Post Mortem

Another somewhat bittersweet electoral retrospective. Bitter in that the Republican gubernatorial candidate, yet again, failed to persuade a majority of the State’s electorate to support him. Sweet in that Morris County remains an island of sanity.

Republicans and Democrats face reciprocal electoral difficulties, statewide and locally. While social issues play a part, most politics is less principled, more crass, and comes down to money. Republicans lose statewide for the same reason we win locally: we’re fiscally responsible.

To the Democratic base, “fiscal responsibility” is fightin’ words. The last thing unions -- especially public employee unions -- and urban bosses want is lean, small, efficient government.

Public employee unions feed at the public trough. Their mission is to maximize the economic benefits their members receive. They spend huge sums electing friendly legislators precisely to ensure that taxes and spending – from which their members massively benefit – are not cut.

Urban areas, too, staunchly oppose spending cuts or tax reform, because they pay few taxes and receive huge subsidies, at the expense of other folks, primarily those residing in Morris County.

Democrats are the party of Big Government and high taxes; the unions and urban voters – not being stupid – cast their electoral lot accordingly.

Hence, any Republican seeking statewide office enters with a huge disadvantage, electorally and politically. People benefitting from spending are massively more motivated to maintain it than are the taxpayers to pare it. They donate huge sums to preserve the status quo, and they always vote.

Forrester’s huge loss should – but probably won’t – put to rest the absurd assertion that only “moderate” Republicans can win in New Jersey. The list of “moderate” Republican losers in statewide campaigns is long and distinguished: Norcross, Fenwick, Forrester (twice), Dawkins, Mochary, Whitman (against Bradley), Courter, Franks; maybe even Haytaian. True, two Republican “moderates” – Whitman and Kean – prevailed. But in each case, they ran like conservatives in the campaign (both ran on anti-tax platforms, made nice with the right to lifers, and, in Whitman’s case, noted that she was an NRA member) and both had the inestimable privilege of running against Jim Florio. Ideology was essentially irrelevant. In each case, the voters decided between the Democrat and a generic Republican “somebody else”. When the Democrats ran a bad candidate in tough times, the generic Republican – “somebody else” – won.

Simply put, Republicans can’t win in New Jersey; Democrats have to lose. And for that to happen, it requires a poor Democratic candidate, preferably in tough times, and a Republican candidate with united base and a message sufficiently attractive to “Reagan Democrats” to prevail.

Democrats face a reciprocal challenge in Morris County. Only damaged Republican candidates lose, and the Dem victors never last. Big Government, high taxes, and big spending are tough sells in Morris County. Democrats are not credible as fiscally responsible candidates. Given that there are relatively few people feeding at the public trough in Morris County, the Democrats can’t buy elections with taxpayer dollars. Hence, they almost always lose.

Our county seat provides an abject example. Simply compare the tax rate in Morristown – traditionally controlled by the Democrats – with Morris Township – traditionally controlled by the Republicans. Indeed, in any survey of the 50 worst run towns in the state, probably 48 would be run by Democrats. It might even be unanimous.

Statewide, where the number of people feeding off the taxpayers’ wallet is relatively large, the Democrats – the Party of Government – tend to win. Locally, where that number is small, they consistently lose.

Social issues do matter. Some people in New Jersey actually read The New York Times editorial page for other than comic relief, and consider the Daily Record conservative. The GOP being a conservative party – it’s officially pro-life, frowns upon governmental subsidies for gay relationships, and doesn’t break out in hives at the thought of voluntary prayer in public places – it quite naturally repels the Angry Left, Times/MoveOn crowd. And New Jersey contains a disproportionate number of them. But it also contains a large number of Catholics – often Democrats – who might be reached with precisely these issues.

Clearly, a candidate’s status as a “moderate” – whatever that is – on these issues offers Republican candidates little advantage. The record of electoral failure cannot be disputed. At best, they might, in a typical year, lose a little bit closer than would a “conservative”, and even that’s not self evidently true.

And, once elected, they lack the motivation – or the inclination – to effect the basic reform we so clearly require: to defang the spending interests, fundamentally change the system of taxation, and rein in a judiciary run amok. Indeed, in both recent examples, the “fiscally responsible” “moderate” Republicans turned out to be fiscal disasters. Kean massively increased taxes and doubled the size of state government. Whitman recklessly – and illegally – borrowed, spent outrageously, and foolishly suspended contributions to the pension system.

(This, of course, opens up an entirely new possibility: perhaps – based upon the record of our previous “moderate” Republican Governors – voters seeking fiscal responsibility distrust the fiscal bona fides of “moderate” GOP candidates, and simply don’t vote. Maybe, potential voters to whom fiscal responsibility was important worried precisely that Forrester might emulate Kean and Whitman, and sat the election out.)

But, generally, Republicans statewide and Democrats locally face the same problem, albeit from different perspectives: because we’re fiscally responsible, we can’t win statewide; because they’re not, they can’t win locally.