Reporters Roundtable; #2127; Arocolla, Heininger, Freidman, Stile

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with Michael Aaron made possible by PSENG, 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 ground fields into green fields, enhancing water quality, and protecting New Jersey's water resources. It was the year America elected a black president. It was the year Frank Lautenberg suspended off a surprise challenge. It was the year John Corzine tried to save New Jersey's economy, and it was the year Rutgers fired its successful athletic director. Welcome to a special year-in-review reporters round table. I'm Michael Aaron with us to look back on 2008.

Four people in the thick of the New Jersey political world, Charles style of the Bergen record, Nick Akicella of Politifax, the weekly political newsletter, Claire Heininger of the Newark Star Ledger, and Matt Friedman of PolitikerNJ.com. Let's start with John Corzine. The year began with his rollout of his famous asset monetization plan, renamed his debt reduction and fiscal restructuring plan. It way overreached. The fact the governor seemed to acknowledge at his own year-in-review news conference this week at Drum Thwacket. Well, I probably wouldn't have had so many town hall meetings. No, actually, they were good, and I think they actually, as I said, well, we didn't get to the restructuring. They certainly got to fiscal reforms that I think are long lasting, and we'll serve the public really well. Well, that's putting a good face on things.

Claire, you cover the governor. What led him to propose such an ambitious plan? I think in part, he took a look at the debt problem in New Jersey and found it staggering and thought that it needed a solution to match. And he also believed that, in part, that was what he was elected to do, and people put him there for a reason because he had unique financial perspective. And so he thought he'd take a shot. Charlie, what went wrong? It was just too complicated. It was something that I think, Robert Oppenheimer, would have had a tough time trying to figure out. It required flow charts to follow it. And that's really the problem. And I think also, it was too much of an echo of former lack of better term gimmicks, or budget balancing strategies, or debt reduction strategies of the past,

that had gone down as infamous flops and New Jersey law. I pension bond, for example. It really had a similar kind of overarching structure as the 1997, I think, pension bond, where you basically were borrowing money in a kind of a long, convoluted end game to balance the budget. And I think it really, even though that, I think his plan was on face, there was some very admirable aspects of that plan. But it was too much for people to understand, digest, and it had elements of programs that have gone down and infamy. Nick, too complicated and too familiar is what Charlie saying. It was like the blind man with the elephant. Everything you touched, if you just touch one part of it,

you didn't like, then you could say you didn't like the whole thing. It was so enormous. You know what it reminded me of more than anything else? Hillary Clinton's health care plan back in 1992, 1993. And when you propose something that big, all people have to find is one thing they don't like about it, and they can dam it. And it was debt on arrival. It was debt before any of the town hall meetings. You agree with that, debt on arrival? Yeah, because I thought the rollout of the program was done in a politically tone-deaf way, at least early on. I mean, the thing was the governor floated the idea months and months before he proposed the specifics. So you had people speculating what kind of total race is we were going to see in the campaign issue of the 2007 election cycle. Everyone was talking about it. He gave Democrats who maybe would have had warmer reception in an election year. They had to oppose it, see in our Jeff Van Drew. It was just by putting it out there,

I don't maybe was six months in advance before he had the whole pigs fly over Trenton's speech. There's plenty of chance for those who might have been sympathetic to some form of the plan to solidify their opposition. People were against it before they knew what was in it. How do you do that? I mean, we'll come back to course nine. Let's talk about someone who took another big chance, like Corson, took a big chance on that plan, but this was a different kind of a big chance in 2008. That's Congressman Rob Andrews, who right before the filing deadline for the Democratic primary for US Senate decided to challenge Frank Loutenberg. He ended up losing eight or 10 weeks later, maybe seven weeks later, in a primary badly. Why did Andrews make this move, Charlie? I think he sensed that Loutenberg was vulnerable, that there was not a lot of support in the party

and for Loutenberg at that time. I felt that he felt that there was a lot of enthusiasm for Frank Loutenberg at that time. There was a lot of intraparty, I guess, lack of a better term. There was angst about him, or they felt that he had had lost touch with him. It was a move that seemed sensible at the time, is what you're in. There was a window, I think, he had to leap into, but it was a narrow one. Claire, was it a sensible move at the time? Well, as Charlie said, at the time is the key phrase. I mean, if he had done it and probably admitted this himself after he lost, if he had entered the race even five or six weeks earlier, he would have done it before the county conventions and would have gotten more for the party lines and would have had a better shot. And even though he had an OK showing, he had alliances in North Jersey that helped him out.

He didn't have any of the party lines there. And so that made all the difference that he got in later. He could have had a crack at a vulnerable Lownberg if he had started earlier. Matt, the biggest miscalculation of 2008. I think so. I think this was. He expected the dominoes to fall. He expected Joe Ferriero to go his way. Joe Ferriero, what's it? Joe Ferriero, Bergen County Democratic chairman who's now under indictment. Right now under, but controls Bergen County, huge, huge place that you need to win. And if Ferriero had gone his way, also expected Brian Stack to fall in line with him, if he had the support of some of these other at North Jersey bosses, he would have had a real viable to shot. That is partly where that would have done it earlier came in. But I think he wasn't anticipating that Ferriero would actually be put in a position, an untenable position by Steve Rothman. And that pretty much, I think that killed it right there. Still would have been long shot.

Rothman saved Lownberg. Steve Rothman saved Frank Lownberg, or at least played a big year for Steve Rothman then, because he helped elect Barack Obama. Nick, you're coming on. It was never going to happen. It was never going to happen? No, I mean, all you had to do was look at the landscape and see that Joe Ferriero was going to, I don't know, the biggest miscalculation is what Ferriero did in that. I have no idea why he did that, because when you look at the landscape, it was inevitable that all of the forces that were ready against him would put pressure on him to back them, and he had to back them. If that had happened, he might have gotten an open primary in Essex County. Andrews might have gotten an open primary in Essex County, and it might have made it closer. But it was never going to happen. There were forces in the Democratic Party that were never going to let Ferriero get away with that. I don't know what he was saying. And including Menendez, too. I think there was. Including Bob Menendez. There was, I think, Ferriero is a shrewd predictor or analyst of the bottom line.

And that is, am I going to win him? Am I going to come out of this? I'm going to win or lose. And I think he saw after Rothman retaliated or threatened to retaliate. Menendez pretty much also indicated that you could have a really bloody primary, not only in Bergen County, not only could Rob Andrews lose, but you have a chairmanship election after the primary. And your whole leadership will come into question. So I think he just punted within a 13-hour period. And that was it. And then, Latinburg went on to defeat the exemplar of the Republican fall in the same election in which Barack Obama was elected president. The Democratic establishment in this state embraced Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Did anyone pay a price for having done so? I think it was the opposite, actually.

Even after it became clear that Obama was going to win, there was still some people who broke maybe away from Clinton to Obama, who this state Democrat still decided that maybe they should settle a score with. And what comes to mind is Democratic state committee women, Roz Samuels, who was recently, after everything was settled, they said, all right, you're going. You're out of the, I'm sorry, yeah, Democratic state committee woman. So she was kicked out and- So she paid a price? She paid a price because she switched from Clinton. I don't know if she is. But I don't know if she is. Yeah, I mean, did anybody pay a price? No, because, because, to his credit Joe Crine, the state chairman, and to his credit, the governor made peace at the convention. At the convention, they sat down and they convinced all of the Clinton supporters that they were going to be the state that was going to go in to this roll call with Hillary's name out there. They were going to be the state that went 100% for Obama. And they were the first one in the roll call to do that.

And to their credit, they persuaded a lot of people who were die hard Hillaryites to go along with this. And they deserve a lot of credit for that. Oddly, maybe the only person who really suffered from that is the governor. Because if Hillary had been the nomination, had gotten the nomination, he might have been in line for a prominent position in the National Administration. It is said that the core line would have liked to have been Treasury Secretary and Obama administration that's become kind of accepted fact in our world. You think so? He says he didn't want the job. But he says he would have probably taken the job if Obama had gotten down the line to him. I think it's one of those situations where, as they said, he went out there pretty strong for Hillary Clinton. And then after Obama was clearly the nominee, he stepped up his appearances for Obama and was an economic advisor. And if it had gotten to the point where Obama had asked him

to do something like that, he wouldn't have said no. Do you know if he was really vetted for the position or not? I'm told he was, yes. Charlie, you take on the core sign and how he navigated the presidential primary? Well, I think he started off in a pretty good position. And because he had an earlier bank of goodwill to draw from. And that was his earlier relationship with Obama. So he wasn't like one of these. I don't think he was ever perceived as a Clinton East fight to the death for Hillary Clinton type of supporter. I think he did a fairly decent job of showing his support for her, but we'll never close in the door on Obama. And they had that prior relationship. And my personal thing, I think if he had an opportunity to succeed his old rival at Goldman Sachs, his Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, I think he would have leaped that, especially if he gave him an opportunity to shine in history

over the record of Henry Paulson. In a New York minute, as the cliche goes, he had gotten out of here in a hurry. What about what he says? Why could it so bad here? Yeah, I mean, things are really pretty awful. And running for re-election in a situation this awful, you're almost better off having $700 million to dole out. To dole out $7000 to dole out down in Washington. Instead of having to cut $5,000,000 in a state budget, let's talk about the New Jersey Supreme Court. It plays a pretty prominent role in our public life. Anybody think there were any notable court rulings this year? Didn't the court shoot down the governor's proposal that the do-women-abit districts would base the funding on? That's the one I'm driving.

The base the funding on? You're very welcome. You're welcome. And we didn't even discuss this before him. To base funding on the number of poor children in any given district rather than based on districts. One of the feathers in Coors Island's cap, according to his people, is that he created a new school funding formula. And then when the Education Law Center challenged it in court, the Supreme Court, well, they didn't declare it unconstitutional, but they remanded it to a special master to determine whether it's constitutional. And it set back Coors Island's attempt to move us past this habit, the school designation, and into some new era. I think it was pretty significant. You want to talk about that? Yeah, there was actually not the state Supreme Court, but on a federal level, there were some significant rulings regarding public funding of elections. And actually, I believe it was District Court in Arizona, struck down the state's clean elections law.

And even the proponents of our clean elections law looked at that and said, this is untenable. And that was the end of it for us, if it's for now. Yeah, we've had a four-year experiment in the publicly funded legislative election. Never worked anyway, no. OK. There's incumbent protection. Any other thoughts on the court before we turn to the legislature? OK. OK, let's turn to the legislature. I asked you to think of some state legislators whose profiles may have been raised or who may have raised their own profiles in 2008 and he come to mind. I was going to say Steve Sweeney in South Jersey is certainly a guy on the who's ascendant in the Senate. And there's buzz about him being maybe the potential gubernatorial candidate. When? Well, there's even next year. Yeah, I don't know. Whenever it avails itself. And I also, I think Paul Sarlow, to a smaller extent

in Bergen County, had a real big setback last year. He made a bid to become a majority leader. And now he is in a pretty powerful position as the first non-lawyer in almost 30 years, 35 years, to run the judiciary committee. And that's a really powerful position. Yeah, I also got it. Barbara Blono, who fought very hard to get the budget, the Senate budget chair position, got it in perform credit. Got it instead of Sarlow. Instead of Sarlow. And Sweeney got the majority leader instead of Sarlow. So Sarlow gets the judiciary committee as a consolation prize. Pretty good consolation prize. Very good consolation. Maybe a year later, but it's a good consolation prize. Gary Shere got Neil Cohen's chairmanship, powerful committee over there. And assembly. In the assembly. And he got pretty good, you know, a turn is mayor of Pasek, also, where he was kind of, also influential member during their race.

So his profile definitely went up a bit in that case. And I also think that Paul Sarlow, not only is chairman, but now he has to divorce himself. He's always been kind of equated with Joe Ferriero, whatever Joe Ferriero wants Paul Sarlow does. And he's kind of stepping away from Ferriero now. He has to, and he's going to, you know, see, he's going to be, I think, more of his own man. At least that's what people expect from him now. I would second what Nick said on Barbara Blono, definitely, because not only the budget chairmanship, but she's also sort of become a mediator in some of these internal democratic disputes. And she has respect from core Zion's people, and also from leaders in the Senate. And on the Republican side, Bill Baroney was a public face of the McCain campaign in New Jersey. And did a decent job with that. He's well respected, I think. Tom Cain Jr. has done a pretty good job with at least showing a lot of unity in the Republican caucus in the Senate now that he is the minority leader. Yes, I mean, Tom Cain Jr. has, I think he's developed

the reputation of being more effective and more aggressive in helping the Republicans become a more aggressive force in legislature. Well, I wrote down the first names that came into my head, going a little bit deeper into the bench than you all did. And I came up with, in the assembly, Pam Lampett, Declano Scanlon, Marsha Carro in the Senate, Nick Skittari, Jennifer Beck, and Paul Sarlo. People who just, maybe Vince Polistina from Atlanta County in the assembly, Kevin O'Toole. Kevin O'Toole, definitely. Just people who are sort of going up on the radar screen. Beck is being talked about as a possible Lieutenant Governor candidate in 09. Would you, anybody want to pick up on Beck that she has raised her profile

in a short period of time? Absolutely, in a part, articulate, and smart, and energetic, and all those people who came into the Senate in the last election, I think they lowered the average age of the Republican caucus by about 35 years. I mean, it was an odd-piginarian caucus, and a bunch of young people. And it's made a world of difference. I mean, O'Toole and Beck and Cain and Baroni. Baroni? It's made a world of difference over there. More women, too. Ruiz Piningham, Red. All these freshman women who joined Bono on the Budget Committee and made their presence felt there. Let's get back to the course, then. After the debacle of the toll-hike proposal, Governor was pretty tough in bringing the budget in in June under the prior years spending planned by about $600 million.

And ever since the economic crisis, the global economic crisis that began in September, he's been pretty aggressive in trying to devise small-bore economics stimulus measures that might help here in the state. How successful has he been in erasing the image of himself as having been tone deaf at the start of the year as to what the state would accept economically and fiscally? Anybody? Anybody? Well, to the extent that he's gone to the small-bore measures somewhat, but he still does not reach out the way a governor should to members of the legislature. I mean, there's not a lot of collaboration between the two branches. I mean, we forget, except those of us who have been around, maybe remember that, until Christie Whitman,

every legislative day, the governor met with the legislative leadership of both parties. Jim Floreo did it, Tom Kane did it, Brendan Bern did it. It stopped with Christie Whitman and no one's picked it up since. And there's no very little communication back and forth there. And I think it's incumbent on the governor's side to do that, but it doesn't happen. I think to pick up on that, that lack of communication, that installarity, I think, is what has harmed the initial run on this pension holiday. They don't want to call it holiday, this pension deferral plan. To me, it was, you know, I got the distinct impression that he didn't have all his ducks in a row. He didn't have legislative support. He throws it in there. And just like the Turnpike plan, there's about four or five ways to punch holes in it, and from four or five different constituencies, and it's now treading water. You who covered him. There is a sense, both in this commentary

and beyond, that he's his own advisor, and that he sits alone in the room, devising policy, and doesn't get enough input. Do you hear that? I hear that, yeah, mostly from the legislature. I mean, that's not a secret. That's been a pattern throughout his time in Trenton. I think, as you talked about, the economic stimulus package, we'll have to see whether that really does redeem him in the voter's eyes. His poll numbers have gone up from, you know, the mid-30s, low-30s to the low-40s. So that's improvement. It's still not great. And people still say they're ready for somebody else. And the governor's job next year. So I think he's going to have to continue to make these points about what he's doing on the economic front. I think that, as the campaign machine kicks in, fueled by millions and millions of dollars. And they use the point that he's trying unpopular measures, unpopular but necessary measures in tough economic times that might resonate with the public.

I don't think it's going to improve relations with the legislature, but we'll see his poll. I think we're going to see his poll numbers continue to increase as we get closer to the election day. I think another point, and we talked about in the last year, actually, was that, you know, his inner circle has changed to become a little less Goldman centric and a little more Jersey centric. So maybe there will be improved relations based on at least that in the future. We have a couple of minutes left. Rutgers University, the state university, is a pretty turbulent place right now. President McCormick, fire and athletic director, Mulkei, two weeks ago, Rutgers football team was ball-bound again this year. Is this story over or will it spill into 2009? Stories not over. Stories not over. It was a sad thing to see a guy. He spent 30 years of his life in public service, bumped to the way Mulkei he was. But he got him, I mean, people get into these positions

and they start to think that they're invulnerable and nobody's invulnerable. I think the subtext of that whole story is that the state, Rutgers long has a long tradition of being, you know, of an academic tradition that never really took the plunge into athletics and for a reason because it had this tradition of wanting to preserve its academic integrity. And I think they move fast and they seize the opportunity under Mulkei who, as I agree, was well-regarded with a well-regarded reputation. But I think there's a sense that it moved too fast, that the state's not 100% ready to take the full university of Alabama plunge. Do we really care? And Steve Sweeney, who was referred to here before the Senate Majority Leader, is calling for Dick McCormick's head for having overreacted in 15 seconds. Anybody, is this going anywhere or not?

We'll continue to hear about that. The pot will continue to boil. That's certainly true. I don't know whether McCormick's going to be fired, but the pot's going to boil. All right. On that note, we're out of time. Thanks for the look back, Claire, Charlie, Nick, Matt. We'll be back with another roundtable next Friday night at 7 and Sunday morning at 10 on this week's edition of On the Record, Marie DeNoia, Aaron's in hosts and presents a look back at 2008 on video. That Sunday morning at 9 and 11, and Monday morning at 6.30. And we'll hope to see you here next week. Premier sponsorship for reporters roundtable with Michael Aaron made possible by PSE and GE, 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 ground fields

into green fields, enhancing water quality and protecting New Jersey's water resources. I'm NJM meteorologist, Bernie Reno. Your local forecast is brought to you by Palisades, the nice New Jersey car insurance company. We're looking for clouds across the area tonight. A bit of rain and drizzle. The only concerns with ice is going to be up across Warren and Sussex counties with temperatures right around freezing. Your NJM extended outlook. A little bit of rain and drizzle in the morning. Then clouds limited sunshine in the afternoon. A cold front brings some showers late in the day on Sunday,

but boy is it windy and mild. It's cooler but dry on Monday and Tuesday. Join us for a glamorous night on the town as we celebrate cabaret legends from the past. I performed in Vordaville for two and a half years. Performed with cab Canaway and Duke Ellington and Fats Waller. The present and the future come to the cabaret on the next state of the arts. And tonight at 8.30 on NJM.