Jersey Leans McGreevey
Schundler needs turnout.

By Dan McDonough Jr., deputy editorial-page editor of the Courier-Post in New Jersey.
November 6, 2001 8:55 a.m.

n the final days before New Jersey voters pick a new governor, the polls put Democrat Jim McGreevey significantly ahead in the race. All of the pollsters who released results this past weekend widened McGreevey's lead over former Jersey City mayor Bret Schundler to more than 10 points.

That's unfortunate. New Jersey can't afford Jim McGreevey. Under the reign of McGreevey, taxes inevitably will rise, the public schools will continue to wallow in mediocrity, and the liberal special interests will rule the state. But McGreevey has been able to convince the electorate that he is the less-controversial candidate — something New Jersey has always preferred.

The alternative is a daring conservative in Schundler, the maverick Republican candidate. His proposals are so far out of the political-insider box that even the Republicans in the state are a bit wary of him. The three independent polls released on the final weekend before the election gave McGreevey a lead of anywhere from 12 points to 22 points. And part of Schundler's trouble, according to the pollsters, is his lack of support from Republicans.

The real problem, though, is Schundler's inability to capture the middle ground — the swelling population of moderate voters who have historically cozied up to bland candidates. Which means the same shake-'em-up qualities that make Schundler the better candidate are also the qualities that are spooking the electorate.

A former bond trader on Wall Street, Schundler has the financial know-how to operate the state without any tax hikes. He's said so, but New Jersey doesn't believe him. Voters here can't fathom that anyone would actually live up to such a pledge. But Schundler did it — as mayor of Jersey City, a place that was ransacked by decades of patronage-laden Democratic rule. Schundler turned the blighted city into a downtown Manhattan alternative, with a number of big companies relocating to the West Bank of the Hudson River.

Taxes aside, there is also a stark difference between the candidates on the issue of public education. The state is about to bury itself under billions of dollars in debt to build new schools. This is blindly being sold to the public as a salve to the overcrowding problem. McGreevey supports a plan to saddle the future of New Jersey with this debt, and would like to throw even more money at the crumbling public-school system.

Schundler's plan would save the state billions by offering parents incentives to send their kids to private schools. For some reason, the teachers union is railing against Schundler's brilliant idea, even though the union is also inevitably first to complain about overcrowding. But anything that goes against the government's failing educational monopoly goes against the doctrinaire thinking of the teachers union. And since McGreevey is a functionary of the union, he has been told to not like Schundler's idea either.

Schundler's "threat" to the traditional public-education system has been played up by the teachers union in costly ads on the television networks. The ads talk of "strengthening" the public schools, and about how McGreevey is the man for that. The polls, which show voters are more in line with McGreevey's educational platform, would seem to indicate that voters are buying into this shady rhetoric.

A poll released this past weekend by the Star-Ledger newspaper and the Eagleton school at Rutgers University showed McGreevey expanding his lead from 12 points to 16 points. The Gannett New Jersey newspapers gave him a 22-point lead. Even for Bret "the comeback kid" Schundler, this is a huge deficit to conquer. But if anyone can do it, it's Schundler.

Turnout will be the key for Schundler. If McGreevey's people feel confident, they may not go out of their way in the last leg of the race. Any chance of success rests with Schundler's ability to get out the vote.