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Final gubernatorial debate gets ugly
Originally appeared in the Bergen Record on Monday, October 29, 2001
New Jersey's contentious campaign for governor enters its final full week with Republican Bret Schundler and Democrat Jim McGreevey at odds over education, taxes, abortion, gun control, and their records as mayors.
Those differences all were apparent in their last televised debate Sunday, along with one that seems to transcend them all: Each candidate says the other is a liar.
"He's not even attempting to tell the truth," McGreevey said at one point.
"If I said he's lying, it's because he's lying," Schundler said at another.
The exchanges signal that what had already been a hard-edged campaign will likely grow even rougher in its remaining nine days, as candidates and those supporting them send mailings and broadcast ads to try to motivate a largely uninterested electorate.
"For Bret Schundler to win, I think he really has to go negative, to discourage some soft McGreevey supporters from coming to the polls and to scare some undecideds to come out and vote against McGreevey," said David Rebovich, a Rider University political science professor.
Rebovich said McGreevey, the front-runner, could go the other way by producing a "stature ad" that makes him appear gubernatorial.
Neither candidate's campaign officials would comment on their strategies for the home stretch.
The most recent independent poll, published Friday in The New York Times, showed McGreevey leading Schundler among likely voters 44 percent to 33 percent, meaning Schundler needs undecided voters to break overwhelmingly to his side to win.
Schundler's backers note that in 1993, when Democratic Gov. Jim Florio led in polls throughout the campaign but never broke the magic mark of 50 percent, he eventually lost to Republican Christie Whitman.
Voters decided to give Whitman a chance to cut taxes as she'd promised, and Florio failed to generate the large margins in urban areas that Democratic candidates need to win statewide.
Like Whitman, Schundler is pledging to cut taxes. And he repeatedly compares McGreevey to Florio. Campaign manager Bill Pascoe said polls are not measuring the positive response Schundler is getting at campaign stops.
"The Schundler surge is happening," Pascoe said Sunday.
McGreevey spokesman Richard McGrath cited McGreevey's 10-0 shutout in daily newspaper endorsements Sunday, including The Record, The Star-Ledger, The New York Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
"The evidence is growing that Jim McGreevey's connecting with a great majority of voters who believe he is right on the issues," McGrath said. He added that the campaign is preparing an aggressive get-out-the-vote effort with the help of organized labor, but is taking nothing for granted.
"It's not complacency we're worried about. It's more the fact that the larger national issues are overshadowing the campaign dialogue," McGrath said.
Dialogue was in short supply Sunday, as Schundler and McGreevey debated in an NBC studio in New York and often interrupted each other.
McGreevey, who has been mayor of Woodbridge since 1992, said Schundler has been distorting his record. He also said Schundler was falsely claiming to have lowered taxes in Jersey City, which Schundler ran from 1991 through this June.
Schundler, who opposes abortion, said it was silly for McGreevey, who is pro-choice, to focus so much campaign rhetoric on the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court has said states must keep it legal.
He also accused McGreevey of distorting his position on gun control. Schundler said he would not change existing gun laws.
Schundler repeatedly tried to turn the focus of his answers to economic issues, especially taxes, which he says McGreevey would increase.
McGreevey promised to improve public education, particularly by providing literacy coaches to make sure third-graders could read. He said Schundler would drain money from public schools to support private and parochial schools.
McGreevey also said he's "clearly in favor of cutting taxes," but the possibility of a recession makes it impossible to promise that.
"I'm being straightforward. I'm not making promises I can't keep," he said.
Schundler countered that the likelihood of a recession makes tax cuts even more important. He also said McGreevey is "standing in the way of reforming our public schools" and supports a "failed model" that puts politicians beholden to the teachers union in charge of school spending. Instead, Schundler would use tax credits so parents could have more choice of where their children attend school.
Schundler also tried to score points in some odd areas, responding to a question about Halloween safety by saying that his 9-year-old daughter would be trick-or-treating in Jersey City while asking McGreevey, with a smirk, if they have Halloween in Canada.
McGreevey is divorced from his first wife and she and their 9-year-old daughter live in British Columbia. McGreevey responded to the question that his daughter would be going trick-or-treating as well. Schundler appeared to be mocking McGreevey, but after the debate would not answer a question about why he brought up the girl's residency.
"I never knew if they had a Halloween up there," was all Schundler would say. "Did he insinuate that he knows? I don't know."
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