In the primary race for governor, the front-runners remained in control. Voters will go to the polls tomorrow.
The seven Republican gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey clashed one last time yesterday before Tuesday's primary, but no one scored the kind of victory seemingly needed to change the dynamics of a race that centers on the two front-runners - Bret Schundler and Doug Forrester.
Sparks flew during the debate as Schundler and Forrester accused one another of unfair attacks late in the campaign. And frustration showed in the hard-edged responses of some of the other candidates who have been unable to emerge as serious contenders.
During the debate, which was televised locally on KYW-TV (Channel 3) and WCBS-TV in New York, the candidates came together on the question of whether the party, unlike in 2001, would unite behind its eventual nominee this year for the fall campaign against Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon S. Corzine. All but one said Republicans would eagerly support any of the candidates because of their desire to deny Corzine the governor's office.
Steve Lonegan, the archconservative mayor of Bogota and an unrelenting critic of Schundler's, turned to the party's unsuccessful nominee of four years ago and said: "You went down in flames, and you're going to do it again."
But Todd Caliguire jumped to Schundler's defense. He said it was "absolutely wrong" for the party to abandon Schundler in the 2001 general election against Democrat Jim McGreevey and declared, "It will not happen this time."
Schundler, the former mayor of Jersey City, is in a much tougher battle than his first bid for the Republican nomination, when he soundly defeated party-backed former U.S. Rep. Bob Franks. In Forrester, he is facing a multimillionaire business executive who is spending an estimated $8 million of his own money to win the primary.
Forrester, of Mercer County, is pouring a few million dollars alone into a final barrage of TV and radio ads in the campaign's final week. Schundler has only a small fraction of his opponent's campaign budget and is spending it chiefly on radio ads.
Both Schundler and Forrester face the unpredictability posed by the presence of so many candidates, any one of whom has the potential to draw enough votes to damage one of the front-runners in a close election.
Lonegan, especially, stands as a threat to siphon conservative votes from Schundler. The other GOP contenders are John Murphy, a Morris County freeholder; Assemblyman Paul DiGaetano of Bergen County; and Robert Schroeder, a businessman from Bergen County. Corzine is running with only token opposition in the Democratic primary.
While polls show that Forrester has moved several percentage points ahead in the last week, Schundler commands the support of a loyal core of Republicans who backed him in 2001 because of his unabashed conservatism on social and fiscal issues.
Forrester, though himself a landslide loser to Democrat Frank Lautenberg in the 2000 U.S. Senate election, is counting largely on support from Republicans who view him as more electable than Schundler against the Democrats in November.
Given the low visibility of the primary campaign and the anticipated low voter turnout, the superior get-out-the-vote operation could determine the winner, according to Republican analysts.
Much of yesterday's hourlong debate centered on property taxes and the state budget, with Forrester reasserting his view that taking aim at "waste, fraud and abuse" in Trenton was the most effective way to save taxpayers' dollars. He said his experience as a business executive makes him uniquely qualified to trim state spending.
Schundler cited his proposed constitutional amendments that would place caps on state spending, with the savings sent to municipal governments and school districts to reduce property taxes. One amendment would deny those funds to local governments that did not rein in spending.
Schundler and Forrester also called for the election of special watchdogs to investigate corruption and spending in state government.
In response to questions from the panel of reporters, both said they would support restrictions on abortions except in cases of rape, incest and risks to the life of the mother. All the candidates have tried to avoid abortion and other controversial cultural issues in the primary, fearing a repeat of the 2001 election in which the state's predominantly moderate voters appeared to reject Schundler's conservative positions on those issues.
The candidates also criticized the handling of the state takeover of Camden, saying there is no accountability for the money being spent. Forrester, likening state spending in Camden to "putting more money through leaky pipes," said he would approve no additional funds until administrative oversights were instituted.
Forrester used the Camden issue to reprise his strong support for private-school vouchers for students in urban areas, including Camden, Newark, Paterson and Jersey City. "Competition in education is critical to bringing back our cities," he said.
Forrester and Schundler engaged in one testy exchange in which they accused each other of distorting their respective records in late-campaign TV ads. Schundler has accused Forrester of unnecessarily raising property taxes as mayor of West Windsor two decades ago.
Forrester, for his part, has pronounced Schundler a practitioner of pay-to-play by awarding government contracts in Jersey City to campaign contributors.
The candidates spent much of the debate interrupting and talking over one another. Some of the trailing five contenders strained to get their views heard one last time in a campaign where they have been overshadowed by the two front-runners.
