True. They put Bob Franks to run against Schundler. Had Schundler won in 2001, there would not have been no McGreevey, or Corzine, and it is possible Schundler could have risen to President in 2008 or 2012.
However, Schundler can reenter politics and run against Bob Menendez for Senate in 2018 next year.
If you have to dig up candidates 20 years removed from the zenith of their careers, you have a problem. Schundler is a good man, but he’s fallen to second tier as a candidate now. It would be almost as silly as it was when Jeff Bell decided to have another Senate go almost 4 decades after his loss to Bill Bradley. The sabotage by the elites to Schundler was successful. Heaven forbid an outsider who could get substantial % of the Black and Hispanic votes as an urban Mayor try to become leader of the NJ GOP. Let’s face it, the GOP elites have demonstrated for decades that they don’t want to be a party that appeals to anything beyond rich left-wing Whites (a group that has fled to the Democrats en masse, why the Dems are now the party of the rich).