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McGreevey Faces Test in Renewed Campaign
Originally appeared in the New York Times on October 5, 2001
TRENTON, Oct. 4 — So far, James E. McGreevey has seemed to be waltzing to
victory in the New Jersey governor's race. Untested in the Democratic primary and
ahead in the polls, he has said little and done less to grab anyone's attention, even as
his Republican rival, Bret D. Schundler, has monopolized the spotlight with generally
unfavorable results.
But Mr. McGreevey's apparent calculation that he can win election by merely not
being Mr. Schundler is about to be tested.
After a full month of campaigning that was erased by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
the New Jersey public is only now beginning to re-engage with politics. The first of
several televised debates is set for Wednesday. And Mr. Schundler's supporters say
this will finally offer an opportunity to reveal what they view as a stature gap
between the tall, loose and fast-on-his-feet Mr. Schundler and the slighter, stiffer
and heavily scripted Mr. McGreevey.
In addition, while Mr. McGreevey retains a sizable lead in the polls, the margin has
dwindled, as margins typically do in New Jersey races, from 19 or 20 percentage
points before Labor Day to 14 or 15 points a week ago; a Republican Party poll
released today more optimistically put the gap at only 10 points when voters leaning
for one candidate or the other were counted.
More important, despite Mr. McGreevey's uninterrupted pursuit of the governor's
office since he narrowly lost to Christie Whitman in 1997, 38 percent of voters
polled by Quinnipiac University last week still did not know enough about him to
form an opinion, and only 27 percent viewed him favorably.
"They don't know what he stands for," said David P. Rebovich, a political science
professor at Rider University. "There's no evidence that he's closed the deal with the
voters."
Mr. McGreevey's caution is as much a product of his personality as of his campaign
playbook.
He is a fiend for hard work and preparation, so much so that his most widely noted
shortcoming is a stilted demeanor and repetitiveness when speaking publicly. At one
news conference early this year, he momentarily placed his sheet of talking points
within view of a reporter. Next to nearly every item was the appropriate emotion to
show: "sincere," "concerned," and so on.
"I don't think anybody would call him Mr. Excitement," said Jon Shure, a liberal
policy analyst who was a top aide to former Gov. Jim Florio.
In his debates with Mrs. Whitman four years ago, Mr. McGreevey's delivery was
repetitious not only in his words but also in the inflections and gestures that
accompanied them. Today, although he has improved somewhat, Mr. McGreevey
continues to hammer home the same stock phrases over and over again, sometimes
at the risk of alienating his listeners. Addressing residents of a retirement community
Wednesday night, when asked to say if and how he would reform the property tax
system in the state, he instead repeatedly described three modest steps he has
proposed to give elderly and middle-class residents bigger tax rebates.
Answering the question you want to answer, rather than the one that was asked, is
an old political tactic. Another is knowing when not to answer the question at all.
It exasperated Mr. Schundler's campaign staff, for example, that Mr. McGreevey
never responded to a survey by the Christian Coalition that touched on a variety of
divisive issues. Mr. Schundler's responses antagonized labor leaders and
abortion-rights advocates.
Mr. McGreevey also refused for months to take a stand for or against a bill
proposing a constitutional amendment to require parental notification for minors
seeking abortions. In the end, his fuzzy stance on the issue did not matter; the major
abortion-rights groups endorsed him today.
Mr. McGreevey's larger strategy, meanwhile, has been to say what he is not, or
what he is against, rather than what he is, or is for. His overriding theme of
accountability and responsibility was aimed at Mrs. Whitman, Republicans in the
Legislature, and Mrs. Whitman's heir apparent, Acting Gov. Donald T.
DiFrancesco, the expected Republican nominee, all of whom Mr. McGreevey
accused of cronyism and mismanagement and of ignoring major state problems.
Mr. Schundler's primary victory gave a new meaning to Mr. McGreevey's message.
As Mr. Schundler rolls out one ambitious proposal after another — eliminating
parkway tolls, steering education spending toward private schools, big property tax
reimbursements for the elderly — Mr. McGreevey simply calls such ideas
irresponsible and urges voters to hold their author accountable.
"I don't think people want a revolution," said Joel Benenson, Mr. McGreevey's
pollster. "They want a governor who, instead of offering them pie-in-the-sky
promises, will give them real solutions to the issues they care about, and will get it
done."
Compared with his rival's, Mr. McGreevey's ideas, when not vague, are largely
incremental and mundane. He called today for having doctors rotate through the
schools to care for needy children who are not now being reached by state medical
programs. In education, he wants to require that all the state's teacher- preparation
schools gain accreditation, though the schools that train most New Jersey teachers
are already accredited.
Many of his proposals would merely reverse Mrs. Whitman's actions. He would
restore the environmental prosecutor, for example, and the office of the public
advocate.
But Mr. McGreevey often avoids saying exactly how he would tackle the most
vexing state problems, saying instead that he will put the brightest minds to work
once he is elected.
"If the campaign continues as it currently is, Jim McGreevey will have been elected
governor without making a single specific promise," one of his associates said today.
All that caution, however, could prove a risk in itself, some of Mr. McGreevey's
advisers will acknowledge when pressed, and particularly in this unusual time when
both campaigns are feeling their way in the dark. New Jersey voters always make
up their minds late. Mr. Schundler has the support of President Bush, whose
popularity has soared since last month's attacks.
And with the possibility of a military response before Nov. 6, "you could possibly
have a wholesale reshuffling of the deck," said Cliff Zukin, director of The
Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll.
All that would seem to leave open the door for a late surge by Mr. Schundler — a
prospect that concerns a number of people who are working on Mr. McGreevey's
behalf.
"He's got to connect to people and show that he stands for something," one lobbyist
who has endorsed Mr. McGreevey said today. "If he did those two things, he'd
have this race locked up right now."
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