New Jersey loves to flirt with Republicans only to break their
hearts on Election Day. After the 1993 elections, the GOP held the
governorship and two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state
legislature. Within a decade, they couldn’t win statewide no matter
what the Democrats did.
Worse, the GOP has seemed to be on the brink of a comeback
several times to no avail. In 2006, early
polls showed Republican Tom Keane Jr. leading Democrat Bob Menendez in the race for U.S.
Senate. Menendez ended up winning 53 percent to 45 percent. Two
years earlier, George W. Bush was surprisingly
competitive with John Kerry in several polls. New Jersey turned
out to be President Bush’s best-improved state from 2000, but he
still lost by seven points.
In 1996, Republican Congressman Dick Zimmer was neck-and-neck
with Democrat Robert Torricelli for most of the year in his race to
succeed Bill Bradley as U.S senator. When the votes were counted,
Zimmer was defeated by ten points. He went on to lose a painfully
close race for his old House seat in 2000. Zimmer is at it again
this year, running against incumbent Democratic Sen. Frank
Lautenberg. Should Republicans allow themselves to believe that
this is a real pickup opportunity — maybe even better than their chances in Louisiana? Or
should they just get ready for their hearts to be broken again?
An August Club for Growth poll found Zimmer leading Lautenberg within the
margin of error, 36 percent to 35 percent. A Quinnipiac survey around the same time showed Lautenberg up
48 percent to 41 percent, with the incumbent below the crucial 50
percent threshold and Zimmer within striking distance. Republicans
were also showing strength in next year’s gubernatorial
race.
Some more recent polling has been less encouraging for the
Zimmer campaign. Earlier this month, Farleigh Dickinson had
Lautenberg up 46 percent to 35 percent. That still puts the
Democrat below 50 percent but shows Zimmer lagging 11 points
behind. A Marist poll (pdf) released Friday shows the same
margin, but has Lautenberg at exactly 50 percent.
Dick Zimmer isn’t discouraged, pointing to his opponent’s poor
re-elect numbers and his own strong showing among independents in
some polls. “John Ensign will tell you,” he says of the Republican
Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman, “Lautenberg is the senator
with the worst re-elect number of any incumbent senator. This is
without my having spent a dollar on TV yet.”
Zimmer doesn’t expect Lautenberg to pull away in November like
the stronger Torricelli did twelve years ago. “What happened in
1996 was that the top of the ticket collapsed,” he explains. “I ran
eight points ahead of Bob Dole in the polls. I finished eight
points ahead of Dole. Unfortunately, Dole lost by 18 points.” But
Zimmer believes that John McCain and Sarah Palin will have a very
different impact on Republicans running in down-ballot races.
“I’m very comfortable being associated with McCain-Palin,” he
says. “They doubled down on the reformist, anti-pork message. Sarah
Palin killed the Bridge to Nowhere, Frank Lautenberg voted for it.”
Even though Garden State taxpayers get back just 55 cents for every
dollar they give Uncle Sam, Lautenberg is “as enthusiastic a
proponent of pork as Ted Stevens and Bob Byrd,” according to
Zimmer. “I don’t want to play the pork-barrel game better,” Zimmer
says. “I want to shut it down.”
Zimmer is a fiscal conservative — “I was ranked one of the most
fiscally conservative members of Congress,” he says, citing his
Taxpayer Hero status from Citizens Against Government Waste — and
social moderate, who is pro-choice but supports some abortion
restrictions. He is also unashamed of his hawkishness in the war on
terror. “We are a state that takes national security very
seriously,” he says. “That’s why we leaned Republican throughout
the Cold War.”
After the New Jersey GOP completed a long search for a
candidate, Zimmer beat socially conservative Joe Pennacchio and Ron
Paul Republican Murray Sabrin in the primary. Lautenberg prevailed
over Democratic Congressman Rob Andrews in his primary. John
Weingart of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics told me this
spring that Zimmer is the kind of Republican who can win in the
Garden State, but the octogenarian Lautenberg will be difficult to
beat unless his age and health become an issue.
“Frank Lautenberg and I agree on this,” says Zimmer. “The issue
isn’t age, it’s effectiveness.” While he doesn’t mind pointing out
that some polls do show concern about Lautenberg’s age — he’ll be
90 in six years — Zimmer argues, “There are members of the Senate
who are advanced in age who are quite effective. Unfortunately,
Frank Lautenberg isn’t one of them.” He says he doesn’t plan to
raise the age issue, though he will press his opponent to
debate.
The key will be to ensure high turnout in the GOP strongholds in
the northwestern part of the state and to carry the battleground
suburbs that “generally vote Democrat but will vote Republican if
provoked.” Zimmer rattles off a few “bread and butter issues” where
he thinks Lautenberg has provoked them: “He’s voted against
drilling, for the $300 billion farm bill, and for the relaxed
standards for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac I was one of 37 members of
Congress to vote against.”
A tough indictment of the incumbent Democrat on the most
pressing issues of the day. But New Jersey elected Lautenberg even
though state Democrats plucked him from retirement after the legal
deadline had passed to rescue the seat from Torricelli’s troubles.
This race will be a battle between two numbers: New Jersey has slid
to 50th place in what its taxpayers get back from the federal
government since Lautenberg first went to Washington in 1982; the
Garden State hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate since 1972.
