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Florio-bashing looms as key Schundler tactic
Originally appeared in the Bergen Record on Friday, October 12, 2001
When Republican candidates over the last decade needed a Democrat to demonize, they turned to former Gov. Jim Florio, who signed the largest tax hike in state history.
Following the GOP tradition, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler invoked Florio's name during his first debate Wednesday with Democratic rival Jim McGreevey.
McGreevey, Schundler said, would be "even worse than Jim Florio."
"You will have the higest taxes in America," Schundler said during the debate. "It will hurt us."
McGreevey campaign aides dismissed the Florio line of attack Thursday as nothing more than an "act of political desperation" and an attempt to "manufacture controversy" while deflecting attention away from Schundler's own "faulty proposals."
Schundler, who is trailing in the polls by double digits, is hoping that voters are still angry enough to vote against a Democrat who supported Florio's $2.8 billion tax hike more than a decade ago.
But political analysts said raising the ghost of Florio may backfire, since many voters may have either forgotten or forgiven him.
Schundler and his Republican allies, however, plan to make the Florio charge the cornerstone of their campaign. They launched a blitz Thursday with faxes and public statements linking Florio to McGreevey, raising the specter that McGreevey will increase taxes like Florio.
"We have always had a difference in philosophy. The question is what do the people in New Jersey believe?" Schundler said outside a Trenton event with veterans on Thursday. "If they want higher takes, they should vote for McGreevey. If they want lower taxes, they should vote for me."
Such an attack comes as no big surprise to Florio, who pushed the tax increase in 1990 to cover a $600 million shortfall in the state budget and comply with a state Supreme Court order demanding the state pump up spending on New Jersey's poorest school districts.
A year later, the Republicans tapped and inflamed public anger over the tax increases, with the help of groups irate over Florio's proposals on pension reform, gun control, and state budget cuts.
In 1991, the Republicans captured both houses of the Legislature, beginning a decade-long domination of Trenton politics. Two years later, Republican Christie Whitman bounced Florio out of office by a 26,000-vote margin.
Since then, Florio has become the Republican Party's favorite target in campaigns. And Democrats, angered over their loss of power, openly shunned Florio in the following years.
His bid to win the U.S. Senate seat last year failed in the primary against Jon S. Corzine, who outspent him by 6-to-1. Some of that money was spent on ads warning primary voters that Florio would bring the party to ruin if he became the nominee.
Florio, who is now a lawyer in private practice, said it was "insultingly shallow" of Schundler to think that the tax increase package of 11 years ago will still resonate with voters. He believes the anger that toppled Democrats almost a decade earlier subsided long ago.
He noted that he came within 1 percentage point of winning reelection in 1993, despite the voter fury. Many campaign officials and analysts at the time attributed the loss to some strategic miscues in the final days of the race.
"It is too much of a compliment to me to think about everyone has Jim Florio on their minds," Florio said. "If you have nothing to say on behalf of your own candidacy, when you are not prepared to defend what you advocate, you have to say something."
Other political observers also believe that demonizing Florio has become passe.
"Conjuring up Jim Florio is a diminishing asset for a candidate," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist. "People have forgotten why they don't like Jim Florio. Those events are such a long time ago. Invoking the heroes of its party or its least popular representatives of the past loses its punch."
David Norcross, the Republican national committeeman for New Jersey, acknowledges that raising Florio's name is not enough to weaken McGreevey. But he believes it could be an important tool for Schundler to use as the start of a strategy to define McGreevey as a status-quo politician whose only fix for government problems is to raise more money through taxes.
"It would have to be more than, 'We are going to wave the big bad Florio flag,' and that's it," Norcross said.
Even though the tax hikes were enacted 11 years ago, Republican officials believe the Florio mantra will help draw a stark contrast between the two candidates, and move the race away from a discussion over ideology to a debate over each other's style of leadership.
They believe the argument will catch fire with residents, who are now bracing for a recession. Schundler is pitching himself as a tax cutter cast from the same mold as President Bush. McGreevey, he argues, will follow the same pattern as Florio in the last recession.
"He's saying that the way you should deal with a deficit, created by a recession, is increasing taxes," Schundler said. "I just disagree with that viewpoint."
McGreevey has never said he would raise taxes. Schundler's claim is based on a vote McGreevey cast in 1990 in favor of the Florio tax plan as a state assemblyman. Schundler also says that McGreevey has not ruled out the possibility of a tax increase once elected, a point McGreevey acknowledged during Wednesday's debate.
McGreevey said it would be irresponsible to rule out a tax increase, given the financial crisis caused by the Sept. 11 attacks.
Wednesday's debate will be rebroadcast on Sunday at noon on New Jersey Network.
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