Bret Schundler

So Close and Yet So Far!

By tradition, the winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary gets to pick the new GOP State Chairman.  But some insiders are saying that if Steve Lonegan upsets Christopher Christie on June 2, its possible - if not likely - that the Republican establishment won't cede control of the state party organization to their standard bearer.

The individual elected to lead the Republican State Committee in June will get a six-month term.  Party leaders can decide next January if they want a new State Chairman.  Republican legislative leaders are not likely to let Lonegan control the state party - and appointments to the legislative redistricting commission - unless he is elected Governor.

Anxious to unite the party after his upset victory in 2001, Bret Schundler chose to retain the incumbent, State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Middletown), who had been picked for the post a few months earlier by Acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco.  As part of the deal, Kyrillos replaced his new Executive Director, Alan Raymond, with Evan Kozlow, who had been Political Director of the Schundler campaign.  Kyrillos held the seat until he stepped down in 2004, which left the state party apparatus in the hands of the party leadership and not with Schundler supporters.

Bill Pascoe managed Republican statewide primaries in New Jersey in 2001 and 2002. He won both of them.

Republican consultant Bill Pascoe, who has managed several statewide campaigns in New Jersey, said that, if asked, he would advise presumed GOP frontrunner Chris Christie to shore up the primary vote by tightening his attacks on Gov. Corzine.

Pascoe said that today's Quinnipiac poll of likely Republican primary voters showing Christie ahead of rival Steve Lonegan by nine points - a much narrower gap than Christie's numbers against Lonegan among registered Republicans in past surveys - means that Christie ignores the primary challenge at his own peril.  Pascoe said that Christie can appeal to conservatives by going even harder after Corzine.

In 2002, Pascoe managed Doug Forester's U.S. Senate campaign, and said he managed to make him appeal to conservatives to win the primary.

"We made the moderate Doug Forester look like he was the most conservative guy in the Republican primary because we did a better job of attacking the incumbent Democrat that all the conservatives in New Jersey couldn't stand, Bob Torricelli."

Independent candidates for Governor: Pastor Shannon Wright (top) and former DEP Commissioner Chris Daggett

Two Independent gubernatorial candidates worth watching: former Commissioner of Environmental Protection Christopher Daggett, who will formally announce his candidacy on Monday, and Pastor Shannon Wright, who will enter the race tomorrow.  Daggett is a Republican who served in the cabinet of Gov. Thomas Kean and as Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Reagan administration, could pull votes from the GOP nominee for Governor.  Wright, who until yesterday was managing Republican Brian Levine's campaign for Governor, potentially draws African-American votes away from Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine.

Daggett and Wright will need to raise $340,000 in contributions of $3,400 or less in order to qualify for public financing and participate in the debate.

In New Jersey, independent statewide candidates traditionally do not fare well.  The only independent candidate to qualify for matching funds was Murray Sabrin, a Ramapo College Professor who ran as the Libertarian candidate for Governor in 1997.  Sabrin won 5% of the vote in his race against incumbent Christine Todd Whitman and her Democratic challenger, then-State Sen. James E. McGreevey.  A conservative, Richard Pezzullo, won 1% in the same race

In 2001, Bill Schluter, an incumbent Republican State Senator from Mercer County, mounted an independent bid for Governor.  He used the same campaign team that had elected Jesse Ventura in Minnesota three years earlier, but won just 1% of the vote against McGreevey and Republican Bret Schundler, the former Mayor of Jersey City. 

In 1981, eleven independent candidates combined to win 27,038 votes (1%); the Right to Life candidate, Bill Gahres, was the top vote getter with 4,525 votes.  Republican Thomas Kean beat Democrat Jim Florio in that race by just 1,797 votes statewide.

Christopher Christie won a major conservative endorsement today with the announcement that Bridgewater Mayor Patricia Flannery will support his bid for the Republican nomination for Governor.  Before running for public office, Flannery spent years as a pro-life activist and longtime advisor to U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-Hamilton).  She was also a political consultant who managed Michael Pappas’ campaigns for Congress in 1996 and 1998.

Bret Schundler's endorsement of Christopher Christie in the GOP gubernatorial primary is significant, although Steve Lonegan's camp will suggest it is not.  Support from Schundler makes it more difficult for Lonegan to persuade conservative Republican primary voters to oppose Christie, the former U.S. Attorney who has become the front runner for the chance to challenge Gov. Jon Corzine in the fall.  Like U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith, whose endorsement of Christie is like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval within the pro-life community - a vote Lonegan must win big if he is to be successful in the June primary - Schundler is popular enough with conservatives that his support will be helpful.

Thomas Kean employed a similar strategy in his 1981 bid for Governor, using primary endorsements from U.S. Reps. Jim Courter and Jack Kemp, and 1978 U.S. Senate candidate Jeffrey Bell, to appeal to conservative Republican primary voters.

Former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler today endorsed Chris Christie for Governor.

Bret Schundler, who became the darling of national conservatives during his nine years as Mayor of Jersey City and won the Republican nomination for Governor in 2001, today endorsed Christopher Christie for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

"I know we need a strong conservative leader who will stand up for middleclass taxpayers, and I believe that Chris Christie will be that kind of leader," said Schundler.  "Chris will be the tough, fiscal conservative we need to cut income and business taxes, provide property tax relief and get our state's economy back on track."

The fifteen-member Ocean County Republican Screening Committee has voted to endorse former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.  If Christie wins the Republican convention next Monday, he'll run on the organization line in the June primary.  But the line has not delivered a plurality of Ocean County primary voters in a contested gubernatorial primary since 1993.   

A victory at the screening committee four years ago did not assure Morris County Freeholder John Murphy the organization line in the 2005 gubernatorial primary.  A week later, Murphy lost the convention on the second ballot to Washington Township Committeeman Robert Schroeder by a 52%-25% margin, with Douglas Forrester finishing third.  In the Republican primary, Forrester carried Ocean County by a 37%-27% margin over Bret Schundler, with Schroeder finishing third with 15%, followed by Steve Lonegan (15%), Murphy (6%), Paul DiGaetano (6%) and Todd Caliguire (2%). 

Conservative GOP statewide candidates, left to right: Albert Hawkes, Charles Sandman, Jeff Bell and Bret Schundler

If Steve Lonegan wins election as Governor, he might be the first conservative Republican to win a statewide election in New Jersey since Albert Hawkes ousted incumbent William Smathers in the 1942 U.S. Senate race. Hawkes served as President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce before running for the Senate - his first bid for public office.

Since then, Republican statewide winners have been considered moderates: Governors Alfred Driscoll, William Cahill, Thomas Kean and Christine Todd Whitman; and U.S. Senators Robert Hendrickson, Alexander Smith, and Clifford Case.  Other Republicans widely viewed as conservatives, including Charles Sandman, Jeffrey Bell, and Bret Schundler, were unsuccessful general election candidates.

Former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan is confident he'll keep his matching funds as he pursues the Republican nomination for Governor.

Without commentary on the merits of an issue that threatens the public financing of Steve Lonegan's campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, one thing is an absolute certainty: if the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission were to rule that he was ineligible for matching funds - and if the courts were to back up the decision - it could mean the end of the Lonegan campaign.  Lonegan's strategy is dependent upon public financing that gives him $2 for every $1 he raises.

The ELEC investigation is the result of an Associated Press story that suggests the former Bogota Mayor was obligated to disclose the details of his relationship with Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax lobbying group for whom he served as New Jersey Director.  State law requires candidates to disclose their connection to issue advocacy groups to avoid a conflict, such as avoiding spending limits that come with the public financing of gubernatorial elections.

The Lonegan campaign maintains that the candidate could not disclose AFP contributions, since he did not have access to their donor list.  And they say that AFP was created and organized more than seven years ago, before Lonegan was involved.

There is good news and bad news for Lonegan when it comes to ELEC.  It's helpful that the commission traditionally lacks extraordinary testicular fortitude. But it's potentially hurtful that the panel is hard to predict.  In 2001, they allowed former U.S. Rep. Bob Franks to simply take over the campaign treasury of Gov. Donald DiFrancesco when he replaced him on the ballot, and then allowed Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler to change his mind and accept public financing.