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Candidates face off at Rowan tonight
Originally appeared in Courier Post on Thursday, October 18, 2001
TRENTON
Not hardly, say most political analysts. With less than three weeks left until the Nov. 6 election, most of the state's newspapers didn't carry a story about the election on their front pages Wednesday, the day after a contentious radio debate.
"You've got to look for stories, which tells you something," said Tom Byrne, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party.
That raises tonight's stakes a notch higher for Republican candidate Bret Schundler and Democratic candidate Jim McGreevey, who will meet for a town-hall style debate at 8 p.m. at Rowan University in Glassboro.
"New Jersey Town Meeting: Our People, Our Future" is sponsored by Gannett New Jersey newspapers, NJ 101.5 FM radio and Comcast's CN8 cable television network. The hourlong debate will be broadcast live by 101.5 FM and televised by CN8.
The stage will be less formal than for the two debates required by state law. Candidates will have stools to sit on. Lynn Doyle of CN8 will be the moderator, and News Director Eric Scott of NJ 101.5 and Trenton bureau chief Bob Ingle of Gannett will be panelists.
But the bulk of the questions will be asked by the audience. In addition to the crowd attending the debate at Rowan, viewers will also assemble and ask questions from Monmouth University in West Long Branch and the Comcast studios in Union Township, Union County.
Dale Florio, a leading lobbyist in Trenton and chairman of the Somerset County Republican Party, said the debate format should allow for useful interactions between the the candidates and fewer scripted responses. It also allows Schundler to be more aggressive.
"This is another in a series of forums where he can let the voters see, unfiltered, his positions on education and taxes. Those are really the key issues of this campaign, and Bret Schundler will have an opportunity to put the focus on those," Florio said.
Rick Thigpen, a Democratic strategist, predicted Schundler will be very aggressive. All debates favor the candidate who is trailing, Thigpen said, and Schundler is a polished public speaker who needs to immediately narrow his deficit in the polls.
"He needs to instill some profound doubt very quickly in people to make them question whether Jim McGreevey can be the leader of this state," Thigpen said. "It's a dynamic that is very hard: How do you make your opponent look bad without making yourself look small?"
McGreevey also benefits from a fund-raising edge. Campaign reports filed in the past week show McGreevey had $ 5.3 million in cash on hand, compared to $1 million for for Schundler. Plus, the state Democratic Party has $6.9 million, compared with $450,000 for the state GOP.
The debate will be televised nationally in the next few days by C-SPAN. No time for the broadcast had been scheduled by Wednesday evening.
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