Sunday, June 27, 1999
Gov. Christie Whitman -
Mayor Doug Palmer -
Sen. Richard Codey -
Assemblywoman Nia Gill -
Sen. Ray Lesniak -

Gov. Christie Whitman gets a gold plated up arrow this week for beating back Rudy Guiliani's New York City commuter tax . But even before a New York judge ruled the Big Apple tax unconstitutional, things weren't going that badly for the governor. She raised a lot of money for her upcoming Senate campaign at a big fundraising event where she previewed what is surely to become her stump speech for the coming year. Expect to hear the keywords accountability, open space, welfare reform and bringing more of New Jersey's federal tax dollars back to the state. 

The Legislature passed her budget which should assure that Assembly Republicans have a pretty good year at the polls this November and Senate President Don DiFrancesco, R-Scotch
Plains, put a compromise gun bill on the table that could keep the New Jersey GOP from looking like the weapons crazed Republican toadies in Washington.

Mayor Doug Palmer gets an up arrow too for winning on Tuesday. Some of Palmer's opponent said on election night that "you can't fight City Hall."

But what is also true, at least for big town mayors, is that you usually can't fight the police department and win. All across the country, police officers regularly manage to rally support against everything from civilian review boards to decreased budgets because the public has so much respect and appreciation for the work they do.

Palmer had enormous courage to take on them on. He handled the low road approach that some of the cops took to the campaign with a great deal of class and he now deserves the best law enforcement executive he can find. 

The Senate Minority Leader Richard Codey, D-West Orange, is a lot like a political fullback, grinding out the long game by making short yardage. He did a great job last week capitalizing on public perception that Republicans are out of touch on the gun issue and reminded GOP legislators that while they're celebrating the fat new budget, everybody else in New Jersey is still paying high property taxes.

Codey is also the New Jersey chairman of Bill Bradley's presidential campaign and he pulled together about a hundred local officials, including Palmer, who are putting their support behind Dollar Bill instead of Vice President Al Gore. As Codey was standing with his crowd of newly minted Bradley supporters it occurred to us that Codey is a much more skillful politician than Bradley ever was. Codey knows how Jersey politics works from the bottom up and he can build coalitions. Bradley never had a clue about any of that. Which means that Codey will probably win support and influence for his work on the Bradley campaign whether the ex-Knick becomes the Democratic presidential nominee or not.

The arrow pointers agree that it is dumb to have New Jersey school kids recite the Declaration of Independence before class each day. But what is really horrifying is that some lawmakers, on both the right and the left, actually feel qualified (perhaps empowered is the right word) to edit that sacred document.

 Assemblywoman Nia Gill, D-Montclair charged last week that the framers weren't politically correct when they said "all men are created equal."

Those of us who carried signs in the seventies demanding that "history" be changed to "herstory" and that managers be called "womanagers" believe we now have every right to demand that Gill drag herself into the nineties and recognize that real feminists don't worry about that stuff. As proof, we proudly point to the Union County Democratic leader, Charlotte DeFilippo who insists on being called the county chairman. Down arrow for Gill.

But we're not going to bother taking on her partner in the politically correct police, Assemblyman Neil Cohen, D-Roselle Park, who waived the liberal heathen flag by suggesting that that the phrase "endowed by the creator" was an effort to insert religion back into schools. We know the creator will punish him. 

We only have one arrow left and we're going to give it to State Sen. Ray Lesniak, D- Elizabeth because both his political proteges, Jim McGreevey and U.S. Senate candidate Jon Corzine, had really good weeks last week.

McGreevey made sure nobody forgets that, despite all the hoopla about the U.S. Senate race, its the 2001 race for governor that matters and he still is the presumptive nominee. (Granted, that's a big presumption). Still, with the obvious exception of a few, very key folks from South Jersey, McGreevey had virtually all the state Democratic powers at a fundraiser on Tuesday where he raised $1.7 million, an impressive take thirty months out.

Meanwhile, Corzine made a good impression on most of the twenty-one Democratic county chairmen who were gathered to interview the gaggle of guys who want the nod to go for Frank Lautenberg's U.S. Senate seat. Corzine doesn't have an image yet, but it seems like he'll have an easy time selling himself as a smart and reasonable rich guy who doesn't have an attitude.

That could go a long way with Democrats. 

Sunday, June 20, 1999

Sen. Robert Torricelli -

Rep. Rush Holt -

Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer -

State Sen. Ray Zane -

Assemblyman Neil Cohen -

Sunday, June 13, 1999

Gov. Christie Whitman

State Sen. Shirley Turner

Hilary Clinton

Rep. Chris Smith

Joe Doria

It what turned out to be the "Week of the Woman" in New Jersey, Gov. Christie Whitman had an easy time earning an up arrow. She began with her appointment of Judge Virginia Long to
the Supreme Court, drawing rounds of applause from everybody in the state (except Libertarian turned Republican Murray Sabrin). She finished up by welcoming the civil rights hero, Rosa Parks, to East Orange. In between, Whitman shored up her long standing commitment to New Jersey's veterans and continued to hold the line against the state workers unions who are threatening an illegal strike.

State Sen. Shirley Turner, R-Lawrenceville, gets an up arrow too for proving that you can't believe everything you read in the paper. Contrary to some reports that Turner intended to use "senatorial courtesy" to delay the nomination of Judge Long, Turner in fact was one of the first legislators to interview Whitman's latest Supreme Court nominee and give her a thumbs up.

Turner's people say the Mercer County senator was impressed with Long's sense of humor and her working class background. Turner also gets points this week for getting her school bus safety bill through the Law and Public Safety Committee. Once again, Turner put together a piece of legislation that makes so much sense, its hard to believe it isn't law already. Turner says school bus drivers should have special training. Of course they should. Up Arrow.

But the arrow pointers are not gender biased. Hillary Rodham Clinton was also in New Jersey this week and quickly earned an arrow pointing down. Mrs. Clinton campaigned in Lawrenceville for Rep. Rush Holt, D-Hopewell where she brought a patronizing drone to the campaign trail.
Talking slowly and deliberately, as if her audience were three year olds, Mrs. Clinton delivered amazingly trivial blather on how hard it is to be a kid today and the coldness of HMO's. Then showing her liberal blind side and a complete unawareness of the roots of New Jersey's educational crisis, Mrs. Clinton called teachers "our best public servants."

If she really believes that she has no business in Washington. Its not to early to call all your friends in New York and tell them to vote against her in next year's U.S. Senate race.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-Hamilton, earns an up arrow for pulling a congressional task force together to do something about Alzheimer's Disease. The arrow pointers are aware that congressmen go after diseases all the time, picking a favorite causes and pumping up the research funds. But Alzheimer's is a little different from other causes celeb. Its been virtually ignored in the world of medical research. Even after Ronald Reagan tried to bring attention to the disease, there has been no real movement toward prevention research. Futurists predict that twenty-five percent of the baby boomers may get Alzheimers in the next thirty years. That's an epidemic.
Smith is lending his weight to a important issue.

David Hyde Pierce, who plays Niles on "Frasier" is working with Smith on this project.

We're hoping Smith will bring Niles to Trenton.

We don't know which direction to point the arrow for Assembly Minority Leader Joe Doria, D-Bayonne, but we know he's up to something major. Doria gathered a bunch of the big money Democrats, including billionaire, Jon Corzine, Orin Kramer, David Steiner and State Sen. Ray Lesniak, D-Elizabeth, for a meeting late last week to come up with a financial battle plan.

The Democrats want to take back control of the State Assembly and they think they may need anywhere from a quarter million to a million to take over nine Assembly seats now held by Republicans. The Assembly campaigns in November offer Corzine and the big money crew (who mostly back Corzine over Florio in the U.S. Senate race) to show their loyalty to the Democratic party base by writing and collecting big fat checks. We don't see how the Democrats can win enough seats to make Doria Assembly Speaker again, but money is what talks in political ball games and the Bayonne lawmaker will clearly have the cash he needs to get in the game.

Sunday, June 6th

President Bill Clinton -
Gov. Christie Whitman -
State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, R-Middletown-
Senator Bob Torricelli -
Jim Florio -

It was a short week for politicians, like everyone else, but President Clinton got Milosevic to back down, maybe. Gov. Whitman continued her ground war against New York and State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, R-Middletown, reinforced the New Jersey beachhead...in Texas. Meanwhile, former governor Jim Florio broke through the North Jersey Democratic coalition that has been plotting
against him and Sen. Bob Torricelli made some women senators mad.

Things have been going so badly for Clinton in Kosovo that his Vice President, Al Gore, couldn't even fill up the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Tuesday night when he came to the Garden State for a big ticket fundraiser.Clinton's approval ratings have dropped almost 15 points since he started the war a few weeks ago and Gore's presidential chances have been plummeting at about the same rate. But the cease-fire agreement could stop the hemorrhaging on Clinton's poll numbers, though it is unlikely that he will ever have the wildly enthusiastic support that he received after the impeachment. Clinton gets a sideways arrow for sticking with a bombing strategy that seems to have worked, but the arrow pointers aren't putting him in the winners column because the peace deal gave away to much to Milosovec. We agree with Rep. Chris Smith, R-Hamilton, that indicted war criminals don't have any business running countries.

Gov. Christie Whitman's up arrow was in danger this week because of her vacillation on moving the New Jersey primary to March. She says she's waiting on consensus, but its her call and she should make it, even if it means backing down from where she stood before she knew she was going to run for the US. Senate. Still, Whitman is clearly winning the public relations war against the New York State commuter tax. Next to our fighting governor, Pataki looks tacky and Guiliani is revealed as the true bully he is. Whitman also got an arrow pointing boost or her push for teacher testing from National Public Radio. NPR interviewed a New Jersey teacher who opposed teacher testing by saying, "they coulda did it better." If the NJEA decides to oppose Whitman in her upcoming Senate campaign, we hope the governor uses the "coulda did it better" clip in an ad.

This week's George W. Bush honorary up arrow goes to State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, R-Middletown. Kyrillos is only one of the guys in the Republican leadership who got on board the George W. Bush train early. But the Monmouth Republican was the lucky guy who got to lead this week's Jersey delegation to the governor's mansion in Austin on the first day that Bush began campaigning in earnest. New Jersey Bush Exploratory Committee advisor, Bill Palatucci, says the planeloads of Jersey GOP leaders are behind Bush, whose beating Gore by twenty points in some polls, because they want to win back the White House. But Kyrillos also clearly sees the Bush agenda, with its focus on education and diversity, as something a young dynamic Republican like him could ride to greatness over the next few years.

Lots of people have been speculating about the ascension of Senate President Don DiFrancesco, R-Scotch Plains, to the governor's office if Whitman wins the US. Senate race. But Kyrillos is one of the folks who looking at the empty chair that DiFrancesco will leave behind. Playing hard on the Bush 2000 team while the musical chairs are re-arranged is a very smart move for the Majority
Conference leader.

But Torricelli's decision to go on "Meet the Press" and demand Attorney General Janet Reno's resignation because she failed to move fast enough to stop spying at the Los Alamos labs was not a "smart move" According to The New York Times, a couple of female senators confronted Torricelli for being too hard on Reno. The arrow pointers don't want the Torch to pull any punches, just because Reno's a girl. We think she should have moved faster too. What we don't get is why he thinks Reno should resign for exercising bad judgment when he was so adamant that Clinton should stay in office despite the lousy judgment calls he has made. Down arrow.

The South Jersey Democrats who are backing former governor Jim Florio also gave Torricelli a down arrow last week for failing to remain neutral in the US. Senate race. Torricelli's staff say he's not backing anyone, but the Torch has made it clear to dozens of his closest friends that Goldman-Sachs mogul Jon Corzine is his man in the "Anybody but Florio" camp.Florio himself earns another up arrow this week for breaking the chink in the North Jersey armor and gaining the endorsement of Passaic County Congressman Bill Pascrell and the County Chairman, John Currie. Florio is looking more and more like the star of the old monster movies. They fire bullets at him, canons, flame-throwers, but he keeps on coming.