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Nasty exchanges resurfacing in race for governor
Originally appeared in the Star Ledger on 10/10/01
It's getting nasty again.
The guarded behavior that characterized the governor's race in the weeks following Sept. 11 has given way to sharp-tongued attacks from both candidates and their supporters -- much like it was this summer.
Four weeks before the Nov. 6 election, Republican Bret Schundler is back to calling Democrat Jim McGreevey a tax-happy career politician who kisses up to party bosses. McGreevey and the Democrats have returned to dubbing Schundler an extremist for his conservative social views. Negative ads are filling the airwaves.
This week, McGreevey, his lead in the polls slipping, is expected to begin airing a new television spot that assails Schundler on the issues of abortion, guns and education. He has already revived a radio ad in which a woman called Schundler "extreme." And on Monday, a newly formed political action committee backed by Democratic Highland Park Mayor Meryl Frank, a McGreevey supporter, and several women's rights groups who have endorsed the Democrat released a cable-television spot calling Schundler "wrong for New Jersey."
Schundler, meanwhile, is running his own ads saying property taxes and violent crime soared in Woodbridge during McGreevey's tenure as mayor there. Yesterday, Schundler Campaign Manager Bill Pascoe called McGreevey a "tax-hiking, special-interest-catering-to, machine-boss-answering career politician."
Other Republicans have criticized Democrats' use of the word "extremist" to describe Schundler, who is anti-abortion, favors school choice, and has received the backing of gun-control opponents. In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the word could divide the public in a time of national crisis, Republicans said.
"This kind of explosive rhetoric coming from Jim McGreevey and his allies does not contribute to the debate on important New Jersey issues such as education, taxes and the economy, and it should be stopped immediately," said state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, the Republican state chairman.
These volleys are "certainly ratcheting up the temperature of the campaign," said Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University.
Schundler's campaign picked up long-awaited endorsements yesterday from former Governors Christie Whitman and Tom Kean, moderate Republicans whose support could counter McGreevey's cries of extremist. In a letter to Republican voters, Whitman and Kean called for unity in the GOP, split in June when Schundler wrested the nomination from the party establishment.
"There is no question that we do not agree on every issue with every Republican candidate," their letter said. "But we do agree that Republican core values on taxes, education and individual freedoms are at the heart of keeping New Jersey the greatest state in the nation."
One prominent Republican who has refused to endorse Schundler is Acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco. Yesterday the Schundler campaign questioned the timing of a letter from a DiFrancesco appointee -- Marvin Corwick, the new director of the Division of Local Government Services -- critical of Schundler's fiscal policies as mayor of Jersey City.
Released on the eve of the candidates' first debate, the letter to Jersey City's new mayor, Democrat Glenn Cunningham, does not mention Schundler by name but says his last city budget left a cash deficit of $54 million.
The Schundler campaign downplayed that figure and blamed it partly on the state. Spokesman Tom Gallagher said the state had approved a $33 million debt cited by Corwick, and that much of the remaining gap represents money the state owes the city.
"It really disturbs me when we have state government agencies participating in a political campaign," Gallagher said.
DiFrancesco spokesman Tom Wilson said the Governor's office was not involved in the letter's release. "We had nothing to do with it," he said.
The race's independent candidate, state Sen. William Schluter (R-Hunterdon), yesterday held a news conference announcing his endorsement by 11 Republicans.
"They simply believe that former mayor Schundler does not reflect the mainstream of Republican policy and tradition," Schluter said.
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