GOP picture grows muddier as Schundler wins decisively
The Star Ledger
BY DEBORAH HOWLETT
Early in his campaign for governor, Doug Forrester mapped a strategy to spend heavily on TV advertising and personally woo local Republican bosses. His aim was to build name recognition while creating a consensus within the GOP establishment for his candidacy.
Aides and advisers confidently predicted this two-pronged approach would allow Forrester to sew up the Republican nomination by the first week of April and prepare him for a November showdown with Sen. Jon Corzine.
That hasn't happened.
While Forrester has gained in the polls, the state Republican Party remains as fractured as ever with loyalties split among seven candidates, most of whom have no hope of winning the June nomination. "It's a free-for-all right now," state Republican chairman Tom Wilson said.
The chasm only widened yesterday, when the Middlesex County Republican Organization needed just one ballot at its convention to endorse Bret Schundler, who won with 337 votes, a slim, two-vote majority of the 671 votes. Forrester finished second with 277 votes and Robert Schroeder was third with 57 votes. The other four candidates did not compete in Middlesex, the last open convention before the primary.
"We need an energized and united party," an ebullient Schundler said after the vote. "But this is a process that respects the voter's ability to make a choice; a process that make voters feel involved and produces the strongest candidate."
Forrester downplayed the results.
"We knew it was an uphill fight," he said. "It's important that we continue with our game plan. I'm the only candidate running a 21-county race. Unifying the party requires a 21-county approach."
The Middlesex convention did more than muddy the race.
It bolstered a growing perception that Forrester, whom the county backed in his 2002 Senate race, lacks what it takes to unite and lead the party doubts that were raised even by some of Forrester's key supporters yesterday in the auditorium at Middlesex County Vocational-Technical High School in East Brunswick.
And, perhaps most critically, the vote also seemed to further erode the party's hopes of putting up a candidate capable of reclaiming the state's top office.
"The Republicans need consensus around a candidate in order to be competitive," said David Rebovich, a political science professor at Rider University. "There's a lot of disenchantment among rank-and-file Republicans that this whole exercise has been a lost opportunity."
For many, the attention now turns to who will stay in the race until the June 7 primary.
There's no question Schundler and Forrester, who are neck-and-neck in the polls, will be there. And the renegade Steve Lonegan, the Bogota mayor, is considered a good bet to stay in, if only to offer an impassioned option to the most conservative in the party's right wing. But the motives of the others, with little money and almost no measurable popular support, are something of a puzzle even to the party's leadership, as they cling to a single county endorsement and faint hope of positioning themselves for future runs.
"At some point, the $64,000 question is, who will have $64,000 to spend on campaigning," Wilson said. "If you have no money and can't mount a voter-contact program ... what's your point? What's your goal? What are you trying to achieve?"
Forrester has suffered most in the messy convention process, if only because of the public perception that he hasn't been able to close the deal at the county conventions.
"This should have been a done deal," said Susan Jester, a political consultant in Bergen County who worked for Forrester until December.
She said that Forrester has not been engaged in the "retail" work of the campaign, the door knocking and hand shaking with local party leaders that is so integral to electioneering. "The reality is, if you don't shake Jane Smith's hand and send her a Christmas card, she isn't going to vote for you at the Bergen convention," Jester said.
Forrester's campaign has had other problems, too.
His TV message early on was considered a little hokey, built around a "Conga Line of Corruption" theme that fell flat. He had plenty of money but it seemed to be going mainly for statewide TV buys rather than targeted mailings. And as he tried to stay above the fray with the other candidates, the crabs in the Republican pot kept trying to drag him back to the boiling hot bottom.
"There's a bit of piling on going on right now, which shows that the other candidates see him in the lead and argues for his success in the process," said Peter McDonough, a veteran Republican campaign consultant. "It's more important to have a candidate everyone can rally around the day after the primary. That's when you need unity."
Forrester hasn't been shy about addressing campaign issues when they crop up.
He has shuffled his campaign staff twice in the past year, most recently dumping Steve Berlin, a former adviser to New York Gov. George Pataki, as his campaign manager after barely two months on the job.
But some say the real problem with the Forrester campaign may be Forrester himself.
He does not the fit the mold of a charismatic figurehead that rank-and-file Republicans can worship as a rock star. His newly acquired tweed sports coat tends to make him look more professorial than political. And it's no secret some of the top Republicans in the state would have preferred a more marketable candidate, someone like state Sen. Tom Kean Jr. or U.S. Attorney Chris Christie.
Forrester acknowledges the issue directly on the stump, as he did yesterday when addressing the delegates in Middlesex before the vote.
"It would be great if we had a candidate who had the easy going way of John Murphy; the tenacity of Bret Schundler; the legislative expertise of Paul DiGaetano and the good looks of Doug Forrester," he said, evoking a laugh.
"But that's not where we're at," Forrester continued. "We need to make a choice."
