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  ompassionate
Conservatism” bombs again in New Jersey.
With a message
designed to "reach out to minorities in the inner cities,"
Bret Schundler joined a legion of other Republicans who failed at
trying to reinvent the wheel. Schundler got exactly the same 42
percent vote G. W. Bush received last year — almost exactly
district by district — and proved once again that Republican
efforts to attract urban black votes are counterproductive.
Schundler's
message of "empowerment" didn't attract black votes and
turned off the white, Catholic, suburban men. And without the energized
white, Catholic, suburban male vote, you cannot win as a conservative
in a state like New Jersey. That's why as many as a third of conservatives
pulled the Democratic lever yesterday and many, particularly in
the northwest counties, stayed home.
After running
an excellent primary election, Schundler made a number of mistakes:
1) Pandering
to the Franks voters. All the Tom Keans, Bob Franks, Don DiFrancescos,
Christie Whitmans, and other liberal Republicans added up to only
130,000 votes — 20,000 fewer votes than third-party candidates
Murray Sabrin and Rich Pezzullo won in 1997. Once the Franks party
machine was defeated they had proven to the world their powerlessness.
But the Schundler campaign didn't get the message, spending half
their effort trying to win just five percent of the electorate.
This might explain why exit polls were showing 30 percent of conservatives
voting for McGreevey.
2) Not helping
Bill Schluter, the independent running for governor, get matching
funds. With two liberal candidates in the debates, McGreevey
would have had to watch his left flank for defections to Schluter,
making it easier for Schundler to define McGreevey as a liberal.
Early polling indicated that Schluter's votes would have come overwhelmingly
from McGreevey.
3) Mishandling
the gun issue. Pennsylvania and Connecticut have the same "right
to carry" laws that Schundler first said he supported, then
said he didn't. Changing his position was bad enough, but the obsession
with being defensive on guns and repeating it in virtually every
ad, debate, and campaign appearance had to keep 10,000-20,000 gun
owners home — or maybe even voting for McGreevey — especially
those gun owners who are also union members.
4) Being
afraid of the right-to-life issue. Exit polls show that voters
who voted on the abortion issue supported Schundler by more than
10 points, yet the Schundler campaign refused to attack McGreevey
on his radical abortion stance, a move that might have helped boost
numbers in solidly pro-life areas.
5) Letting
McGreevey define himself as a moderate. Schundler's passive
press office did nothing while newspaper articles repeatedly referred
to McGreevey as a "moderate" or "centrist" Democrat.
One survey showed that only 23 percent of voters thought McGreevey
was a liberal while 42 percent said he was "moderate."
Amazingly (or maybe not), 13 percent said that Schundler was a liberal.
McGreevey won 5-1 among those voters who thought him a moderate
and 4-1 among those who thought him a conservative (8 percent).
There's nothing wrong with being a right-wing extremist as long
as the other guy is a left-wing extremist. You cannot win as a conservative
if you do not define your opponent as a liberal. And you cannot
define your opponent as a liberal unless you are a conservative
to begin with.
6) Panic
and react. More gripes about the press office. No one really
paid much attention to the Saturday article in September where Schundler
criticized DiFrancesco's handling of the September 11th attack until
the Schundler campaign verbally attacked the reporter who wrote
it, calling attention to a gaffe that no one would have noticed.
Another time, Schundler said he would sign a law — that has
80 percent support — ending government-funded abortions. The
panicky reactive press office immediately put out a statement saying
it wasn't true, which not only became a news story in itself, but
a bad one.
7) The obsession
with the black vote. Bret Schundler went to the left of McGreevey
on the racial profiling and attacked him for "not hiring enough
minorities in Woodbridge" (on the Bob Grant show of all places.)
For this, Schundler won 12 percent of the black vote. This proves
once more that Bush won in spite of "compassionate conservatism"
not because of it.
8) Failure
to target men. Men are the Republican base and Schundler's obsession
with "gender gap" issues like gun control showed why men
weren't energized enough to try to convince their wives to vote
for Schundler.
9) Mail
and phones instead of TV and radio.Whoever came up with this
strategy was really responsible for the debacle. And what few TV
ads were run were weak and pathetic. The mail was awful, wordy,
and ridiculous.
10) Closing
"on a positive note."Schundler ended with a wimpy
ad featuring an endorsement from someone from out of state (Giuliani);
fitting for a campaign that held most of its big fundraisers out
of state.
11) Taking
the summer off.McGreevey hustled all summer and showed that
he wanted to win more. By early October, instead of being a pro-abortion
liberal, McGreevey was a moderate-to-conservative Democrat.
12) Pathetic
fundraising.All last night I heard people whining that, "we
didn't have the money." There's no excuse for an arm breaker
like Bret Schundler, who could raise millions as mayor and various
pet projects, to not raise tens of millions or more as the Republican
nominee. The fundraising should have started primary night when
he had a captive audience fueled with adrenaline and alcohol, ready
to break out checks and credit cards. There was no reason why the
Schundler campaign shouldn't have raised the maximum in two weeks.
13) The
debates.After scoring a near knockout in the first debate, Schundler
got progressively worse until he completely bombed in the only primetime
debate. And who could blow the "ask your opponent a question"
question? I've never seen a candidate lead with his opponent's main
issue and manage to offend both sides of the issue — and do
it again and again. Guns. Guns. Guns.
14) Mishandling
the education issue. To Schundler, "education" meant
urban education and school choice. This does not appeal to either
the suburban parent who lives 30 miles from Jersey City or the Jersey
City parent who doesn't want Our Lady of Victories opened up to
everyone from Ward F who walks in with a voucher. There's a reason
why immigrants from all over the world send their kids to Jersey
City Catholic schools and it doesn't have to do with the religious
training. Completely unaddressed was Christie Whitman's troublesome
"core curriculum." On hot-button issues, Schundler was
silent.
The lesson?
Republicans should secure the base first. Energize them and they
will come out on Election Day. Reinventing the wheel isn't worth
the time or effort.
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