Sun Jan 31, 1999   

Up arrow for Gov's budget

Gov. Christie Whitman -
Senate Minority Leader Richard Codey -
Senator Bernie Kenny -
Hamilton Mayor Jack Rafferty -
Assembly Speaker Jack Collins -

Column by Sherry Sylvester/Gov. Whitman, two northern New Jersey Democrats and Assembly Speaker Jack Collins all earned up arrows this week for paying attention. Meanwhile, Hamilton Mayor Jack Rafferty earns another down arrow for looking the other way.

We wanted to welcome the new secretary of state, Buster Soaries, to the arrow circle this week by commending him for the strong supporting role he played sitting on the bench of the Rutgers women's basketball team last week during their super-hot game with the Huskies of the University of Connecticut. Soaries intercepted a wild pass, but it wasn't enough to push the Scarlet Knights over the top, so we're saving his arrow for another day.

But Whitman ground out an up arrow for her budget presentation last Monday, even though she offered up a much more elaborate spending plan than the arrow pointers would like to see. She defends herself by saying that the size of government growth has slowed to the lowest rate in years, discretionary spending is down and the deficit has been eliminated.

State Sen. Bernard Kenny, D-Hoboken, gets an up arrow for saying he "applauded the governor" for her budget instead of whining like a lot of Democrats that Whitman was stealing all their ideas. Kenny makes a strong case that the area of lavish government spending is back by popular demand and that Whitman is responding to the people. We think he's wrong about that, but he gets an up arrow anyway for his style of delivery.

State Senate Minority Leader Richard Codey, D-West Orange, get an up arrow for not backing off the Sports Authority, which profited from a Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine benefit concert for cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Codey wants the $75,000 the Meadowlands probably made from the concert to go to the widow of the slain officer and he's written legislation to make it happen. At a minimum, Codey's bill should force the Sports Authority gang to start asking more questions when they set up events.

With indictments flying fast and furiously from the illegal casino operation at the Baron Athletic Association in Hamilton, we want to assure arrow watchers that Mayor Jack Rafferty is still firmly in the down-arrow column for failing to notice all those years that there was gambling going on there. Retiring Mercer County Democratic Chairman Alan Karcher, wasn't the first guy to point out that all those involved at the Baron sound like the piano player at the bordello who had no idea what was going on upstairs.

Finally, an up arrow for Assembly Speaker Jack Collins, who successfully reduced the state's complex and contentious property-tax reform and home- rule debate to a sports metaphor.

Collins told the state's mayors last week that the real problem with municipal mergers and regionalization is that when it comes time for the annual Thanksgiving Day football rivalry, you can end up playing yourself.

We think there's a very important point in Collins' observation. In his role as an author, Karcher has been advocating forced mergers lately, but Collins, Whitman and most every other politician know that forcing towns to absorb or be absorbed is political suicide. Collins' wisdom about the Thanksgiving Day football game is why.

Sun., Jan. 24, 1999

ONE LAST ARROW FOR ALAN

Bill Clinton & the Democrats -
Gov. Christie Whitman -
Senate President Don DiFrancesco -
Mercer Executive Bob Prunetti -
Alan Karcher -

It's official. New Jerseyans like the president better than they like Christie Whitman and over half the folks that vote in the Garden State are now calling themselves Democrats. That's an up arrow for Bill "promise them anything and they'll believe it" Clinton, and all the New Jerseyans who have stuck by him including Sen. Bob Torricelli, Democratic party boss, Ray Lesniak, State Chairman Tom Giblin and Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski, the most outspoken defender of the president's sleazy sex life.

A poll in the big Newark paper last week found that 52 percent of New Jerseyans now identify themselves as Democrats. Only 35 percent say they're Republicans.

The 17-point difference is very bad news for Whitman, Senate President Don DiFrancesco and other GOPers who have bet their careers on New Jersey's independent voters who used to lean Republican.

It also won't help Assembly Speaker Jack Collins hold the majority in the Assembly elections that come up later this year.

The people have spoken and all the Democrats get up arrows.

But Whitman's pointer is sideways instead of straight down because we don't think she deserves the backlash against conservative Republicans. After all, those right-wingers in the GOP that everyone hates are the same folks who have been trying to kick Whitman out of the party for years.

Besides, Whitman has come up with the only idea that may keep Republicans in the game in New Jersey -- the billion dollar rebate. We also give her points for calling the boycott on the Beastie Boys concert to benefit Philadelphia cop killer, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Meanwhile, DiFrancesco took his "Property Taxpayers Protection Act" on the road this week, promising local big shots from Newark to Burlington County that he would link state municipal aid to the rate of inflation.

His plan is relatively harmless in these flush financial times. But DiFrancesco let the locals off the hook by buying their line that it's inflation, not local spending, that causes high property taxes.

That's exactly wrong and earns the Senate President a down arrow. Former governor Jim Florio proved that no matter how much money the state gives the locals, they will spend more and whine about it.

The only New Jersey Republican who did anything really smart this week was Mercer County Executive Bob Prunetti.

While the GOP polls were dropping, Prunetti hopped a flight to Texas where he helped celebrate the inauguration of Gov. George W. Bush.

Prunetti chowed down on barbecue at the Texas State House while inviting the son of the former president to be on hand for the ribbon cutting of the Mercer arena in October.

Our Texas sources say that Bush will probably make the Jersey trip.

Finally, there's an up arrow to former Assembly Speaker, Alan Karcher, and not just because he's a Democrat.

Karcher had the best question for the Attorney General this week after he released the first list of indictments regarding the illegal casino operations at the Baron Athletic Association in Hamilton:

"They had $6.5 million. Using Atlantic City rules, you figure that the winners got 45 percent or even 65 percent. You've still got a million and a half stuck to somebody's fingers.

Whose fingers did it stick to?"

When the AG answers that question, he'll get an up arrow too

Gov. Christie Whitman -
State Senator Peter Inverso -
Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer -
Senator Frank Lautenberg
Murray Sabrin -

Gov. Whitman puts a billion dollars' worth of checks in the mail, state Sen. Peter Inverso, R-Hamilton, plows through energy deregulation and Mayor Doug Palmer whines.

Meanwhile, both Sen. Frank Lautenberg and former Libertarian Murray Sabrin were changing sides.

The big up arrow goes to Gov. Whitman this week for doing the one thing that we want every politician to do: give us our money back.

The highlight of Whitman's State of the State address last Tuesday was her property tax rebate proposal, which will return state income tax dollars to people based on the school portion of their property tax bills.

As soon as the Legislature passes her plan, and there's little doubt that they will, the Treasury people will start dividing up the extra cash.

The checks will arrive by Labor Day, just in time for folks to be impressed enough with Republicans that they'll vote to keep them in the Assembly.

Good politics doesn't always mean good policy, and Whitman's critics will argue that this is a bad plan. But we believe that the best way to control government waste is to take money away from politicians. That's why Whitman's up arrow has flashing lights and gold stars.

Senator Inverso gets an up arrow, too, for patiently crafting a proposal on energy deregulation that sailed through the state Senate last week, twice. Granted, Inverso's best efforts are currently stymied by some nervous opposition from some of his Republican colleagues, including Assemblyman Paul DiGaetano of Passaic, who want to absolve themselves from all responsibility by forcing communities to hold special elections on the issue.

What spinelessness. Vote it up or vote it down. That's why they elected you.

Mayor Doug Palmer earns a sideways arrow for whining that Whitman's property tax proposal didn't do enough for New Jersey's cities. As head of the New Jersey Urban Mayors Association, Palmer may have thought he had to complain, like all the other big city mayors. But we think Palmer could enhance his credibility and the standing of the capital city if he'd come up with a better line than "give us more money." It's time for Palmer and his urban colleagues to stop asking what the state can do for them and start talking about what they can do for the state, and themselves.

Senator Lautenberg has been doing a great job lately getting his share of the televised talking heads limelight on the impeachment hearings. But he lost his up arrow when he backed down from his own thinking and started pushing the White House line.

Lautenberg first appeared to actually be looking at the evidence that President Clinton lied and obstructed justice, saying that he and his fellow senators might need to hear witnesses in the impeachment hearings.

Now he sounds like an older Lanny Davis. We liked the honest approach better. Down arrow.

Murray Sabrin, the former Libertarian, officially turned into a Republican last week and announced that he's thinking about running for Lautenberg's seat next year.

Sabrin tells a great story about running for governor and being asked how he was different from a Republican in his support for limited government, reduced spending and low taxes.

Sabrin drew a round of applause when he said, "I mean it."

Up arrow.

January 10, 1999

Gov. Christie Whitman -
Rep. Chris Smith -
Senate Minority Leader Dick Codey -
State Sen. John Lynch, D-Middlesex -
Steve Forbes -

We may be in the middle of the Impeachment Bowl, but lots of New Jersey politicians still managed to earn glowing up arrows last week. Gov. Christie Whitman couldn't go wrong with two political winners like pre-school and New Jersey skiing on her official schedule. Rep. Chris Smith, R-Hamilton, finally got Bill Clinton on his side for something and Senate Minority Leader Dick Codey, D-West Orange, pulled ahead of everyone else on neglected bus safety.

New Jersey's non-basketball playing presidential candidate, Steve Forbes, got a huge boost from the right and State Senator John Lynch, D-Middlesex, finally gets his day in court with the teacher's union.
Whitman was busy most of the week practicing her State of the Union speech to be delivered on Tuesday, but she still managed to inaugurate New Jersey's ski season at Mt. Vernon and launch a new plan to finance full-day pre-schools in New Jersey's poor school districts.

We're not quite sure where the money is coming from for this program, but we decided to give her the benefit of the doubt because we like her idea to use existing day care centers for the program. Besides, the New Jersey Education Association doesn't like her proposal, so we figure its gotta be good.

Senator John Lynch earned his up arrow the same way. He's in court now with the NJEA which denies it slandered the senator in a dirty election campaign. There's no way to tell who has got the best facts, but there's no question the teachers union tried to smear the senator because he refused to succumb to their special interest pressure.

They big irony is that the NJEA implied Lynch was connected to organized crime. But in New Jersey, its hard to imagine any mobsters with dirtier, high pressure tactics than the teacher's union.

Congressman Smith, New Jersey's most conservative Republican, got another good lick in against the president this week when he reminded everyone that Clinton's "new" long term care tax credit was actually from a bill Smith got passed (and Clinton vetoed) in 1995.

But Smith spokesman Ken Wolfe said they weren't mad at Clinton for stealing their idea.

"We're glad he finally saw the light," Wolfe said.

We also don't want Senator Codey's pressure for better bus inspections to get lost in the year-end scramble. Codey pointed out that it was the slow moving (or resistant) administration who had failed to press for a more aggressive approach to bus safety inspections, a failure that seems ominous in light of the recent spate of bus accidents. Codey's quick attention to the issue was clearly at least partly political, but that doesn't matter, because he was right.

Steve Forbes gets virtually no press attention compared to Jersey's other presidential candidate and media darling, Bill Bradley. But the Bedminister Republican got a huge boost in his run for president this week when Sen. John Ashcroft dropped out of the Republican race. Ashcroft had the conservative wing of the party covered and most observers believe those folks will move over to Forbes.

There were no points for congressmen Richard Zimmer and Michael Pappas, both of whom want to run next time against the newly inaugurated Rep. Rush Holt, D-Hopewell. Both ex- congressmen were standing together at Somerset County annual swearing-in ceremonies last week, but they didn't appear to be making a deal. One of them should step down quick. If they're going to beat Holt in two years, their party can't afford a primary fight.

Sun., Jan. 3, 1999

TAKING AIM AT ‘98 POLS

1998 Big Winners:

Gov. Christie Whitman
Rep. Chris Smith
Rep. Rush Holt

Other Conditional Up Arrows:

Senator Bob Torricelli - Most Improved
State Sen. Shirley Turner - People's Friend
State Sen. Don DiFrancesco - Nice Guy Finishes First

Rep. Mike Pappas
Rep. Bob Franks
Bill Bradley - Flash in the Pan

Gov. Whitman gets the big 1998 Up Arrow because of the way she continues to call it exactly as she sees it.

From President Clinton's womanizing to civil-service reform, the governor lays it on the line fearlessly. She even went after such sacred cows as municipal golden parachutes and principal tenure last year even though special interests quickly blocked any change. No other politician in the state is as clear as Whitman that the only real way to cut property taxes and government spending is to reduce labor costs.

Whitman continues to maintain an approval rating that pushes 70 percent, even though most everything she does is routinely panned by the state's large, northern New Jersey papers. We continue to be disappointed by Whitman's persistent bond selling, her patronage to Republican politicians and the sleazy privatization of the Dept. of Motor Vehicles. But we think the Open Space referendum and the Supreme Court ruling on special-needs school districts still add up to the year's biggest Up Arrow.

Rep. Christopher Smith, R-Washington Township, also gets a big Up Arrow for 1998. Smith has long been underrated because folks couldn't see past his anti-abortion views. But it was Smith who called for Clinton's resignation long before Lewinsky because he was upset about the president's role in U.S. technology transfers to China. Investigative reports released this week indicate that Smith was right on the money.

Smith was also the go-to guy on the president's Iraqi distractions because he knows the loopholes in the sanction requirements and the problems with the UNSCOM weapons inspections. New Jersey has not had anyone so well-versed on international issues since Bradley left the Senate, and it's time this Mercer County guy gets the credit that he's due.

Mercer County's other congressman will be sworn in tomorrow. Rush Holt, the Democrat from Hopewell Township, is our final big Up Arrow awardee. Holt managed to defeat Rocky Hill's Michael Pappas by capitalizing on energized Democratic voters who were mad about Republican impeachment pushes. To beat an incumbent, challengers can't make any political mistakes, and Holt didn't. He took a Republican-leaning district in a healthy economic climate, which is a remarkable political feat.

Senator Bob Torricelli also showed up frequently on the arrow charts this year, even earning a few uppers. Next to the governor, Torricelli is easily New Jersey's most powerful elected politician. He's smart, charming and politically ruthless -- that's a hard-to-beat combination.

Torricelli earns our admiration and "Most Improved" Arrow award for continuing to insist that the president deserves a toughly worded censure. Torricelli is good friends with Clinton and hangs out with the Hollywood crowd, so he could have easily been spouting mush like Barney Frank or Maxine Waters, but he didn't. We'd also like to note that while Whitman, Bill Bradley and Steve Forbes all show up as possible presidential contenders in 2000, Torricelli is the guy most likely to end up on a party ticket as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate. We hear his fallback position is to run for governor the following year, which would be awesome.

State Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Trenton, earns our "Friend of the People" Arrow for the massive amount of common-sense legislation that she has put forth this year, including her famous bill to require that swimming instructors know how to swim. Turner clearly understands who she works for better than most politicians. We loved it when she refused to support a legislative pay raise by pointing out that many two-worker families in her district don't earn as much as the lawmakers do for their part-time legislative jobs.

Our "Flash in the Pan" Award for 1998 goes to the pudgy ex-basketball star from Princeton who showed up at the State Democratic Christmas Party and hasn't been heard from since. Flatly put, we don't think Bill Bradley will raise enough money to run against Al Gore and it won't matter if he wins in New Jersey.

The big Down Arrows of the year go to Pappas, who obviously made a wrong call when he decided to literally sing Kenneth Starr's praises. We also note that Rep. Robert Franks, R-Union, hasn't had a great year, though mostly through no fault of his own. His margin of victory in November was not very wide against an unknown challenger and now he seems stuck with having voted for impeachment and then standing up for censure. Franks is reportedly still harboring plans for a gubernatorial run in 2001, but he's closing out the year far behind his Union County colleague, state Senate President Donald DiFrancesco.

DiFrancesco, in his usual quiet way, has had a great year. He crafted the monumental auto-insurance compromise, beat Franks in a Union County party leadership race and made himself visible in lots of nifty Open Space commercials. In the war for State House dominance, DiFrancesco has demonstrated that when it comes to the kind of soft image and hardball politics that wins in New Jersey (see Torricelli) Assembly Speaker Jack Collins isn't even on the field.

Other losers include former state Sen. Dick LaRossa, who lost his bid for a comeback as mayor of Ewing, and Princeton Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, who has yet to make his ideas catch fire anywhere.

Now that 1999 is upon us, there will be new winners and losers. So many arrows, so little time.