Sun, May 30, 1999
Gov. Christie Whitman -
Sen. Bob Torricelli -
Rep. Chris Smith -
Mayor Al Bridges -
State Sen. Joe Vitale -
Rep. Frank Pallone -

Christie Whitman gets an up arrow for making every lawsuit-happy New Jerseyan proud. She announced the state would back a class-action lawsuit against New York after Gov. George Pataki supported keeping the New York City commuter tax for New Jersey residents, but exempting New York state commuters.

Whether the lawsuit works or not, we know that Whitman will make sure we get even.

Pataki tried to upstage Whitman earlier in the week by making a big fuss out of his endorsement of Texas Gov. George W. Bush for president, but Whitman showed him she is clearly the spokesperson for Northeast Republicans when she delivered this week's national radio address for the GOP on the defense budget.

Whitman got a lot a grief for her appointment of Peter Verniero to the state Supreme Court, so she also deserves credit for her appointment of John Farmer to replace him as attorney general.

Farmer, a class act by everybody's standards, was easily confirmed by the Legislature.

He even got more support than Bush, but not by much. Fifty-two of New Jersey's 72 Republican lawmakers jointly endorsed the Texas governor last week.

Whitman's up arrow could have been gold-plated if she had immediately backed the terrific idea of getting rid of the tolls on New Jersey toll roads, at least on holidays.

Assemblyman John Rooney, R-Northvale, is the guy who most recently put this notion on the table, but he's certainly not the first person to think of it. Every Jersey driver who has been backed up at a toll booth on a holiday weekend has thought about it at least once.

Sen. Bob Torricelli insists he doesn't deserve any blame for an $11,000 campaign contribution that was illegally funneled to his campaign in 1996. But we decided to give him a down arrow for it on principle.

During the Senate Campaign Finance hearings in 1996, Torricelli belittled illegal campaign finance charges against the Democrats, including the links between campaign donations and Chinese technology, as some kind of Asian-baiting. His response to campaign finance corruption is always to muddy the waters by insisting Republicans are guilty of similar deeds. Granted, but Torricelli has bragged on the record that he is better than anyone at raising money in ethnic communities.

He is also head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The arrow-pointers believe that no one is better suited than Torricelli to come up with a fool-proof way to protect against illegal campaign donations. We'd like to hear more solutions and less excuses.

Ewing Mayor Al Bridges was part of a truckload of mayors who went to Washington last week at the invitation of Rep. Rush Holt, D-Pennington, to make the right connections.

Bridges made a beeline to FEMA (the emergency management people) to see if he can find matching funds for the state money he's already received to clean up the local streams in the township. Good move. Up arrow.

Representative Christopher Smith, R-Hamilton, endorsed Texas Gov. Bush last week, too, which was a notable move for a conservative Mercer County congressman. However, Smith earned an up arrow when he called for Milosevic to be indicted on war crimes. The Clinton administration didn't agree, but the United Nations obviously did. They moved forward with a long list of atrocities. Smith continues to point out what Clinton's ineptitude is costing in terms of lives and damage in Kosovo. We hope somebody is listening.

State Sen. Joe Vitale, D-Woodbridge, gets an up arrow for pushing the KidsCare health insurance plan through the state Senate even though the GOP fumbled the ball before they got it over the end zone. Vitale's bill, co-sponsored by Minority Leader Richard Codey, D-West Orange, should have provided help for parents who can't pay the cost of adding their children to their employer-paid policies. But somehow the Republicans got confused and thought employers would be forced to provide health insurance for kids.

We're confident they'll finally get it right. Vitale won't give up.

Vitale also made points this week by supporting Rep. Frank Pallone, D-Monmouth, in his run for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate. Vitale says he's behind the congressman because he has a proven record of accomplishments and clear Democratic positions on all the priority issues.

Vitale's evaluation seems so simple. Makes you wonder why the party bosses persist in backing former Gov. Jim Florio and Goldman-Sachs mogul Jon Corzine instead of Pallone.

Sun., May 23, 1999

Christie Whitman -
Yoda -
State Sen. Jack Sinagra -
Assemblyman Rudy Garcia -
Speaker Jack Collins -

Gov. Christie Whitman had two big scores to help earn her an up arrow this week. First, she agreed to support the Parental Notification Bill that was voted out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee last week which will require girls under 17 to consult their parents before getting an abortion. Whitman, like many abortion rights activists, has refused to support even this most reasonable restriction in the past on the principal that a threat to any abortion is a threat to all abortions. But that view is now seen as extremist and Whitman, like many feminists, has chosen more moderate ground.

In a completely different venue, Whitman made prime time television last week -- or at least her name did. During the Friday night episode of "Homicide: Life on the Streets" the cops were debating the limitations of women in professional life.

One officer insists there are no limits to what a woman can do. "Just look at Christie Todd Whitman, first woman governor of New Jersey, cut taxes, lowered the crime rate..."

We think that's what marketers call "product placement" and it can make a real difference in what people think. Reese's Pieces say that they never had a chance of beating M&M's until they showed up as the candy of choice in the movie E.T.. Of course, we also think it's terrific that our governor is a national role model.

The arrow-pointers usually don't do movie reviews but the new Star Wars movie, The Phantom Menace, has caused such a stir among New Jersey politicians that we have to take a stand. Rep. Rush Holt, D-Pennington, panned the film after being invited to review it for Science Magazine. Holt, a Princeton physicist whose constituents can be seen wearing buttons that proclaim "My congressman IS a rocket scientist," was pretty hard on the movie. He claimed it didn't have the strong characters of the earlier films. State Sen. Ray Lesniak, D-Elizabeth, who claims the Force is with him in his quest to turn Goldman-Sachs executive Jon Corzine into a U.S. Senate candidate, called Phantom Menace disappointing.

But the arrow-pointers loved it. We particularly noted that Yoda was not impressed by the politicians in the Galactic Senate or the sweet young Anakin Skywalker. Yoda accurately predicts that he will grow up to be Darth Vader. Think how great it would be to have Yoda screening candidates for county committees. Up Arrow for the Jedi knight.

But State Sen. Jack Sinagra, D-East Brunswick, only gets a sideways arrow for convening the first hearings to determine what really happened in the HMO merger that resulted in HIP-NJ going belly up. Sinagra opened his hearings by saying that he didn't want to assign blame, only to determine what happened so it could be prevented in the future.

Millions of dollars have disappeared. Thousands of people were left without health care.

Shouldn't somebody be held accountable? Sinagra says more hearings are to come. We're hoping he'll be tougher next time around.

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Rudy Garcia, D-Union City, gets an up arrow for advocating a boycott of New York City in response to the commuter tax. Gov. George Pataki decided to get rid of the tax that people pay to work in the Big Apple for folks who live somewhere else in New York State. But commuters in New Jersey and Connecticut will still get hit for the payroll deduction. Garcia correctly points out that commuters from Hoboken to Princeton Junction provide lots of revenues to New York City and advocates that we all support them by avoiding Broadway shows, boycotting the Yankees and the Mets and watching Jay Leno instead of David Letterman.

"New York is giving New Jersey residents every reason to in the world to sing "I Hate New York," said Garcia.

The arrow-pointers didn't need another reason. Up arrow for Garcia.

But Assembly Speaker Jack Collins gets a down arrow for dragging the national Republican political blind spot on gun control into New Jersey politics. Collins indicated last week that he will not support new legislation requiring trigger locks and "smart guns" because the technology isn't there yet. Republicans in Washington were similarly hesitant to tighten any gun restrictions. It's politically dumb. Polls show that since the Littleton, Colo. school shooting, 80 percent of the public wants more gun control, even if it doesn't make any difference. This is an issue where politicians can do something about violence.

Republicans need women voters badly. Has Collins forgotten he has Assembly elections this fall?

Gov. Christie Whitman -
Attorney General Peter Verniero -
Bob Prunetti -
Jim Florio -
Richard Zimmer -

Gov. Christie Whitman is a sore winner. By all accounts, she should be in the up arrow circle this week, basking in the fact that Attorney General Peter Verniero will soon become Supreme Court Justice Verniero.

Senate President Don DiFrancesco, R-Scotch Plains moved Verniero's confirmation through the State Senate with such grace and political skill that he marginalized the angry ranting of Sen. John Lynch D-New Brunswick against Verniero and severely undercut the Democrat's claim to the moral high ground. By the time DiFrancesco cleaned up Whitman's political train wreck it almost seemed as if a new day had dawned in the Senate after months of ugly banter. Senate Minority Leader Dick Codey, D-West Orange, finally pronounced it "time to move on."

But Whitman quickly cut the "era of good feeling" short. Signaling that she was in no mood to let bygones be bygones, the governor announced that she probably would not send future Supreme Court nominees to the State Bar Association for review, further angering every attorney in the state and building on her image as a bully.

Whitman must be aware that many in the State Bar Association are as appalled as she was by the obviously partisan stand the Judicial and Prosecutorial Appointments Committee took against Verniero. Members of that committee did a great job of hanging themselves. Whitman would have gotten a better result by simply giving them more rope. Like every other aspect of the Verniero debacle, Whitman played the last round ineptly. We're willing to bet she didn't even bother to thank DiFrancesco or Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Bill Gormley, R-Mays Landing for getting her guy across the finish line.

But Verniero gets an up arrow for ultimately making the cut and slogging through the barrage of insults to his professional skills and character from a couple of lawmakers who wouldn't know a scruple if they met it in the road. Verniero's ability to keep his head when those about him were losing theirs clearly bodes well for the challenges he will face on the high court.

With Verniero on the Supreme Court, the arrow pointers can return to some hot battles on the local front, including the struggle for a hotel in Trenton. Our capital city is the only one in the nation that does not have a hotel, but that shaming bit of trivia doesn't seem to bother Assemblyman Paul Kramer, R-Hamilton, who won't sponsor a bill in the Legislature for a little $5 million grant that the hotel folks need to get started. Kramer says he must focus on what's good for his district, and its hard to argue with that. But Mercer County Executive Bob Prunetti (who probably won't get many votes out of Trenton either) is taking a broader view in helping Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer persuade the top GOP guys in the Legislature to show him the money. We can't figure out why this is such a big deal. Five million is about a third of what the state is paying for the dog commercials reminding everybody to get their car inspected.

We can't believe we're giving former governor Jim Florio another up arrow, particularly after he annoyed table after table at the "Goodbye to Frank Lautenberg" breakfast in Atlantic City by noting that the eggs and bacon mean "instant death" by cholesterol. But the more the North Jersey party bosses push Goldman-Sachs mogul Jon Corzine to go on the Democratic primary ballot for U.S. Senate, the more it appears that Florio will win the nomination. Rank and file Democrats will surely vote for the devil they know over the billionaire from Summit. Corzine gets good reviews from the arrow pointers who like his easy going style. We also enjoy the story of his rise to richness from a lowly spot in the Goldman-Sachs mail room, although we don't believe it.

We also don't think a guy who made that much money did it without hurting working people and we don't believe Democratic voters will buy it either. Florio also earned points by being much funnier than Whitman at the New Jersey Press Association's Legislative Correspondents Club Dinner.

Finally, an up arrow for former congressman Richard Zimmer who grabbed the endorsement of State GOP Party Chairman Chuck Haytaian last week, thereby pushing Michael Pappas to the fringes. Pappas, the conservative Republican who lost the seat to Rep. Rush Holt, D-Pennington, last year, is clearly determined to stay in the race, but Zimmer's got almost all the party bosses now and with Haytaian on its side its hard to see how he can lose the right to wrestle Holt to get the seat back for the GOP.

Finally, official spokespersons aren't eligible for arrows, but Whitman's erudite spinmaster, Peter McDonough, made Time magazine last week for his comment, "I don't know how stupid they think we are..." in response to Hillary Rodham Clinton's attempt to keep the governor away from the photo ops of arriving Kosovar refugees at Ft. Dix. McDonough's complete comment included the phrase, "Do they think we're from Arkansas or something?"

Sun., May 9, 1999

Bill Bradley -
Gov. Christie Whitman -
Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer -
Sen. Dick Codey -
Sen. John Lynch -

When Dollar Bill Bradley returned to New Jersey on Friday he sounded much more like a winning presidential candidate than on his last official visit a couple of months ago. The big guy says he wants to talk about "big ideas" and while he didn't come up with any new ones, you get the feeling that Bradley might be able to make people, particularly Democrats, feel really good about themselves again. The lack of health insurance and child poverty are just two of the big things he wants to discuss. He also included "racial unity," but then he damaged his arrow. Bradley departed from his presidential agenda to take an obvious shot at Gov. Christie Whitman and Attorney General Peter Verniero for racial profiling.

"We can't have state police profiling people on the basis of race," Bradley said, "and we can't have politicians rewarded for ignoring that fact."

We couldn't agree more. Zero tolerance for racial profiling is the only appropriate response. But the arrow-pointers want to know why, in 1988, when Turnpike Authority Chairman Joseph Sullivan publicly confirmed that "profile arrests" occur on the New Jersey Turnpike, Bradley didn't do anything to stop them. He could have had Senate-convened hearings. There was a Democrat in the State House back then who he could have pressured.

Should Verniero have moved faster. Absolutely, but Bradley, who has always made fighting racism a priority, should fight the urge to just blame a couple of Republicans. It won't help solve the problem in the long run and it weakens his credibility in the short run. That's a step forward, two steps back and a sideways arrow for Bradley.

Gov. Christie Whitman certainly didn't have a great week as the fallout from her faulty decision to push Verniero's nomination through continues to cloud her office in the State House.

However, the governor narrowly earns an up arrow on points for her stunning performance in outmaneuvering First Lady Hillary Clinton at Fort Dix when the Kosovar refugees arrived. Initially, the First Lady's advance team wanted to hog most of the limelight in greeting the new arrivals, but Whitman headed them off at the pass and managed to meet the buses when they drove in from McGuire Air Force Base. The governor didn't seem to care much about the photo-ops, but she wanted to make sure the newcomers got a New Jersey welcome.

And, the Sea-land Maersk deal got signed which saves the Port at Newark-Elizabeth which allows every New Jerseyan to be proud that our governor is not a short-sighted bully like New York's George Pataki.

Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer gets an up arrow too for getting out front to make sure Trenton gets fully counted in next year's census. Much of New Jersey is dragging its feet in laying the groundwork for the big headcount. But Palmer opened his Complete Count office last week and is ahead of the game. Palmer says Trenton was grossly undercounted last time and he doesn't want it to happen again.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Bill Gormley, R-Mays Landing, did an exceptionally good job running the Verniero confirmation hearings last week, but Minority Leader Dick Codey, D-West Orange, gets the up arrow for being the best political player. Codey has his team united in opposition of Verniero and he's been able to sell the spin that the Democrats have the moral high ground.

Not that anyone believes State Sen. John Lynch, D-New Brunswick, is on the side of the better angels in this battle. During the Judiciary Committee hearings, Lynch's attack on Verniero were partisan and patronizing. It's hard to pick Lynch's worst moment, but many people were sickened when the senator tried to imply that Verniero's father, a retired electrician, was somehow connected to organized crime. Former AFL-CIO leader, Charlie Marciante called it "a particularly outrageous attack on Italians." The arrow-pointers respect hardball politics, but not a whole game of cheap shots. Down arrow for Lynch.

Finally, it happened too late for arrows, but we want to give a political Grammy to Rep. Bob Menendez, D-Hudson and Sen. Frank Lautenberg for their rousing rendition of "I Won't Run, Don't Ask Me," at the New Jersey Democratic Conference in Atlantic City yesterday.

Lautenberg had the best line: "I won't run for one more term, although for one last time I'd really love to make ‘em squirm."

Around the State House, Gov. Whitman clearly didn't have a great week. The feds plopped down their own findings on racial profiling by the State Police, and her nominee to the Supreme Court, Attorney General Peter Verniero, continues to be fired upon from all sides. Whitman's attempts to lobby legislators to support him are getting tepid reviews.

But the big picture (on the small television screen) shows Whitman once again in the right place at the right time. MSNBC shot a town meeting on school violence in Westfield, putting the governor right in the middle of a national news show on the most compelling issue currently facing the nation. As usual, she did well.

On Friday, she headed up another highly televised event at the New Jersey Violence Institute, which featured conversations with high-schoolers about school violence. Both high-profile shows helped her balance out the rain of bad press she's getting on other stuff. She made no great gains last week, but took no big losses, either. That's why her arrow is sideways.

Attorney General Peter Verniero gets the same arrow. The racial-profiling hearings held on Monday were a lot like the Holyfield-Lewis fight. The Judiciary Committee was Lewis and Verniero was Holyfield. State Sen. Robert Martin, R-Morristown, fired from one side while state Sen. John Lynch, D-New Brunswick, fired from the other. They landed hundreds of punches, but they never got him down.

Former Gov. Jim Florio isn't down, either, despite the fact that some of the Democratic Party's biggest stars gathered together last week to try to come up with somebody (anybody) who can beat him next year in the race for the U.S. Senate nomination. They didn't. Meanwhile, Florio released a list of more than 100 of his party's richest and brightest who have already pledged to endorse him. Florio was also undoubtedly giggling yesterday when the big city papers reported that Goldman Sachs is being investigated for what might be price-fixing and securities fraud. That's the same Goldman Sachs where Jon Corzine, one of the alternative-to-Florio candidates, is co-chairman. Up arrow for Florio.

State Sen. William Gormley, R-Mays Landing, gets an up arrow for his masterful handling of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on racial profiling last week. First, Gormley gets points for calling the hearings. No Judiciary Committee chairman before him has looked at the issue. Second, he gets points for making sure that everybody behaved appropriately, despite the intensity of feeling on the issue by the Attorney General's Office and many lawmakers. Finally, Gormley gets credit for attempting (mostly unsuccessfully) to place the issue of racial profiling in context by pointing out that lots of people in several administrations and several Legislatures are also guilty of not looking more closely at State Police practices.

Finally, there's an up arrow for state Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Lawrenceville, for demonstrating stateswomanship on two fronts. Among county party leaders, Turner has been a voice of reason in the mad Democratic scramble for a U.S. Senate candidate. Turner has remained focused on her party's priorities here without allowing herself to be tempted by the "masters of the Democratic universe" in northern New Jersey who tell tales of thousands of dollars flowing into county committees if their guy gets the U.S. Senate nod. She's also not been drawn over to the Florio forces in the south who offer free helicopter rides to Camden County for leaders who come on board.

Meanwhile, Turner played a key role in the Black and Latino Caucus investigation into racial profiling and, unlike too many of her colleagues, she most often chose substance over political rhetoric. The real statesmanship test for senators is coming up in the Verniero nomination process starting next week, but Turner seems prepared.