Against GOP Defeatism
Giving up too early in Virginia and New Jersey.

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
October 25, 2001 3:35 p.m.

he 9/11 attacks, contrary to the cliché, did not "change everything" — not even everything in American politics. On September 10, the conventional wisdom was that Democrats were going to win both of this year's gubernatorial races and its two biggest mayoral races. That's still the conventional wisdom today. Republicans in Washington privately expect to lose the governor's mansion in both Virginia and New Jersey. They're giving up too easily.

It's true that the Republican candidate in Virginia, Mark Earley, ran a lousy campaign for most of the summer, and true also that Democrat Mark Warner has slickly repackaged himself as a moderate. Even so, a Mason-Dixon poll last week had Warner's lead within the margin of error. And Virginia remains a fairly solid Republican state.

The polls in New Jersey, admittedly, look worse. A Newark Star-Ledger poll this week had Democrat Jim McGreevey up 12 points over Republican Bret Schundler. But McGreevey hasn't been able to crack 50. And the poll doesn't provide much evidence for the conventional wisdom that Schundler is "too conservative" for the state. Only 32 percent of the electorate thought Schundler was "too conservative," compared to 33 percent who thought McGreevey was "too liberal." Forty-seven percent thought Schundler's views were "just about right," while 52 percent thought McGreevey was. On the ideological issues, the candidates have fought to a draw. New Jersey is a notoriously late-deciding state. And Schundler has a history of coming from behind to win.

President Bush isn't planning to campaign for the Republican candidates either in New Jersey or even in Virginia. This is for both good reasons (he's busy doing more important things) and bad (a self-defeating reluctance to spend political capital on races that are assumed to be lost).

But whatever his calculations, there is no good reason for Republicans not to devote resources to these races. They are, after all, the only important races going on this November. (Yes, that excludes Mike Bloomberg's bid for mayor of New York.) Are Earley and Schundler likely to win? Only a fool would say so with certainty. Can they win? Absolutely.