Reporters Roundtable; #2223

From your sponsorship for reporters' roundtable with Michael Aaron, make possible by PSE&J. Serving customers strengthening the business community and investing in New Jersey's future. With major funding provided by the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust, turning brown fields into green fields, enhancing water quality and protecting New Jersey's water resources. And by the port authority of New York and New Jersey, operating some of the busiest and most important transportation links in the New York New Jersey region, including airports, seaports, bridges, tunnels, and the path system. That's how we opened reporters' roundtable 20 years ago in its first season. Welcome to a special 20th anniversary program. Our first guests back then were Jim Goodman of the

Trenton Times, Sal Palantoneo of the Philadelphia Inquirer, David Wall, of the Newark Star Ledger, and David Blumquist of the Bergen Record. And here's how I looked back then. Flash forward 20 years and we're all here. Jim Goodman, now retired. Sal Palantoneo, now of ESPN. David Wall, now chief spokesman for the state attorney general. And David Blumquist, now the online editorial director of Penn Jersey Advance, a new house enterprise. Great to see you all. Let me just ask you briefly what you've been doing for the last 20 years Jim Goodman. Well, that's 20 years? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Twenty-two, whatever you want to tell me. Most of the 20 years I worked until two years ago when I got involuntarily retired and now I'm just having a reasonable time going to Triassas at Princeton, concerts, opera, ballet, whatever. Sounds good. Even some football games. I told you all those years ago that Jim Goodman was a closet intellectual and

finally it's coming out. You're wrong. You're wrong again. It's a pseudo intellectual. David, last 20 years in a nutshell. I left the starlager in 2000. I worked for John Corzont for five years and now the director of communications for the attorney general. David, last 20 years in a nutshell. Shortly after my last appearance on reporters roundtable in 1994, I made the change to internet media. And I've been in internet media ever since. Listed the Bergen record. Then at the Detroit Free Press. And most recently with the new house in New Jersey, first at nj.com and now at some of our newspapers around the state. So you went to sports. Let's hear what- Well, when people say how did you get on TV? I say blame Michael Aaron. Well, I've been on- I went to the sports department. I went to the toy department. You know, and it's been great. I'm an ESPN. I cover the national football league and I get paid to talk about sports. What's the difference between the NFL and New Jersey politics? Very little. It's both

our blood sports. I found out very quickly. I got the train to cover sports, getting that locker room because, you know, I could get in front of a gym choreo, gym floreo, gym quarter. And they're the same thing. We're going to hear you guys talking about gym floreo and gym quarter in a few minutes when we play a clip from our first season, 1989. But let's pretend that we're all still doing what we used to do. And let me ask you, what you think of Chris Christie? Jim Goodman, starting with you. Well, it's the interesting thing about him is not so much about what he's been, but what he becomes is does he become a real moderate Republican who runs a government that is clearly not overtly partisan trying to destroy the other political party. And how well he's runs it. He can't destroy the other political party as a Democratic legislature. I think Chris Christie

does have a chance of adopting Tom Kane's politics. The Governor Kane had a Democratic legislature. And there's also a good chance that he'll adopt Tom Kane's economics with a Democratic legislature and raise the income tax and raise the sales tax in order to balance the budget. You think Chris Christie's going to raise the income tax and the sales tax? He's going to save Steve Sweeney made him do it. And Tom Kane is someone very dear to Chris Christie because he volunteered for his campaign when he was 14 years old. Your take on Chris Christie. I think he's got a mandate. There's no question about it when you win by 100,000 votes and you're outspent by three to one. You have got a mandate to basically do what you want. And I don't think he really has to worry about the Democratic legislature being in line with him. I think he can go directly and sell his program and his policies to the New Jersey electorate. People are leaving the state of New Jersey Michael at the rate of 70,000 a year. And I think people are fed up with high taxes. And this guy, I'm used to living in Camden County. I now live in Bergen County.

And a bell weather town in Camden County is Belmar. It's in Rob Andrew's first congressional district. It's one of the first things I ever covered back in the 1980s. And Belmar goes overwhelmingly Democrat all the time. Old FDR Democrats working class blue collar. They went for a core sign by two votes in Belmar. And it was a sea change, a complete shift, I think, electorally, among working class and blue collar people who really are worried about their future in the state. You're still talking about working classes and blue collar people. We're going to hear you talking about them in this clip. But David, you're taking on Chris Christie. You know, governors are like red wine. They have to kind of sit down for a couple of years before you really know what their makeup is. Christie comes in wanting to do something about taxes and the budget. And that's great. But taxes in the budget are a pool of quicksand, which gobbles up every politician who tries to use up political capital. If they try to raise taxes, they'll

be gobbled up. If they try to lower them, they won't be. Well, but with a Democratic legislature and with really the only places you can go to get significant amounts of money, being things like the A to Abbott school districts, Medicaid, state employee pensions, the number of state employees in the end, in the end. What will determine whether Christie is a great governor is where he goes other than money. What other things other than taxes and budget are where he chooses to spend political capital. Is it the first thing he has to do is cut government programs and government employment to be able to do any of the things we're all talking about? Well, I'm sure that's what he would like to do. But the challenge is, how is he going to get a Democratic legislature to go along with the kind of cuts of the magnitude that really are necessary to move anything along? How is he going to try? How would he get the courts to go along with the magnitude of change that would be necessary in school aid? How do you get municipalities

to deal with shared services? Companies have been talking about that. He would say you do it by being a leader and using the bully pulpit. I totally agree, and that's why I think he can go directly to the people. Not only that though, he's got two people behind the scenes, George North Cross in the South, who picked Steve Sweeney to be the state senate president, and Steve out about a senior in East Orange who picked the new assembly speaker, correct? And you basically have three people, really, who can, as you say, use the bully pulpit to get what they need to get done. And they really, the legislature, I think, in this particular situation, and I know it's different obviously from Whitman had pretty much an all-republic control, right? Yeah, right. So it's a completely solid, but I think the tenor of it, I mean, we have Sarah Palin out there, you know, selling this book at the rate of 100,000 copies a week. Why? What does that say about New Jersey

politics? I think it says people are fed up. I mean, Sarah Palin has really very little to offer on the national political stage. Most people, solid majority people, don't think she's qualified to be president. And yet she's selling this book, Going Rogue, because it's tapped into, I think, the essential element of any change involved. She's not big enough for Chris Christie to have brought her in to New Jersey during his campaign. She was considered toxic, too toxic for that. But she's, I think she's emblematic, Michael, I would say, of the feeling that people have about politics. The feeling they have in places like Indianapolis and Grand Rapids, which is where her book tour is going. Her book tour is not going to New Brunswick. And that's because she's here as a lot of copies in New Jersey. I'm not saying that she's a viable political entity at all. I'm saying what she's selling is change on a massive scale and people are buying into that.

Jim, and then we're going to go to an old piece of tape. It sort of reminds me of 101.5 on the larger scale, where you're against anything the government tries to do. That's still the case. Yeah, but it more, but what you might get instead of doing something is just create paralysis and do nothing about anything. Well, that that's a possible outcome for Chris Christie, too. Yes, that's what I'm saying. I talk about Chris Christie. This program began in 1989 in order to provide commentary about a gubernatorial election. That time it was Jim Floreo and Jim Quarter. It was born in my living room when my then wife heard me sitting around with some reporters one night gabbling and said that would be, that would make a good television show. And Bill Job's my predecessor here as news director quickly bought into the concept. We used to do it monthly in 1989. We did it monthly. We did it in the evening. We now do it weekly. We started

doing it weekly very quickly because it was so popular among the political cognizant to use a word one of you used earlier before we started. We're going to play you three minutes of our conversation from 20 years ago. Let's hear it. There are certain issues that have helped Republicans traditionally for the last, maybe close to 20 years now, that you could say that the Democrats are more inclined to raise your taxes, more inclined to want bigger budgets. You could say that they're more inclined to be concerned about the Constitution, which is nice from the opinion of some people, then they are the drag everybody in the jail and keep them in jail forever. And there's a general identity of what a party stands for. The Democrats are liberal and Republicans are going to hardworking conservatives. And that I think is what quarter is trying to do. He has to have that Republican base. He's trying to replay those independence. He's trying to replay the Bush-Ducakis race. Well, the first thing he's able to do that, but he has to at least

make sure he has his Republicans, make sure he has his independence who have voted Republican pretty consistently, even though they won't say their Republicans. And that's what he's attempting to do when he's putting all this in the next election. The way Republicans and the people have been saying, what's with this guy? Is this another Republican? Republicans don't make elections in New Jersey without independent voters. Yeah, but if you're losing from your base to begin with, which is what his problem is, the summer has been losing to griping party activists who are very nervous about losing the governor's office and thousands of jobs. Oh, you don't worry about the county chairman saying that you know that. The way the Republicans showed Republicans moving away from where the Republicans have been able to win. No, but also because of issue differences. That they saw that the Florida Democrats were more capable on the environment, were more capable on auto insurance, were more capable on education. Those Republicans are saying that the Republicans are saying that now can that continue to spin out over the course of a media campaign?

Probably not, but it's these are all credibility things the quarter has to try to apply. Let's talk about Florida. We're concentrating so much on quarter. Let's talk about Florida. Well, what Floreo has to do is he's got to get back the Reagan Democrats that voted for Kane, Bush and Reagan twice. And they live in towns like Nuttley and Bellville, Southern Bergen County, Northern. What did they vote for in the US Senate race last year? They voted for Loutenburg. So they they'll vote Democrat? They will vote Democrat. They are a swing electorate, but they vote Republican in executive elections primarily because they're turned off by the L word. They're turned off by the liberal democratic image that Dukakis, Mondale and Carter brought to New Jersey. And does Floreo fit into that image? I don't think Floreo fits into that image for two reasons. He is really one of them. He's really part of the the immigrant crowd that came out of New York, worked hard in New Jersey, and made his way to the top. And that's the kind of people that they identify with. I heard him, I heard eight years ago. Well, I heard him and his wife

lufts into telling a high school audience yesterday that they're both high school dropouts, and they got serious later in life. It was very interesting. That's the first couple of the state of New Jersey could be a couple of high school dropouts. That's the segment of the electorate that they're trying to appeal to. Northern Essex County, Southern Bergen, Middle-sex suburbs, Southern Camden County, all those areas where you have a large number of immigrant blue collar, middle-class workers. Reporters roundtable from 20 years ago, we're, we're, we're, go ahead. 20 years ago, Goobin looked like it was 102 years old, it still looks like it was 102 years old. So he has an age. He has an age. I think I look longer than you right now, buddy. And you let them talk, you let them talk over you enough. Yeah, well that was our first one and I got, I got nervous. I was kind of interesting that when South said that what somebody has to do. I think that's something we used to always do in those days. And I think what we found out was that we couldn't tell people what they have to do

or have to get elected. They had to do it on their own and they were probably better off not listening to us. What's changed since then in this world? Well, I can tell you from having been away and having moved back, the state itself is a different place. The ethnic diversity is greater than it was 20 years ago. The distribution of people around the state, where people live is different than what it was 20 years ago. What people do for a living, you know, there has been this gradual decline of the finance and pharmaceutical industries in the state. And that's different than what it was 20 years ago. And it was astonishing in that sense, you know, having been away in Michigan. And you think the economy is bad, you haven't been in Michigan. Of coming. That was a great line, you had about Michigan. What was it at the end of the world? The end of the world is Michigan is all is going to get there first. And Miss Jersey could be second in terms of the number of people that are leaving the state is almost as much of this Michigan. And he, but you know, it's interesting,

you go away for a bunch of time and you come back and we are still arguing the same issues in the same way. You could pick up the commercials from this campaign. You could have run them in 1993. There's some things that haven't changed, but the media has changed so much. Oh, sure, yeah. I mean, the delivery of information has changed so vastly. I mean, we were talking before, you know, I didn't have a cell phone in 1989. I certainly didn't have a laptop. And you didn't get, you didn't get emails and you didn't need to check websites. Right. And now everything is instantaneous. And what I have you, I still am in, you know, at the end of the newspapers then. I don't read them now. That's so much control of what the information flow now. We have no control. And what I mean, newspapers had control of the flow of information and such a vast level of newspaper state in 1989. Is it not an issue? Is it no war? It's not. This is what's happened. I mean, David and I used to compete against each

other. Now, the, the Bergen record and the star ledger, they pulled coverage on a governor's race. The papers that were are now owned by Gnett, they all used to have their own political reporters. There was more competition. I think there was more, there was more intense coverage of the candidates. I think it was more undoubted. Right. There's much less watch though. And it was more undoubted. And just as important, David, that's talking about the supply side. There's less support from the supply side, solid information about state affairs. But there's also less demand. There are fewer people who are reading news on a daily basis. Why? Because the public's attention has moved on to other things. If you look at, for instance, at, at our, we'll go on to what? Well, if you look at our online records, the biggest news story on, on our website, this year about New Jersey will not be in the end, the governor's race. It won't be the corruption arrests in July. No, it will be bravo's real housewives of New Jersey. That's the big New Jersey story in here. What I like to say, David, is it's easier to reach people now,

but it's harder to reach people now at the same time. You have so many opportunities to get information to people, whether it's online texting or tweeting. But because people's attention span is being dragged that from so many different angles, from different cable news outlets, and the hundreds, from hundreds of thousands of websites, from different tweets, from different from just communication that they tweet. I do not. I do not. Because I view, I think that if I'm on all the time, I'm never on. That's the way I view it. And I think it's when I give people information on ESPN, I want it to be something that they pay attention to. So I don't try to overload them with stuff. There's other people have different philosophies about it, but that's the way I feel. But my point is, it's easier to reach people in the state of New Jersey, but as David said, it's much, much harder because now they go on a website, and they're concerned about what's happening with Michael Jackson, the Los Angeles, as much as people in LAR. Back when Floreo was maybe not going to run for a second term, and maybe run or not run,

and Bob Torres-Sally went around, and it was sort of hinting that maybe it would be best if the Democratic Party would replace him as a nominee. There was a story of something like that in the Bergen record, and I wrote something similar based on the Bergen record story, and Torres-Sally called me and was furious and said, well, I don't want any retraction. He said, but just don't say the same thing on a reporter's roundtable. I don't... What does that say to you? It meant that the news print didn't mean that much, what you said to a statewide television audience did, and at that time we had a New Jersey network, I think, had the reports roundtable, something that had a very large statewide response. We hope it still does. I don't know. I don't think what said on the roundtable carries the weight it did 20 years ago. That might be because you're not on it anymore. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not individual, it's what can be... Don't take it personally.

No, don't take it personally. It's the audience has moved on now. The people have more opportunities. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. There are still 100,000 people in New Jersey dependent upon the actions of state government. I'm pulling a number out of the sky. Those people still need to know and want to know what's going on in state government. You say the audience has moved on. They still need to know what's going on in front. Yes, but what's changed? It's changed is the feeling that they need to touch in on it every week. Or now. I don't even know. There's the quote that we all bandy about that David Carr the New York Times got several months ago from a 24-year-old woman who said, Well, if there's a story that's really important, I'll hear about it. The people don't feel any more that they necessarily need to sit down Friday nights at seven o'clock once. Different people. It's the other people who are not reading newspapers. I spoke to a class at Rutgers several years ago. And there were journalism students.

And three or four hundred kids and students in the audience. And somewhere during the back and forth, I said, well, how many of you read the newspaper? Very hardly anybody put their hands up. People have a need for, as you said. News and information about government and politics. And they definitely wanted. The Obama campaign was a result of Obama reaching directly to voters. And bypassing normal mainstream delivery systems. And a lot of the revolts against them. There were people in the same way. And when it was YouTube or the internet, people do want political. And that's the, I made the point about Sarah Palin before. Because people are going to her and going to the, and if she had one in New Jersey, it'd be mobbed. I'm telling you right now. I'm sure people. If she had a book sign. Absolutely. I haven't heard from David in a while. Let me ask you. Wasn't this gubernatorial election compelling and didn't a lot of New Jerseyans follow it? I would imagine they did.

But I think that it was, it sort of quickly became one note. And we didn't find out. Christie just stuck to his, I'm going to return your property tax rebates and lower your income taxes. And he was pushed. And I'm not going to tell you. And he was pushed again. I'm not going to tell you. I don't think the dynamic ever really changed. And I think that from, of course. I think that dynamic changed when Christie had a bad month of August with some personal, some stories, raising questions about his ethics. I think it was, it was always a matter of, was discussed earlier about the state's economy. And John, one of the, what, what? I agree with that. Governor Corzine had, it was never had a strong enough conversation with the people in New Jersey who pay the bills. He couldn't get that conversation. Why, why, why, why? Let David finish. Let David finish. And, and five days before the election. He happened to mention his wonderful asset monetization plan. Which is why I think he, he, you know, he went up to the plate. He put down, he put on the table something that would, he fell,

get New Jersey on a better track financially. And people said, absolutely not. And he lost his job. And when he referenced it. Five days before the election, I think the easy pass vote said, what? And they'll look at the returns in Mama's and Ocean County. But in terms of the kind of in-depth coverage. I just didn't see it, I didn't see it in the media. Jim, you said he couldn't get his message out. Because of him or because of the way the media has changed. Well, I think some would have to be his inability, his personal inability to communicate to people, which apparently he, he runs. I mean, he spent the last and awful lot of time. I live in Pennsylvania, but I watch New Jersey news regularly. And it seemed like every time you saw Corzine, he was in an urban situation, assuring black people he was for their programs. And when Jim Floreo ran for reelection, he avoided those same black neighborhoods

because people, he was advised that he was considered to pro-black voters. To, to, to concern about the cities. And the end, Michael, the blame has to go on the governor and not on the media. Because if you buy as many gross rating points as John Corzine purchased, it's a port of his campaign. And people do reject your message. Yeah, but he had every chance. The media does not reject the message. The media does not reject the message out of the people rejected. The media does not reject the message. The people. And the media reflects that. In certain respects, that's true, Jim. But I think the people rejected him and his message. I think he was the victim of absolutely bad timing. There's no question about that. But many politicians have had the ability to get over the bad timing if they have the personal charisma to deliver on it.

This history is replete with those kinds of cases. Certainly Tom Kane is a very good case. Makes a very good case for that. Would you not agree? Absolutely. He had a great timing. He had a great economy. The economy did turn. But in 80, when he first got elected, it was not great shakes. It was a bad economy when he first got elected. And he had great charisma. And the thing is, Corzine didn't have enough of that. Like I said before, it's difficult to... It's easy to reach people, but it's harder to reach them. Yes. You have to be able to cut through. Guess what? We're out of time. It shows out of time. It shows out of time. That's it. Would you all come back in 20 more years? Me. We will be back with a regular edition of reporters roundtable next Friday, 97 and Sunday morning at 10. On this week's On the Record Essex County Executive Jovian Devin Senzo talks about the legislative leadership changes and two budget experts talk about the fiscal crisis.

From your sponsorship for reporters roundtable with Michael Aaron, make possible by... P-S-E-N-G. Serving customers strengthening the business community and investing in New Jersey's future. With major funding provided by... The New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust. Turning brown fields into green fields, enhancing water quality and protecting New Jersey's water resources. And by the port authority of New York and New Jersey, operating some of the busiest and most important transportation links in the New York New Jersey region, including airports, seaports, bridges, tunnels, and the path system. Thank you. You

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