A Window into the GOP's Rockefelleroid Past
It figures that the latest abject example of why the Republican Party spent sixty years haplessly mired in the minority is provided in New Jersey.
Schundler is confronted with an essentially hopeless situation. With only half a mil in campaign funds left, he can either spend it trying to defend himself - which his dropping poll numbers all but demand - or spend it touting his own platform, which fewer and fewer primary voters are apparently paying heed.
The article is hardly pro-Schundler, essentially taking a pitying tone that concludes that he's "yesterday's news." And perhaps he is. But the same could be said of Doug Forrester, who lost - or, more accurately (and ironically, in light of his gutter tactics of the present), got rooked out of - a statewide race (for the U.S. Senate) the year after Schundler somehow lost the last gubernatorial race to the now infamous Jim McCreepy. The differences between the two men are that Schundler is a conservative and Forrester is a country-club blue-blood liberal of the Christie Todd-Whitman strain, and Schundler might actually have had a chance in the general election against eight-hundred pound gorilla/sitting U.S. Senator Jon Korzine, whereas Forrester will be roadkill the moment the GOP nomination is his.
I say "might have had a chance" about Schundler because even if he were to pull off a miracle and nose out Forrester, the latter's damage, much like Nelson Rockefeller's to Barry Goldwater in 1964, would have been done. All Senator Korzine would have to do is pick up Forrester's lines of attack and pour even more campaign cash into the same lies and smears. The result would be X-rated, and not for sexual content.
Not to be conspiracist, but it almost appears as if RINOs are the Democrats' bloodhounds, wearing down their strongest potential quarry in the primaries so that they'll be too weakened to be a serious threat should they win through anyway. And if the RINO garners the nomination, it's almost a "gentlemen's agreement" that s/he will "take the dive" in the general campaign by touting a platform functionally indistinguishable from his/her Donk foe.
That was the dynamic that held the GOP down for decades, until Ronald Reagan finally overthrew it for good twenty-five years ago. And the RINOs have never lived it down. Hence last week's Senate sell-out on judges, and this lopsided Garden State battle for second-place.
If Rockefellas think no payback is coming for such fresh outrages, they should pay close attention to what's coming at Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, and Mike DeWine next year.
And Doug Forrester, too, who'll doubtlessly be running for - and failing to win - Korzine's seat after he vacates it for the governor's mansion in Trenton. A splendid example of a loser (in every sense of the term) taking pride in his work.
With a week to go before the Republican gubernatorial primary, [Brent] Schundler is running out of options.Such as, as the article goes on to detail, smearing Schundler as "corrupt" in his mayoralty of Jersey City, falsely claiming that Forrester's property tax "reform" will permanently cut rates by 30%, when in reality the huge new subsidies his proposal contains will send them spiraling upward after only three years, and a blatant lie that Schundler supported ex-guv Jim "Flim-Flam" Florio's 1990 income tax hike.
He is falling behind [Doug] Forrester in every poll. His message on property taxes is not getting through. And he doesn't have enough money to answer the torrent of attack ads coming from Forrester.
"He could win by buying this election," Schundler says. "If he does, it will show that the politics of slander and deceit work."
Schundler is furious because he feels this hasn't been a fair fight. Forrester has outspent him by a margin of 5-1. And many of the Forrester ads stretch the truth, to put it kindly.
Schundler is confronted with an essentially hopeless situation. With only half a mil in campaign funds left, he can either spend it trying to defend himself - which his dropping poll numbers all but demand - or spend it touting his own platform, which fewer and fewer primary voters are apparently paying heed.
The article is hardly pro-Schundler, essentially taking a pitying tone that concludes that he's "yesterday's news." And perhaps he is. But the same could be said of Doug Forrester, who lost - or, more accurately (and ironically, in light of his gutter tactics of the present), got rooked out of - a statewide race (for the U.S. Senate) the year after Schundler somehow lost the last gubernatorial race to the now infamous Jim McCreepy. The differences between the two men are that Schundler is a conservative and Forrester is a country-club blue-blood liberal of the Christie Todd-Whitman strain, and Schundler might actually have had a chance in the general election against eight-hundred pound gorilla/sitting U.S. Senator Jon Korzine, whereas Forrester will be roadkill the moment the GOP nomination is his.
I say "might have had a chance" about Schundler because even if he were to pull off a miracle and nose out Forrester, the latter's damage, much like Nelson Rockefeller's to Barry Goldwater in 1964, would have been done. All Senator Korzine would have to do is pick up Forrester's lines of attack and pour even more campaign cash into the same lies and smears. The result would be X-rated, and not for sexual content.
Not to be conspiracist, but it almost appears as if RINOs are the Democrats' bloodhounds, wearing down their strongest potential quarry in the primaries so that they'll be too weakened to be a serious threat should they win through anyway. And if the RINO garners the nomination, it's almost a "gentlemen's agreement" that s/he will "take the dive" in the general campaign by touting a platform functionally indistinguishable from his/her Donk foe.
That was the dynamic that held the GOP down for decades, until Ronald Reagan finally overthrew it for good twenty-five years ago. And the RINOs have never lived it down. Hence last week's Senate sell-out on judges, and this lopsided Garden State battle for second-place.
If Rockefellas think no payback is coming for such fresh outrages, they should pay close attention to what's coming at Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, and Mike DeWine next year.
And Doug Forrester, too, who'll doubtlessly be running for - and failing to win - Korzine's seat after he vacates it for the governor's mansion in Trenton. A splendid example of a loser (in every sense of the term) taking pride in his work.
posted by JASmius at 9:18 PM
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