Schundler is an urban pioneer Republican, cerebral and experimental. He will square off in November against Jim McGreevey, an energetic and traditional Democrat who nearly beat former Gov. Christie Whitman four years ago and has been running for the job ever since. The winner may decide who controls the U.S. Senate. If Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli is indicted later this year, as some gabby prosecutors are hinting, the party affiliation of the next governor becomes critical. Torricelli is up for reelection in 2002, but should he be forced to resign early next year-and should Schundler win-the interim GOP senator Schundler appoints would tip the balance back to the Republicans. Hello, Trent Lott.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. More immediately, Schundler is sprinting back toward the center after a bruising primary in which Franks accused him of being an extremist. (The two made up this week, with Franks warmly endorsing his rival). McGreevey will take Schundler’s opposition to abortion even in the case of rape and incest and his support for laws allowing concealed weapons-positions that helped rally traditional conservatives in the primary-and try to wrap them around Schundler’s neck in the general. With registered Democrats outnumbering registered Republicans by close to 300,000 in this classic soccer-mom state, that should give McGreevey a big advantage.
“Carrying a concealed weapon is not a new idea, it’s a bad idea,” McGreevey said last week, previewing his campaign. “Taking money from public schools is not a new idea, it’s a bad idea. Preventing abortions even in the case of rape and incest is not a new idea, it’s a bad idea.”
But McGreevey is running against a different breed of cat. Schundler is a religious Christian who believes what he says about opposing abortion. And he has unfortunately bought the shoddy research suggesting that legalizing concealed weapons cuts crime. But he knows New Jersey isn’t ready to change its laws on either issue, as he said last week, and he won’t push to do so.
Demonizing him on these subjects may be a blind alley for McGreevey anyway. GOP Govs. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin and John Engler of Michigan won repeatedly in recent years despite being out of step with the voters in Democratic states on abortion. Schundler himself has been elected three times in heavily Democratic and largely minority Jersey City by focusing on issues like taxes, economic development and school choice, which minorities support much more strongly than whites. Voters there might object to him on many issues but they respect his intelligence and fresh thinking.
Schundler’s catchiest idea this year is to end tolls on the Garden State Parkway, where motorists have to stop and pay 35 cents every few miles. It’s a big pain. This is exactly the kind of issue that will appeal to Democrats and independents standing around the barbecue this summer, even if Schundler has no plausible explanation for how pay for it.
Over the years, Schundler and I have had many spirited conversations on policy issues. We disagree on plenty (the merits of Steve Forbes’s presidential campaign, which he supported, comes to mind), but I like his willingness to take both intellectual and political risks, especially on education. When Whitman, early in her term, reneged on a promise to try some school-voucher experiments, Schundler went after his fellow Republican, though she was hugely popular at the time. He was just about the only politician in either party to take on the New Jersey Education Association, the powerful teachers union that has done so much to squelch reform. In Jersey City, he challenged entrenched interests at every turn, and he was usually on the right side. Before Rudy Giuliani in New York, he showed that Republican ideas can really work at the local level.
In fact, it may be that the 1990s have shown that Republicans are better suited to governing locally, and Democrats nationally. The reason is that Republicans side less with special interests in the cities (except for developers, who both sides pander to); they don’t cater as much to greedy unions and whiny practitioners of identity politics. In Congress, it’s just the opposite, with Republicans more often voting in lockstep and catering to corporate interests and the narrow agenda of the right wing.
The question of which party is better suited to governing at the state level is up for grabs. Republicans have been more dominant in recent years, but they have largely succeeded by staying moderate. Schundler, by contrast, has some radical ideas. If McGreevey is too wedded to teachers unions and (often corrupt) local Democratic organizations, Schundler is too enamored of Rube Goldberg-style notions of how to increase educational opportunity and slash property taxes at the same time. He believes that if the wealthy are given a tax break to give to scholarship programs for the poor to go to private schools, the state can close scores of failing schools and save $500 million. This is a triple bank shot with almost zero chance of passage.
Schundler is an educational visionary, but it’s not clear that many New Jersey voters will share that vision once they learn of it. For all of the problems with schools in New Jersey’s big cities, public education is still popular in the dominant suburbs. Vouchers have been a nonstarter in New Jersey, and a plan to siphon off more money from public schools will be a hard sell. His abstraction could drive voters to distraction.
And yet Bret Schundler has confounded the experts before. At a minimum, New Jersey voters will get a good debate on the future of education, with a heavy focus on the poor. To win, McGreevey and the Democrats will have to think anew, too. That will be fun to watch.
