CORZINE PRESSED OVER HOMELESS IN CAMPAIGN

CAMDEN, N.J., Nov. 3 - Jon S. Corzine said today he was unaware that
residents of homeless shelters and rehabilitation clinics in Philadelphia
were being bused into New Jersey to work on behalf of his campaign for the
Senate. But he defended the idea of offering recovering addicts and others
$75 a day to put up signs and knock on doors as "an honest day's pay for an
honest day's work."

Mr. Corzine put in a typically rigorous day of campaigning, greeting
commuters in Edison in the early morning and elderly and disabled voters in
Camden in the afternoon. But at nearly every stop he was dogged by
questions from reporters about the effort, part of the Democratic Party's
get-out-the-vote operation, which officials say will cost a record $3
million on Tuesday alone.

Much of that is going for so-called street money, payments of $50 or $75 to
thousands of political foot soldiers. They are being pushed to boost
Democratic turnout to record numbers, particularly among the party's base
of black and Hispanic voters in Newark, Camden, Elizabeth, Trenton and
other cities.

Those cadres of workers, many of whom have been working on a per diem basis
for either the Corzine campaign or the state Democratic Party since as
early as August, include several dozen residents of at least two homeless
shelters in North Philadelphia.

Responding to a news report about the hiring, Mr. Corzine's Republican
opponent, Representative Bob Franks, said today that he was "personally
shocked" by "Mr. Corzine's willingness to hire recovering drug addicts from
Pennsylvania" for the Democratic vote-pulling operation.

"It appears that he's run out of people in New Jersey whose support he can
buy," Mr. Franks said. "Why can't he find people in New Jersey?"

Mr. Corzine suggested at one point today that the tight New Jersey labor
market might have been the reason for the unusual cross-border hiring
program. "I think that when you have a 3.9 percent unemployment rate, and
we're looking to try to have people canvass in some of the neighborhoods,
this is one of those places that I guess some folks might think that we
ought to turn," he said.

Later in the day, he said he was still awaiting a briefing from his staff,
but expressed some concern of his own. "I would've preferred it if people
were in New Jersey," Mr. Corzine said in poverty-stricken Camden, where one
in nine adults is jobless. "Just because we ought to be offering employment
- - if we're going to offer employment - to folks that are in New Jersey,
other things being equal."

But Mr. Corzine said he found nothing wrong with using as campaign workers
people who are recovering drug or alcohol addicts. "I think the issue is,
they're `ex,' and they're people who are trying to recover, trying to build
dignity, and putting up signs and distributing literature. An honest day's
pay for an honest day's work, I think, is a good thing."

Mr. Corzine began his day campaigning at the Metropark railroad station in
Edison alongside Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, whom he hopes to succeed and
was joined by Maryanne Connelly, who is seeking the Congressional seat now
occupied by Mr. Franks.

At the next stop, in Woodbridge Township, the Democratic candidates were
joined by Mayor James E. McGreevey, the presumptive Democratic nominee for
governor in 2001, who complimented Terry Durek, a committeewoman whose home
served as the backdrop of the event, on her soda bread, though she had not
backed any today. Whereupon Mr. Lautenberg, who has shown a fondness for
jokes at Mr. Corzine's expense, said: "Jon Corzine's bringing the bread."

Mr. Franks, who also campaigned in South Jersey, today won the endorsement
of the New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association, which says it
has 35,000 members. In addition, the United States Chamber of Commerce,
which has endorsed Mr. Franks, began running a commercial tonight that
attacks Mr. Corzine for "supporting a big-government prescription drug plan."

The Franks campaign also said that its own Election Day efforts would
include ensuring against voter fraud, noting that nearly 65,000 dead people
remain on the voter registration lists. "We are going to provide to our
challengers, in all 21 counties, the list of dead voters to make sure that
Jon Corzine has not paid his way into the afterlife," said Charlie Smith,
Mr. Franks's campaign manager.

In what could provide a lift to Mr. Franks - or not - Gov. George W. Bush,
who trails well behind Vice President Al Gore in the New Jersey polls, will
campaign with Mr. Franks on Saturday evening at a rally at Drew University
in Madison, N.J.