E-mail This Page To A Friend

Bret Schundler Media Archives

Jersey City Mayor Hosts Blue-Collar Gala For Party's Plain Folk

Festivities In Basement Of Orthodox Temple Provides a Chance To Hobnob With GOP Bigs

Originally appeared in the Star-Ledger on Thursday, August 3, 2000.
By David Gibson

PHILADELPHIA
The convention was cranking up last night on the city's Southside, but as far as Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler was concerned, the party was in a Northside synagogue.

Kicking off the second of three nights of festivities at Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Schundler hosted a blue-collar gala in the basement of the Orthodox temple that was in sharp contrast to the glittering receptions lighting up the tonier parts of the city this week.

The fare were platters of ziti, and the entertainment was on a big-screen television that played continuous coverage of the "real" Republican Convention miles away.

The three days of partying, which end tonight, were designed, Schundler said, to celebrate the party's "true diversity" and to offer plain folk without hard-to-find convention passes a rare chance to hobnob with party bigs.

But it didn't appear to hurt Schundler and his conservative cause, either, as supply-siders and moral traditionalists like himself paraded under the bunting looped around the temple hall to champion the mayor as one of their own.

"I'm a super fan of the mayor," said House Majority Whip Dick Armey, a staunch Texas conservative who gamely tried to pronounce "Jersey'' as "Joisey," and failed admirably.

"Whatever he wants, I'll stapport him," Armey said. Onetime presidential contender and millionaire Jerseyan Steve Forbes was even more direct, repeatedly referring to Schundler as "the next Governor of New Jersey" and pledging his not inconsiderable support.

"He backed me when I ran, so that shows you what a bright man he is," Forbes joked with the audience of about 200.

In perhaps the most impressive -- and sharp-edged -- tribute of the evening, Paul Weyrich, the political intellectual who is considered by many the "god-father" of modern conservatism, embraced a Schundler candidacy with gusto.

"In my lifetime I would like to meet a Governor of New Jersey that I can respect," said Weyrich, who has no time for moderate Whitman Republicans, much less Democrats. "I have met several New Jersey governors and let me tell you, it's been a sad story."

Schundler, Weyrich said, has made Jersey City "the most talked about community in the United States of America" because of his strong advocacy of issues like school vouchers, a favorite of last night's speakers.

Schundler did not address his own gubernatorial prospects, but simply said this was a chance for "loyal Republican workers" to get a chance "to meet the biggest stars of the Republican Party, so many of them my good friends." <

Home