"Joizy" people don't care what you think

By JOHN P. McALPIN
The Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey is the subject of a thousand jokes about 
mobsters, turnpike exits, trash dumps and big-haired shore girls. You gotta 
problem with that? 

Two-thirds of New Jersey people don't care what you think, according to a 
Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released Thursday. 

``I couldn't care less too. I ain't going nowhere,'' said Acting Governor 
Donald T. DiFrancesco when told about the poll results. 

Some 27 percent of New Jerseyans surveyed said the first thing that came to 
mind when they thought of their home state was that it's a nice place to 
live. Another 20 percent associated it with the shore. 

``I've probably made a hundred trips to (Los Angeles), 50 to Chicago and 50 
to Florida, but I always come back. When people ask where I'm from, I say 
'Joizy,''' said Bob Reed, 52, of Mount Laurel. 

But only 8 percent of respondents from out of state thought New Jersey would 
make a pleasant home. Sixteen percent couldn't think of anything to associate 
with the state, 7 percent thought of casinos and 10 percent thought of 
pollution and a bad smell. 

Some 58 percent of residents outside New Jersey also believe the home of 
HBO's fictional mob family ``The Sopranos'' has the same or more mobsters and 
organized crime than any other state. 

New Jersey residents admit the state has its problems. 

More than half said New Jersey is more polluted than other states. And 75 
percent said they think their taxes are the highest in the country. 

Still, only 29 percent believed they had a worse problem with crooked 
politicians and organized crime than the rest of the United States. 

``New Jersey people are very sensitive on that question. You have this 
thumping majority that insists it's about the same as in other states,'' said 
Peter Woolley, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson. 

Fairleigh Dickinson surveyed 500 adults in New Jersey and 800 in other states 
in a random telephone poll between June 28 and July 9. The survey's margin of 
error for the New Jersey portion was plus or minus 5 percentage points; the 
national segment was 4 percentage points. 

On the Net: 

http://www.publicmind.fdu.edu