June 7, 2005 Redemption or obscurity for GOP front-runners
By Pete McAleer
PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY
One gets a second chance at redemption.
The other likely fades away into the land of political footnotes.
Doug Forrester and Bret Schundler head into today's Republican primary election for governor separated by just a few points, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll. Analysts predict voter turnout could determine the winner. So could a significant showing for any of the other five candidates in the crowded field.
"No candidate in this race has generated great excitement among Republican voters," said Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "It now comes down to which contender does the best job of getting his voters to the polls."
Forrester and Schundler have both won statewide Republican primaries before - only to lose in the general election.
Schundler took out U.S. Sen. Bob Franks in the 2001 gubernatorial primary, only to get thumped by James E. McGreevey. Forrester emerged from a crowded 2002 U.S. Senate primary field and appeared on his way to Washington, D.C., when his opponent, U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli, dropped out with 30 days left. Frank Lautenberg came out of retirement to replace Torricelli and coast to an easy win over Forrester.
Schundler and Forrester have both prepared for another run ever since their defeats.
Forrester let party leaders know of his intentions last summer at the Republican National Convention. He ran his first radio spot in September 2004, when he demanded CBS fire Dan Rather for a questionable report on President Bush's Vietnam-era Texas Air National Guard service. His television campaign started two months later with Forrester clutching a broom as he promised to sweep away "the Conga line of corruption" in Trenton.
In the past week, Forrester ran three separate ads: one promoting his tax plan, another attacking Schundler's record and a third attacking the Democrats' likely nominee, U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine. Forrester has spent $8.5 million of his own money in an effort to win his party's nomination.
Schundler, by contrast, launched his first television ad Sunday and has spent $1.5 million on a radio and mailer campaign that promises a property-tax revolution. McGreevey clobbered Schundler in 2001 for his support of school vouchers and his conservative stance on social issues. He stuck to a tight script this time around, framing his campaign exclusively around his plan to amend the state constitution to require state government to place limits on spending and send the extra money back to local governments to reduce property taxes.
Neither candidate caught fire, leaving hope for the five others in the race: John Murphy, Paul DiGaetano, Robert Schroeder, Steve Lonegan and Todd Caliguire.
The county convention season - in which county organizations nominate a candidate in order to give them a better position on the ballot - further underscored the inability of the front-runners to gain significant distance from each other and the rest of the field. Forrester started out with endorsements from several county organizations but then stumbled. DiGaetano won the endorsement of Republicans in Bergen County, and Schroeder, a relative unknown, embarrassed Forrester by winning the endorsement in Ocean County. Republican Party leaders appeared every bit as undecided as voters.
The crowded field made for some unproductive candidate forums. Lonegan proved most adept at garnering attention, criticizing Forrester for not answering questions and attacking Schundler's property-tax plan as a socialist redistribution scheme.
For a while, the primary evolved into an academic debate contrasting the property-tax plans of the two front-runners. Forrester matched Schundler's constitutional amendment plan with his "30 in 3 plan," a promise to cut property taxes 30 percent in three years with the state picking up the bill. He promoted the plan with another television ad campaign.
Then, with a month to go, the level of discourse deteriorated. Forrester continually attacked Schundler's record as mayor of Jersey City. Schundler continually attacked Forrester's record as mayor of West Windsor. Both accused the other of lying about several issues.
Neither candidate took hold of the race, with a significant amount of voters still undecided.
According to Monday's Quinnipiac poll, the other five candidates stand to play a role in determining the winner. Murphy, a Morris County freeholder, saw his stock rise during the television forums in the past two months. His home county provides the largest block of Republican voters in the state.
Should Murphy finish with 10 percent of the vote or more, he could draw key votes from Forrester and set himself up for a second run at statewide office.
"With a strong showing, John Murphy has a political future," Rider University political scientist David Rebovich said. "He's impressed Republican insiders with his easy and sincere style."
Lonegan, the self-professed most conservative candidate in the race, could end up peeling votes away from Schundler. The Bogota, Bergen County, mayor generated a considerable amount of buzz from his campaign, enough to justify more statewide runs in the future.
"I think Lonegan stays around forever as an ideological candidate," Rebovich said.
Not so for Forrester and Schundler. Politicians don't always get third strikes. If Forrester loses, he will have spent $16 million of his own money to come up empty twice. Should Schundler lose, the viability questions that dogged him after the McGreevey loss will grow exponentially louder.
"For whoever loses, I think it's a long hiatus in his political career," Rebovich said. "It's hard to imagine another statewide run in the immediate future, maybe forever."
The winner gets Corzine and a shot at the most powerful governor's office in the United States.
