“Gov. Chris Christie’s approval rating has increased to the highest score ever measured for a New Jersey governor. According to a Quinnipiac University survey of registered voters released Tuesday, 72 percent approved of Christie’s job performance, up from 56 percent last month.”

-- Wall Street Journal, Nov. 30, 2012

What does Harry have against potted plants?

Before I move on to the main topic of this column, please indulge me for a moment while I make yet another request for justice for April Kauffman.

Last week I visited friends in the prosperous Maryland suburbs just north of Washington, D.C. Driving from South Jersey to our nation’s capital reminded me of a movie scene where the two “tributes” from District 9 rode the train to the Capitol for the Hunger Games. 

The Ocean City chapter of Amnesty International will observe and celebrate International Human Rights Day with a poetry reading by poet Lamont Steptoe 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 8 at the Bayside Center, 520 Bay Ave., Ocean City.

It's almost a new election year. 2013 will be a very big political year.

Gov. Chris Christie (although he won't yet say), I guarantee that he will be running for re-election.

Some additional thoughts regarding Hurricane Sandy are warranted.

Sometimes storms get overhyped. Not this one! Superstorm Sandy will never be forgotten. Not since 1903 had a hurricane made such a dramatic, almost unprecedented left turn against all metrological odds.

Shortly after the “superstorm,” government “experts” reported that the sand dunes on South Jersey beaches “did their duty,” but now needed to be replaced at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

It’s time for the annual Thanksgiving column.

What a year it has been, but we have much to be thankful for. Sandy spared our home and our family is doing well. Many people in South Jersey lost everything during Superstorm Sandy and perhaps are thankful only that they are alive. But Americans are resilient and will find their way back.

Last week Democrat Obama defeated Republican Romney for president in a very close election (50.5 percent to 47.9 percent). Republicans lost two seats in the U.S. Senate but kept their majority in the House of Representatives, the branch of the federal government responsible for spending, taxes and borrowing.

So the results are in. President Obama was re-elected to a second term by a large margin in the Electoral College, but by a small margin in the popular vote. Obama squeaked through thanks to a number of factors, including a high turnout of his base: Latino and African-American voters in the forefront.

Many people – half of the people to be exact – want to know how Barack Obama won a second term as president Nov. 6.

It's a great question. The Obama four-year record was so abysmal that surely he was destined to be a failed one-term president, right?

This column was written Friday, and with the situation still very much in flux some of what I'm writing here may have been overtaken by events. So like last week's column, I'll just do my best. My post-election column will be for next week.

This columnist has been rough on our Gov. Chris Christie, calling him a bully, and opposing many of his actions as governor.  Hurricane Sandy showed him in a new light.

“There are a handful of towns that have not reached the 90 percent evacuation level and that it may be difficult to get people out as conditions worsen. They are in harm’s way … these decisions are both stupid and selfish.”

- Gov. Chris Christie, Monday, Oct. 30, 2012

Last Sunday, George McGovern, former U.S. senator from South Dakota and Democratic candidate for president in 1972, passed away at the age of 90.

 I was a McGovern campaign staff member during the spring and fall of 1972. I ran the door-to-door canvass in Atlantic County in the spring and summer, as well as a voter registration campaign at the University of Pennsylvania and at Temple University in the springand fall of 1972.