Schundler, Commentaries on the Election

With a message designed to "reach out to minorities in the inner cities," Bret Schundler joined a legion of other Republicans who failed at trying to reinvent the wheel and got exactly the same 42 percent vote G.W. Bush got last year -- almost exactly district by district -- and proved once again that Republican efforts to attract urban black votes are a counterproductive waste of time, money and effort.

Schundler's message of "empowerment" didn't attract black votes and turned off the white Catholic suburban men. And without the energized white Catholic suburban male vote, you cannot win as a conservative in a state like New Jersey. That's why as many as a third of conservatives pulled the Democratic lever yesterday and many, particularly here in the occupied Northwest Counties, stayed home.

"Compassionate Conservatism" means someone who is liberal on race issues. I am not so inclined and I am speaking bluntly here -- way too bluntly for the girlieman brigade that runs the Republican party and seeks respectability on the Golf Course, not votes at the Bowling Alley. If blacks want to segregate themselves in the Democratic Party, Republicans need to get the flip side of that equation and will not win any election in this state again until they learn to do it and that's the cold hard truth.

After running an excellent primary election, Schundler made a number of mistakes, written only in the order I think of them at this early hour on no sleep. Please excuse typos, repeated thoughts and sentences that make no sense.

1) Drooling all over the Franks voters: All the Roger Bodmans and Hazel Glucks and Tom Keans and Bobbie Franks' and Don DiFrancescos and Christie Whitmans and the rest of their ilk added up to only 130,000 votes -- 20,000 fewer votes than Third Party candidates Murray Sabrin and Rich Pezzullo won in 1997. And once the Franks party machine was defeated they had proven to the world just how powerless they are. Yet the Schundler campaign spent seemingly half their effort or more trying to win just 5 percent of the electorate which might explain why Eagleton was showing 30 percent of conservatives voting for McGreevey. And the more Schundler and his staff talked about Hazel Gluck or DiFrancesco, the more important these people appeared to be.

2) Not helping Schluter get matching funds: With two liberal candidates in the debates, McGreevey would have had to watch his left flank for defections to Schluter, making it easier for Schundler to define McGreevey as a liberal. Early polling indicated that Schluter's votes would have come overwhelmingly from McGreevey.

3) Mishandling the gun issue: Pennsylvania and Connecticut have the same "Right to Carry" laws that Schundler first said he supported, then said he didn't support. But changing his position was bad enough, but the obsession with being defensive on guns and repeating it in virtually every ad, debate and campaign appearance had to keep ten or twenty thousand gun owners home or maybe even voting for McGreevey, especially those gun owners who are also union members. More men who had no reason to convince their wives to vote for Bret Schundler.

4) Being afraid of the Right to Life issue: Exit polls show that voters who voted on the abortion issue supported Schundler by more than 10 points, yet the Schundler campaign refused to attack McGreevey on his radical abortion stance, a move that might have helped boost numbers in the solidly pro-Life 287/Parkway belt and again, the same failed strategy, worrying about the people who didn't vote for you instead of the ones who did.

5) Letting McGreevey define himself as a moderate: This is a function of one of the worst press operations ever seen in this state as Schundler's passive press office did nothing while newspaper articles repeatedly referred to McGreevey as a "moderate" or "centrist" Democrat. One survey we did showed that only 23 percent of voters thought McGreevey was a liberal while 42 percent said he was "moderate." Amazingly (or maybe not), 13 percent said that Schundler was a liberal. McGreevey won 5-1 among those voters who thought him a moderate and 4-1 among those who thought him a conservative (8 percent). There's nothing wrong with being a right wing extremist as long as the other guy is a left wing extremist. But almost every time the liberal will beat the moderate and the moderate will beat the liberal and the moderate Democrat beats the moderate Republican. You cannot win as a conservative if you do not define your opponent as a liberal. And you cannot define your opponent as a liberal unless you are a conservative to begin with.

6) Panic and react: More gripes about the press office. No one really paid much attention to the Saturday article in September where Schundler criticized DiFrancesco's handling of the September 11th attack until the Schundler campaign verbally attacked a reporter who printed it, calling attention to a gaffe that no one probably would have noticed. Another time, Schundler said he would sign a law which has 80 percent support ending government funded abortions. The panicky reactive press office immediately put out a statement saying it wasn't true, which not only became a news story in itself, but a bad story at that.

7) The obsession with the black vote: OK, this is where Rick gets called a racist again. The black vote is Fools Gold for Republicans. Bret Schundler obsessed over the black vote, going to the left of McGreevey on the racial profiling and consent search issue and attacking him for "not hiring enough minorities in Woodbridge" (on the Bob Grant show of all places.) For every black vote you try to get (and don't) there's one white suburban male voter you didn't get. Schundler won 12 percent of the black vote. And this, my friends, proves once more that Bush won in spite of "compassionate conservatism", not because of it.

8) Failure to target men: Men are the Republican base and Schundler's obsession with "gender gap" issues like gun control showed why men weren't energized enough to convince their wives to vote for Schundler. Let's face it, more wives vote the way their husbands vote than the other way around.

9) Mail and phones instead of TV and Radio: Whoever came up with this nitwit strategy was really responsible for the debacle. And what few TV ads were run were weak and pathetic. The mail was awful, wordy and ridiculous (like the one with Schundler reading to a bunch of black kids that was sent to a 55 year old male South of US 40). Not only that, Schundler's campaign couldn't even buy the $2/spot cable ads here in the most Republican county in the state and I only got two pieces of mail in the entire general election campaign, and one was that crappy Bush endorsement postcard. There's nothing that makes my day more than letting me put radio and TV against mail and phones -- especially these stupid recorded messages from people who don't live in New Jersey and can't vote for Bret Schundler. "I don't live here, but I know more about your state than you do."

10) Taking their foot off McGreevey's neck and closing "on a positive note": I tried that stupid strategy once after a particularly negative campaign, 'nuff said. The last ad of the campaign should be the most vicious, creative, hilarious, sum up the whole argument spot. Schundler ended with a wimpy ad featuring an endorsement from someone from out of state (Giuliani), fitting for a campaign that held most of its big fundraisers out of state. The Bush mailing was another out of state endorsement. No one cares and they forgot about taxes and all the other issues Schundler used to win the primary and which he could have crucified McGreevey.

11) What happened to Mount Laurel, Tolls and the Newark Arena? I don't know. I never saw an ad on any of them. I never saw any mail on any of that. No radio ads either. I guess they thought everyone reads the newspaper and remembers every word. Sparta is going to get 400 Mount Laurel Low Income apartments. One would think that they would have done a mailing "Jim McGreevey supports it. Bret Schundler will stop it." But that would have taken away resources needed to pay crackheads $85 a day to "get out the (McGreevey) vote" in Camden. This is why the 287/Parkway belt did not come through for the Republicans this year. Of all the counties along the Garden State Parkway, Schundler won only one and that one was with a 49 percent plurality.

12) Taking the summer off. Schundler should have been on News 12 and CN8 on June 27th with ads attacking McGreevey on taxes. McGreevey hustled all summer and showed that he wanted to win more. By early October, instead of being a pro-abortion liberal who couldn't go to Mass, McGreevey was a moderate to conservative Democrat.

13) Pathetic fundraising: All night I heard people whining about "we didn't have the money." There's no excuse for an armbreaker like Bret Schundler, who could raise millions as Mayor, as Gubernatorial candidate and for his various projects, to not raise tens of millions or more as the Republican nominee. The fundraising should have started primary night when he had a captive audience fueled with adrenaline and alcohol, ready to break out checks and credit cards. If the campaign was real smart, they would have also marketed this to the national TV audience during his acceptance speech. There was no reason why the Schundler campaign shouldn't have raised the max in two weeks. The tens of millions in outside money didn't come in because the campaign's internal fundraising was so awful.

14) The debates: After scoring a near knockout in the first debate, Schundler got progressively worse until he completely bombed in the Channel 7 debate which was the only one in primetime. And who could blow the "ask your opponent a question" question? I've never seen a candidate lead with his opponent's main issue and manage to offend both sides of the subject and do it again and again. Guns. Guns. Guns. I didn't see McGreevey spend much time talking about his support for Mount Laurel, the Newark Arena or higher taxes. Watching Schundler react to McGreevey reminded me of Pavlov's Dog.

15) Mishandling the education issue: (More chance to call Rick a racist) To Schundler, "education" meant urban education and school choice. This does not appeal to either the suburban parent who lives 30 miles from Jersey City or the Jersey City parent who doesn't want Our Lady of Victories opened up to everyone from Ward F who walks in with a voucher. There's a reason why immigrants from all over the world send their kids to Jersey City Catholic schools and it doesn't have to do with the religious training. And then there's all the crap Christie Whitman's "core curriculum" forces down kids throats...every horror story you would hear about at an Eagle Forum Education conference is present in New Jersey's public schools yet on these hot button issues, Schundler was silent.

16) Going to war with Hudson County Democrats: Only Bret Schundler could unite all the nominally non-partisan Democratic Mayors in Hudson County against him, providing McGreevey with a near 50,000 vote margin in the county. Schundler's decision to open a headquarters down the street from Nick Sacco's house is a large part of the reason why McGreevey took North Bergen by 6,000 votes.

Conclusion: A non-incumbent Republican cannot put together 50%+1 in New Jersey without solid support from white Catholic suburban men and you cannot put that equation together while also trying to win the black vote. The Schundler/Bush "compassionate conservatism" theory does not work in this part of the USA, maybe somewhere else, but not here.

Message to Republicans: stop trying to reinvent the wheel and win big in the suburbs. Forget about the cities, the black vote and Jewish liberals. Worry about energizing the base and they will turn out in big numbers along 287 and the Parkway and provide the statewide majorities no New Jersey Republican has won since George Bush received 55 percent of Garden State votes against Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Given how much both gubernatorial candidates had to have known about our fiscal situation, the real question for many of us as we voted yesterday was this: Why did either of them even want the job?

Indeed, some would say yesterday's real winner was the one who woke up in Jersey City this morning. By contrast, the one who woke up in Woodbridge is destined for four years of daily recollections of the cautionary adage "Be careful what you ask for; you might get it." Yesterday, the majority of New Jersey voters gave Jim McGreevey what he'd asked for. In a perfect world, that would mean he'd walk into his new office Jan. 15 to find a clean desk and empty "in" box.

But this has never been a perfect world, and it became considerably less so on the morning of Sept. 11. Whatever our state's problems prior to that day -- and there were plenty -- they were intensified by the attack on New York. So McGreevey will enter an office where he won't even be able to see his desk, never mind his "in" box, because it will be heaped with requests, mandates, demands and obligations. Considering the fiscal mess he's facing, a suit and briefcase won't be as appropriate as overalls and Janitor in a Drum.

The recession, in progress well before Sept. 11, is worsening. Ditto job losses, which haven't begun to approach the numbers most expect to see. That all spells more expenses and less revenue for the state and casts a different light on the biggest budget in state history, some $23 billion.

That figure would suggest there's plenty of spending money, and in fact there is. But most of it is committed, and some of the rest will never arrive. In January, Gov. Christie Whitman proposed a budget that contained a $1 billion surplus even though others were not that optimistic. The Office of Legislative Services projected a deficit of $350 million and in late spring revised that to $1.6 billion. A few months later, numbers crunchers were saying $2 billion. Some now predict a $3 billion deficit. If that proves correct, that $23 billion budget becomes $20 billion.

Then you've got debt service. Remember Whitman's mega-borrowing maneuver a couple of years back? Combined with interest on other state-floated bonds, the annual debt service comes to $1.5 billion.

Local school districts get $7.3 billion. And $3.7 billion goes to the Department of Human Services. Now add $1.9 billion for higher education, $1.7 billion in aid to municipalities and roughly a billion each for the Corrections Department and the NJ Saver rebates. That comes to a tad over $18 billion -- which leaves $2 billion.

But wait! Those are just the big-ticket items! We haven't figured in the payroll for 76,000 state employees. Or rising Medicaid costs. Or the dozen or so smaller categories that add up to multiple millions more. Hmm. McGreevey's grand hope of paying down state debt may soon be replaced by praying he can just break even, as the law requires. But even that's a tall order.

Sure, McGreevey can cap the NJ Saver program, as he's said he'll do, but it won't make that big a dent. He can also make good on his plan to merge authorities for the Turnpike, Atlantic City Expressway, Parkway and PATCO, but we're still talking pocket change.

Can he chip away at the costs within some programs? Well, yes. But most items can't be deferred, and even some seemingly cuttable items really aren't. If you reduce transportation dollars, for instance, you risk losing federal funds.

He can put off some infrastructure repairs but not all of them. He probably can save several hundred million by freezing capital spending, but the fallout would be further job loss.

He can fire people -- except that the unions supported him, so he's probably not eager to do that. He could reclaim a quick billion by eliminating the NJ Saver program for all but the neediest residents. But he might as well call that a tax increase because that's surely what Republicans will call it.

McGreevey wisely refused to promise not to raise taxes -- and yet you know it's the last thing he wants to do. The ghost of Jim Florio looms large in Trenton still. Even now, you can bet print shops across the state are poised to go into full-scale production with "Impeach McGreevey" bumper stickers to slap over those faded "Florio Free in 93" stickers that still cling to the back ends of some cars on New Jersey's highways.

Bret Schundler had two problems in this campaign: The voters believed he wouldn't cut the size of government. But the politicians believed he would. He certainly deserves some of the blame for the first problem. But the state Republican establishment deserves the blame for the second. Bill Pascoe, Schundler's campaign manager, said last night, "Now that the campaign is over, I can tell you: Don DiFrancesco has actively campaigned against Bret Schundler."

Some Republicans were sending out subtle signals that they would actually prefer a Jim McGreevey victory. Some weren't so subtle.

State Sen. John Mattheussen, a Republican from Gloucester County who ended up winning easily last night, sent out a mailing (which was posted online at politicsnj.com) that showed him next to a smiling McGreevey. The accompanying text strongly implied that McGreevey had endorsed the Republican. The implication was so strong that the McGreevey campaign registered a protest.

But why protest? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Mattheussen is perhaps the best example yet of what many Republicans call a RINO (Republican In Name Only). Last spring, I saw Mattheussen speak at a rally in Gloucester for Bob Franks. (Remember him?) A local GOP leader introduced Mattheussen as a politician who could have been a Democrat as easily as a Republican. He then went on to say he meant that as a compliment.

Which he certainly did, but that's the problem. The same could be said of any of a number of prominent Republicans, starting with acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco. These guys have few if any policy positions that differ from those of the Democrats. They stand for nothing except divvying up the pork so that the GOP gets a bigger share. Schundler wanted to cut the pork. They believed him even if the voters didn't.

The establishment candidates claimed that their objection to Schundler was that he stood for the wrong principles. But their real objection to Schundler was that he stood for any principles at all.

It may indeed be true, as many of these Republicans argued, that a pro-lifer can't be elected governor of New Jersey. And it would therefore follow that the best way for a Republican to win in this state is to be a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. But where is that candidate? The establishment failed to produce him. The two GOP establishment candidates, first DiFrancesco and then Franks, had no major disagreements with McGreevey on economic issues.

Once the conservatives won the primary with Schundler, they expected to get the same level of party support they had given to candidates like Christie Whitman. But of the top party people, only former Gov. Tom Kean and Franks acted like adults. Both disagreed with Schundler on many issues but in their public statements pointed out that the Republican was infinitely preferable to the Democrat. DiFrancesco, meanwhile, acted like a 2-year-old. He could have stayed in the primary and he might well have won it. But one day he dropped out. The next day he began a vendetta against the eventual winner. His refusal to back Schundler sent signals all the way down to the lowliest Senate or Assembly candidate. As a result, Schundler had a hard time getting even the Republican vote. Exit polls showed that 27 percent of those who voted Republican four years ago voted for McGreevey this time.

This left Schundler with the impossible task of winning Democrats and independents while his fellow Republicans were attacking him.

If the establishment leaders had backed Schundler and he still lost big, they'd have made their point. They could say that no conservative can be elected governor. But all they succeeded in proving is that no conservative can be elected governor with the party establishment offering tacit support for his rival.

The conservatives knew that already. And they are now really mad. They may not have proven they can win a general election, but they certainly proved they can win a primary. And there's another one coming up real soon, the race for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Bob Torricelli. And guess who's been floating some trial balloons? None other than Don DiFrancesco. According to some of my Republican sources, DiFrancesco has been asking county chairmen about a possible run for Senate.

That should be fun. If DiFrancesco runs, he can expect some lively competition. At this point, there is not the slightest chance that conservatives would permit an uncontested primary for DiFrancesco, Christie Whitman or any of the other so-called "moderate Republicans" who might run for Senate.

I have no idea how all of this will turn out. But it's entirely likely that from now on any candidates seeking to win statewide Republican primaries might have to give the voters at least some small indication that they are not, in fact, Democrats.

Within 48 hours the Yankees lost the World Series, the Democrats regained control of the Assembly and picked up five seats in the Senate, causing a 20-20 tie in the upper house, and Jim McGreevey was elected governor. Someone please pass the Prozac!

According to Schundler campaign manager, Bill Pascoe, Acting Governor DiFrancesco worked for McGreevey behind the scenes. That is no surprise. Paul Mulshine alludes to this in his column today

In addition, in last Sunday’s NYT (New Jersey section), Iver Peterson states that DiFrancesco may get legal work in a future McGreevey administration for the Newark arena and a prospective Meadowlands project. Money. Money. MONEY! What people will do for the Almighty dollar…sell out their party and the party’s nominee for a pot of gold. If DiFrancesco or his law firm gets legal fees or is part of the McGreevey’s “bipartisianship” administration, we will know that the fix was in.

As far as the election returns go, Schundler received 200,000+ votes less than Whitman did in 1997. McGreevey picked up 100,000 votes from his 1997 total. Schundler thus lost by more than 300,000 votes.

According to the exit pools, McGreevey got approximately 27% of the Whitman vote. That is astonishing. Florio junior ran as a fiscal conservative, and pulled it off. The Schundler campaign was unable to pin the tail on the donkey. This is what happens when you have too many messages for the electorate. Bret had some very good ideas, but too many for the electorate to digest, especially after September 11th. In short, the campaign did not follow KISS. Keep it simple stupid.

Moreover, as political consultant Rick Shaftan pointed out in this morning’s email, Schundler’s version of “compassionate conservatism” failed. Republicans who try to get the urban vote are wasting their time and money. Republicans are not supposed to be proponents of big government. Urban, predominantly minority, voters tend to vote for candidates who seem like Santa Claus—and they tend to be Democrats. When the GOP gubernatorial candidates in a statewide race in New Jersey first run and win, they win as fiscal conservatives, Kean in 1981and Whitman in 1993.

In their second term, they resort to spend and borrow. The Democrat candidate then tends to run as a fiscal moderate or conservative, hence the Florio and McGreevey victories.

Unfortunately for Bret he ran after the Whitman spending and borrowing spree, and paid the price for her big government administration. He also fell into the trap—trying to get the urban vote rather than concentrating on getting the core Republican voters out on Election day. If Bret had held on to all of Whitman’s voters and gotten my 1997 votes he would have squeaked by McGreevey, 1,247,566 to 1,226,949. Instead, several hundred thousand voters stayed home, handing McGreevey the election on a silver platter, because apparently too many voters did not connect with Schundler’s message that they felt appealed too much to the cities. As I said on Jim Gearhart’s radio show (101.5) this morning, McGreevey said he will root out waste in government. There is at least 10% waste in the state budget.

That would save $2.3 billion for taxpayers. Even if we discount the waste to only 5% of the budget, which still leaves $1.15 billion that could be saved. In short, there is no need for any tax hike. I told Gearhart that if McGreevey raises taxes early next year, Trenton will see the biggest anti-tax rally in New Jersey history next April 15th.

Given the makeup of the legislature the most powerful people in the state are the 20 Republicans in the Senate. They can block any McGreevey initiative. If they do, they will be heroes. If not, if they go along with McGreevey they will be the greatest sellouts in history. They all should immediately pledge not to vote for any tax increase. Email your state senator immediately and ask him or her to take the pledge. If they refuse let me know. We will put the pressure on. Count on it.

PS Hold the Prozac. I am feeling better already. With your help, we will triumph in the years ahead.

After I came home last night about 9:30pm from teaching my Corporate Finance class, I tuned to NJN News at 11:00pm. I was curious to hear what Jim McGreevey had to say in his first news conference after winning the governorship on Tuesday. The Mayor said, “Santa isn’t coming to the State Legislature with Christmas tree lists this year. We need to cut back. We need to be fiscally responsible. We need to live within our means.” So far, so good. So very good.

The Governor-elect then went on to say, “I am committed to having a government living within its means. And it will be necessary to make difficult decisions…I am ruling out a tax increase.” There he said it. He didn’t go so far as say, “Read my lips.” But he said unequivocally: no tax increase. Period. He didn’t say we’d see what the future brings or let’s wait for the state’s revenues to unfold.

McGreevey then went on to say, “…there will be cuts. And I am committed for New Jersey state government to being operated in a cost-effective, fiscally conservative manner, and we will have to make difficult decisions. But again, it’s a 5,000-plus line item budget. It will be an agonizing reappraisal of what government should do, and perhaps more importantly, what government ought not be doing.”

Please read the above paragraph again. McGreevey articulated the most conservative agenda of any governor in my memory. In fact, he sounded yesterday a lot like the Libertarian party candidate who made history in 1997 and debated him and Governor Whitman three times four years ago. In fact, I was getting déjà vu listening to him. I was getting goose bumps. However, I doubt if any members of the press corps came away and said to themselves, “Didn’t we hear this before”? Namely, that some programs should be eliminated because they ought not to be provided by state government.

McGreevey stated the basic tenet of libertarianism, or constitutional republicanism, yesterday, and he is not being criticized for it. In fact, he is being congratulated for his leadership. The Mayor stated in effect if a government program isn’t authorized by the constitution, then the government cannot spend money for it. McGreevey should begin by looking at preschool spending for 3 and 4 year olds, mandated by the state Supreme Court. The state constitution does not authorize that spending. Let’s see if McGreevey will take on the Supreme Court.

McGreevey talked about reviewing the budget and seeing which programs should be cut and which programs should be eliminated. How many Republicans, let alone Democrats, have talked about eliminating government programs? Nada. Zero. In short, could McGreevey be our first “libertarian” governor? If Governor McGreevey cuts spending by 3%, 5% or more (I can fantasize can’t I?) of the budget, and freezes the budget for a year or two and then puts a tight lid on future spending increases, he will be reelected in a landslide in 2005, a la Tom Kean in 1985. Democrats will vote for him overwhelmingly and conservative independents and more Republicans will jump on the McGreevey bandwagon. He would then be reelected with at least 60% of the vote.

McGreevey’s statements yesterday explain why he won the election on Tuesday. He articulated a fiscal conservative agenda during the campaign while Schundler kept talking about urban schools. As Paul Mulshine points out in today’s Star-Ledger () and Rick Shaftan yesterday (see his analysis posted on www.politicsnj.com ), Bret made the fatal error of going after minority votes and neglecting the Republican’s suburban base. The pundits got it wrong, again. Bret was not too conservative, but too liberal for many suburban voters.

This brings me to why McGreevey could become the most fiscally conservative governor in the United States. First, he knows raising taxes will cost him reelection. He does not want to be Jim Florio II, and out of politics at age 48 in four years. Second, given his middle-class background that he doesn’t stop talking about, maybe he is as frugal as they come and knows that government, especially in our current economic environment, must tighten its belt like everyone else. In short, for practical or even ideological reasons, it doesn’t matter which, McGreevey knows that state spending has to be reigned in. (Maybe he learned something in the 1997 debates. Who knows? The point is we do not have to win elections for our policies to be enacted. Economic reality has a way of forcing government officials to do the right thing, eventually.)

Third, if McGreevey is reelected in 2005, we know he cannot seek a third term because of term limits. At the end of his second term he will be 52 years old. If Bush is reelected in 2004, then the Democrats will need a candidate who can win white suburban votes in the south and Midwest in the 2008 presidential race. McGreevey will be touted as a New Democrat-a fiscal conservative and social liberal without a lot of the baggage of Al Gore or Hilary Clinton. The pundits would be showcasing the “New Jersey miracle” under McGreevey, assuming of course he sticks to the limited government agenda that he articulated yesterday. His vice presidential running mate would be a southerner and they could win in landslide. In short, if McGreevey governs like a real Republican (fiscal conservative) for the next four years and wins reelection in 2005, he will be an attractive presidential candidate in 2008.

Just as it took anticommunist Richard Nixon to go to China in the early 1970s, a Democrat president to give us welfare reform in the 1990s, it may take a Democrat to enact a real fiscal conservative agenda in New Jersey, who then can take that vision to Washington.

Yesterday morning I called the Governor-elect to congratulate and wish him the best. McGreevey was in a meeting and could not take my call. An aide returned the call and thanked me and said he will pass my message along. I wanted to tell Jim if he governs like a real Republican he will win reelection easily. I think he knows that. If not, I’m sure he will get my analysis.

A Democrat governor may govern like a real Republican in “moderate” New Jersey. Politics is full of ironies. Moreover, could McGreevey sign a right-to-carry handgun bill in a year or two? Don’t bend over with laughter. If Richard Nixon can go to China and toast drinks with the commies, then anything is possible in politics. And let us not forget September 11th changed everything. And I mean everything.

PS I was just interviewed by a Star-Ledger reporter regarding the gun issue in light of the events on September 11th. Look for it soon

If you listen to the pundits and the party regulars, Bret Schundler's loss on Tuesday is proof that New Jersey voters will accept only moderate Republicans for the governorship. Actually it showed that a moderate Republican can be a tough act to follow.

Christie Whitman was as moderate as they come, but her definition of a moderate Republican did not differ greatly from most people's definition of a liberal Democrat. As Jim McGreevey was fond of reminding us during the campaign, Whitman increased state spending and borrowing by historic levels.

What McGreevey neglected to mention was that a large chunk of that money went to his fellow Democrats. Whitman sent billions into the cities for schools, preschools, aquariums, arts centers and so on.

So how did urban voters express their thanks to the GOP this year? The same way they always do, by voting Democratic. No county got more gifts from the GOP in the Whitman years than Essex, for example. And yet no county voted more solidly Democratic. McGreevey got more than 70 percent of the vote there. He did almost as well in Hudson. There's a lesson in this for the GOP: No more Mr. Nice Guy. Or girl, for that matter.

Look at the reward Whitman got for all those giveaways over all those years. Compassionate Christie gave the Democrats free preschools, one of the biggest liberal giveaways in America during the 1990s. In return, the Democrats labeled her "the Queen of Mean."

This pattern holds for all of the Republican goals in the Whitman era. Whitman's affordable housing people aggressively encouraged towns to accept giant Mt. Laurel housing developments. Did local Republican officials get credit for compassion? No, they got voted out of office for being in bed with the developers.

So much for compassionate conservatism. Republicans would be better off being cynical, Machiavellian schemers like . . . well, like Rick Shaftan.

Shaftan, a political consultant based in Sparta, sent out an e-mail analysis of the election yesterday in which he sketched a winning scenario for future Republican candidates: "With a message designed to 'reach out to minorities in the inner cities,' Bret Schundler joined a legion of other Republicans who failed at trying to reinvent the wheel and got exactly the same 42 percent vote G.W. Bush got last year -- almost exactly district by district -- and proved once again that Republican efforts to attract urban black votes are a counterproductive waste of time, money and effort," Shaftan wrote. Cynical? Perhaps. Yet true. Exit polls showed that Schundler got a mere 12 percent of the black vote. And the black vote was a mere 11 percent of the total. So all of those speeches and all of that concern about helping urban schoolchildren got him a mere 1.32 percent of the total vote.

In the meantime, that obvious concern for the cities cost Schundler votes in suburban areas. He got killed in Ocean County, for example, even though his programs were much better for the suburbs. But his sincerity about the cities muddled his message. If Schundler had pandered to the GOP's suburban base the way McGreevey pandered to his base -- urban voters and the public employee unions -- the results might have been different.

Shaftan's analysis: "The Schundler/Bush 'compassionate conservatism' theory does not work in this part of the USA, maybe somewhere else, but not here. Message to Republicans: stop trying to reinvent the wheel, and win big in the suburbs."

Another message is to learn from McGreevey's example. The Democrat has proven conclusively that the best way to win an election in New Jersey is to have a nice smile, a good suit, a shoeshine and a lot of vague promises. On education, for example, McGreevey promised: a) to give more money to urban schools, b) to give more money to suburban schools, and c) to do so without raising taxes barring some putative "emergency." Schundler, meanwhile, proposed to economize on school spending, particularly in urban areas, to keep taxes down.

Anyone who knows the numbers would have to say that Schundler's approach was more responsible. Yet the pundits portrayed Schundler as a wild-eyed visionary and McGreevey as a realist.

But the pundits and the editorial writers will always prefer a big-spending Democrat over a Republican. Democrats can pour the pork into their districts and get nothing but credit for their high- mindedness. Republicans, meanwhile, are called skinflints and worse if they vote the interests of their constituents. But giving billions to the Democrats doesn't work either.

The game is rigged, so there's no point in trying to play by the rules. Sometime in Gov. McGreevey's term, the Republicans may finally figure this out.

After losing two governorships they had held for eight years, the ostriches in the national Republican Party intoned yesterday that "These races revolved around local issues" and "There were no discernible national trends." If they really believe that, get ready for a Democratic Congress next year.

For even if the results weren't a national "trend," they surely offer a national lesson. In both New Jersey and Virginia (and Nassau County, New York), voters slapped down a divided, aimless GOP that had become more comfortable with power than with moving an agenda. Republicans had better figure out they'll need more than President Bush's lofty approval rating to prevail in next year's midterm races.

New Jersey is a case study in head-in-the-sand Republicanism. The GOP was trounced up and down the ballot only 10 years after it had won more than two-thirds of the state legislature in a 1991 voter revolt against then-Governor Jim Florio's tax increases. In 1993 they added the governorship with a pledge to cut income taxes 30%. At least they honored that promise, but from then on they went for a long soak in the Trenton hot tub. GOP legislators shelved plans to let voters change laws through referenda and they let trial lawyers kill auto insurance reform. They also spent like Democrats, tripling the state's debt and piling up mandates that sent local property taxes through the roof. Their majorities shrank in every election since, and this time they achieved minority bliss.

GOP voters seemed to sense this impending doom, nominating Bret Schundler, the reform mayor of Jersey City, in a primary upset this summer. But the GOP establishment struck back with faint endorsements and backstage sabotage. Acting Governor Don DiFrancesco "seemed to do all he could to help torpedo Schundler's hopes," reported the Newark Star-Ledger this week.

All of this made it easy for Jim McGreevey, the victorious Democrat, to pose as the reform candidate. He denounced the GOP's debt buildup and even said he was "committed to not raising taxes." This worked better than the usual attack ads on abortion and gun control, two issues on which exit polls showed voters split evenly between the two candidates. But on the economy and education, Mr. McGreevey won big majorities. The latter shows how hard it is to sell a complicated school voucher plan to suburban voters, especially when Mr. Schundler lacked enough cash for a big TV campaign.

Across the Hudson River, Democrats also trounced another enervated GOP machine in New York's Nassau County. This is the home to former Senator Al D'Amato and for decades its Republicans have run a spendthrift government filled with patronage, accounting gimmicks and pork-barrel. The county finally hit the fiscal wall in 1998 and the job approval of the GOP county executive fell to 10%. This week voters took their revenge, handing full control of county government to Democrats for the first time since World War I.

In Virginia, Republicans took a similar route to defeat, unilaterally giving up the tax issue. Four years ago Governor Jim Gilmore won in a landslide pledging to repeal the state's car tax, but this year Republicans in the state Senate tried to renege. This led to a nasty public budget fight, and an end to GOP credibility on the issue. (By contrast, activists in liberal Washington state prevailed by 59% to 41% with a referendum to limit property taxes. So much for Democratic spin that the tax issue has lost its power.)

That spat opened the door to millionaire Democrat Mark Warner, who did his best to mute winning GOP issues in this conservative state. He opposed new gun controls, backed the death penalty and promised not to raise taxes. Republican Mark Earley ran on nothing but calling Mr. Warner a rich liberal, which isn't much of a platform. Virginia is now so conservative that the GOP still managed to pick up seats down ballot, including Norfolk newcomer Winsome Earle Sears, a black, female, former Marine and director of a Salvation Army homeless shelter.

Even Mike Bloomberg's upset victory in New York City proves the point about the need for an agenda. In a city still shook up after September 11, Mr. Bloomberg surged to victory only after Rudy Giuliani embraced him. Mr. Giuliani actually has a record of achievement, but now Mr. Bloomberg must deliver, having campaigned on only the vaguest of liberal pieties. Perhaps he will rise to the occasion, by challenging unions and awful public schools, but it's more likely his liberalism will hurt Republicans nationwide.

The broader point here is that the GOP agenda didn't fail to work this year; the GOP failed to offer any distinctive agenda at all. It became the party of incumbency amid uncertain economic times, and voters understandably turned to Democrats who at least promised more than the status quo.

There's a lesson here, even a "national" one, for Republican ostriches. No matter how well President Bush does fighting the war, voters will punish Republicans who have nothing to say about the economy, taxes and other domestic issues. We would have thought Republicans would have absorbed this lesson in 1992, after the first President Bush won the Gulf War but nonetheless lost re-election after he showed passivity amid recession.

Republicans who don't want to run amid recession next year may want to fight harder now for a "stimulus" tax cut that is worth the name. Or they can keep their heads in the sand.

Feedback

Thanks for your responses yesterday regarding McGreevey coming out of the closet. Virtually all of you expressed deep cynicism about McGreevey and the Democrats--and rightfully so. Only time will tell if McGreevey keeps his promises.

Yesterday the Governor-elect met with the Acting Governor (I can’t wait till we have a real Governor) to discuss the state’s budget. McGreevey called for a spending freeze, because we may have a $700 million deficit this fiscal year and a $2 billion deficit next year. In other words, McGreevey is in a box—and he knows it. He has to go to his constituents and say, “The cupboard is bare. Look what those irresponsible Republicans did to us.” And you know what, he is right. Borrow and spend Whitman paved the way for McGreevey’s victory. The media won’t say it neither will the RINOs in Trenton. Telling it like it is means pointing the finger of blame where it belongs—“moderate Republicans”.

Quiz time: What do you call a moderate Republican? A Democrat. What do you call a Democrat? A socialist. What do you call a progressive Democrat? A Marxist. Next time you hear the term moderate Republican or moderate Democrat bandied about in the press, correct them immediately. Let’s not have the pundits and the talking heads continue to fool the people.

I responded to as many emails as possible yesterday with the following: If McGreevey backtracks, get your marching shoes ready. Keep April 15th 2002 clear (it’s a Monday). We’ll have the biggest antitax rally in the history of the state. Vigilance and action is the key to success.

Republicans spend in the cities like the end of the world is coming and get rewarded by losing overwhelmingly to the Democrats in Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Camden, etc. When will the Republicans learn? The Democrats then campaign against irresponsible Republicans and still get the urban vote as well as the suburban vote. They—the Democrats-- have figured it out. Let the Republicans spend when they’re in power and we then win elections. In short, the Democrats get happy constituents in the cities and pissed off (sorry for the academic term) Republicans and independents in the suburbs. The Democrats have it down pat. The clueless Republicans in Trenton look like deer staring into the headlights. It’s time for them to go.

This just in from Washington. According to a congressional aide, President Bush has said to go back to normal. In Washington this means the debate will continue between the socialist Democrats and the fascist Republicans. Strong stuff. This is from an individual on the front lines in the nation’s capital. More bailouts are coming. The taxpayers are about to get it again. Inflation is subdued for the time being. Enjoy it while you can. War has always been accompanied by accelerating inflation. There are no exceptions to this phenomenon. More inflation in 2003.

Have a restful and peaceful weekend.

Murray

Author Comment MattTrott Registered User (11/7/01 3:48:45 pm)

Was Sam Perelli right all along???Back - way back - even before DiFrancesco's sleazy past forced him out of the primary race, Sam Perelli was floating the idea that Bret Schundler should run as an Independent.

Sam said, let the Rinos nominate their own, and Schundler could win it all in a three way race.

In retrospect, given how the GOP establishment stabbed Schundler in the back, I wonder if Sam wasn't right all along.

TruthSquadron Registered User (11/7/01 5:59:05 pm) Re: Was Sam Perelli right all along???are you talking about Sam Perelli akaTHE FORECASTER the same Sam Perelli that leaves his Barber a 50 cent tip and says that it is too much

The forecaster Registered User (11/8/01 10:07:07 am) SURE HE WAS RIGHT...SAM KNOWS THE BUSINESS.....!! ***HE KNOWS THE PLAYERS IN THE STATE AND HIS WAY AROUND........AND DON'T YOU THINK FOR A MINUTE THAT HE DOESN'T....!!

YES HE SAID THAT......AND....PROBABLY EVEN TOLD BRET TO DO THAT. HE KNEW THEY WOULDN'T ACCEPT HIM ALSO.

AND INCIDENTALLY......"SAM IS NOT THE FORECASTER"........

oldschooldem Registered User (11/8/01 12:15:48 pm) reSam may know something, but you've demonstrated that you know nothing.

The Siberian Registered User (11/8/01 3:00:34 pm) Re: reThough it still somewhat amazes me, I can sort of see how a Jesse Ventura could take an election. Basically, he steered a course between the two major party candidates and took votes away from both of them. (As an aside, I don't believe that anyone should take office with little more than a third of the vote. There ought to be run-offs.)

But how do you figure Bret could have done that, steering a course to the right of everybody? You really think he'd get more Dem votes?

The Garfield Avenue Messiah Registered User (11/8/01 3:42:09 pm) ComparisonThe only real comparison that you could draw with Governor Ventura's campaign and Bret Schundler are the facts that both started off as relative political unknowns and both took votes away from both the Democrats and Republicans, although it should be noted that Jersey City's elections are always generally non-partisan. Bret's first mayoral campaign was unique in that twenty-six people ran, ranging from the usual political hacks, an Egyptian doctor who barely spoke English and I am pretty sure a rabbi.

Its hard to think of Jesse Ventura as a governor. I grew up in the 80's and I can't really get over the fact that Jesse Ventura attacked Ivan Putski after that arm wrestling match!

MattTrott Registered User (11/8/01 5:47:01 pm) Re: ComparisonThe Siberian asks: "But how do you figure Bret could have done that (win as an independent) , steering a course to the right of everybody? You really think he'd get more Dem votes? "

Answer:

1. Schundler would have had all the pro-life and Second Amendment votes as well as the votes of the hard core tax cutters.

2. Running as an Independentent, Bret would have more significantly distanced himself from the reckless debt-spending of Whitman/DiFrancesco.

3. An independent run by Schundler would not necessarily be designed to win over Democrats as it would be to a) win over the Independent voters who outnumber registered Republicans and Democrats and also b) bring new people into the electon process like Ventura did. (Was the turnout this Tuesday even 50%? See my point?)

4. In a three way debate, Schundler would have destroyed Difrancesco(Franks) and McGreevy.

ntupres Registered User (11/8/01 7:29:21 pm) Re: ComparisonHey Matt bret's past ,present and future is a sleaze ball dream. Go donnie go.

LifeLibertyHappiness Registered User (11/8/01 7:35:17 pm) NoN, I think Bret has a good future, people know who he is now, it all depends on who he is running against.

TruthSquadron Registered User (11/9/01 5:26:22 am) Re: NoBret is done because people do not accept right-wing conservative wackos who attacked Ronald Reagan

ntupres Registered User (11/9/01 7:42:00 am) Re: Noyes ,but not in politics. The forecaster Registered User (11/9/01 12:21:42 pm) REMEMBER RICHARD NIXON; CALIFORNIA GOV. DEFEAT..!! ***IT WAS A TOTAL DISASTER....AND HE SAID TO THE PRESS....."YOU CAN'T KICK OLD DICK AROUND ANYMORE".....IN ESSENCE- YOU BUNCH OF BUMS....!

HE LEFT THE POLITICAL STAGE WITH A REAL BANG.....IN 1962....AND 6 YEARS LATER HE WAS PRESIDENT....

* AFTER THAT......ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN AT ANY TIME ........ETC....ETC

ntupres Registered User (11/9/01 12:38:48 pm) Re: REMEMBER RICHARD NIXON; CALIFORNIA GOV. DEFEAT..!!Your smarter then we the people.Time for an audit right.

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