prosecution agreements, such as the no-bid $28-52 million contract given to Christie’s former boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Christie dismissed the invitation as part of “a concerted Democratic effort to try to affect our primary.” This remark doesn’t pass the laugh test, given Christie’s conveniently timed investigation of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) just two months before his election in 2006. Menendez was ultimately cleared of all wrong-doing.

There are more than legitimate questions to be asked about Kelley’s decision not press criminal charges against Todd Christie and Chris Christie’s subsequent passing a multi-million dollar, no-bid monitorship to Kelley. To tell voters otherwise is to insult them.

UPDATE: (6/3/09)

It’s official: Gov. Jon Corzine (D-NJ) will face Republican Chris Christie in the November general election, following Christie’s 55 to 42 percent victory over primary challenger Steve Lonegan on Tuesday. His 13 point win was lower than expected, as Christie held the backing of the Republican establishment, had a significant money advantage, and lead the more conservative Lonegan by 18 and 23 points in recent polls.

Turnout was low across the state, most notably in Republican counties, according to the Star-Ledger. The lack of enthusiasm about the primary may indicate that the Republican Party isn’t out of the woods yet. It remains to be seen if the GOP base will accept Christie, specifically if he moves to the center during the coming months as many conservatives expect him to do.