Pascoe: the Schundler that could have been

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Chicago-based political consultant Bill Pascoe, who ran Bret Schundler’s 2001 and 2005 gubernatorial bids, said that had it not been for the need to feed the media beast, Schundler could have easily won his first gubernatorial bid.

And today, eight years after leaving office as Jersey City mayor, Pascoe believes that not only does Schundler have a good chance to reclaim that seat, but that he’s one of the leading contenders.

Sitting at yesterday's New Jersey delegation breakfast at the Hilton Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, Pascoe flashed back to early 2001. He was managing Schundler’s fledgling campaign for governor, and couldn’t gain any traction with the media. A top statehouse reporter, he said, told him that reporters wouldn’t cover Schundler’s campaign because they were convinced that he was merely positioning himself for his mayoral re-election in May of the same year. So to prove his sincerity, Schundler didn’t file to run for re-election.

Four months later, the World Trade Center towers came down. Then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was catapulted to national superstardom. Schundler, his mirror image across the river, was no longer in office.

“Because he didn’t run for re-election as mayor, he wasn’t the mayor of Jersey City on 9/11. If he had been the mayor of Jersey City on 9/11, he would have soaked up so much earned media showing what Bret does best,” said Pascoe. “He is a caged tiger. He is a chief executive. He is a decision maker. A trigger puller.”

Schundler, of course, went on to lose to Democrat Jim McGreevey in the 2001 gubernatorial race, and failed to secure the Republican nomination in 2005.

Now Schundler is looking to return to Grove Street. But he’s been out of Jersey City politics for eight years. His key allies are committed to the re-election of Mayor Jerramiah Healy. Much of Schundler’s base has split town and the newcomers, while demographically similar, didn’t live in Jersey City under his tenure and know him as the conservative gubernatorial candidate of yesteryear. And his base could be split by two other reform candidate: Councilman Steve Fulop and civic activist Dan Levin. It looks like an uphill battle.

Not so, said Pascoe, who’s talked with Schundler about his mayoral prospects but does not plan to work for him.

“There was a battle to define Bret in the other parts of the state, and the other side had a lot more money that they actually did go on television and characterize Bret,” said Pascoe.

It worked. But not where people knew him.

“In Jersey City people said ‘Hmm. That’s not the Bret I know. He cares about cutting property taxes and cut the crime problem drastically,” he said.

Pascoe said that the assumptions surrounding Schundler’s candidacy aren’t necessarily correct: that he still has a base in Jersey City, and that he does still have political allies – even if they’re laying low right now.

“To the extent that people in Jersey City remember Bret, it’s more as the mayor who was perfectly willing to work across party lines to build coalitions to get things done. That’s the guy that was in their own experience on a day-to-day basis. The guy they’d see crossing the street to the newsstand getting a bagel and a cup of coffee,” said Pascoe. “I think in Jersey City where they’ve seen him as mayor, he still has a deep base of support. I think actually that he’s got a really good chance.”

But what about the image of Schundler as a pro-gun right winger, successfully promulgated by Democrats in 2001? Couldn’t Mayor Healy use that against him?

Pascoe laid on the table a salt shaker, a pepper shaker, a sugar packet holder and his iPhone.

In a two man race, Pascoe said, the salt (Healy) hits the pepper shaker (Schundler) and detracts some of the pepper’s support. But the salt also loses a few voters, because constituents don’t like negative attacks. Now bring the sugar packet holder and iPhone (Fulop, Lou Manzo, Sandi Cunningham, L. Harvey Smith, Levin or someone else) into the picture. The salt hits the pepper, and the pepper loses some support. But those supporters doesn’t go to the salt. It goes to the everyone else.

“If this is Healy hitting Schundler, OK, maybe Schundler loses some support. But Healy loses support too. The name of the game in a multi-candidate field is positive. You don’t talk about the other guys. You don’t give them the benefit of name ID,” Pascoe said.
“And if there’s one guy that I’ve worked for who has plans and not just the vision, but has figured out what is the 13 steps between where we are now and competing that vision, it’s Bret Schundler.”