It's Either Me or the G.O.P., Torricelli Tells Democrats

MONTCLAIR, N.J. — Chip Casto is a reliable Democrat, unable to recall ever voting for a Republican. When he considered registering as an independent years ago, said Mr. Casto, 36, his parents would not hear of it.

But his party affiliation is not making his choice in the United States Senate race in New Jersey an easy one. Mr. Casto, a teacher, cites "the incident" — the Senate Ethics Committee's rebuke of Senator Robert G. Torricelli for improperly accepting gifts — and says "that initial impression is hard to get over." He is still deciding whether to vote for Mr. Torricelli on Nov. 5.

Many Democrats here find themselves in a similar quandary. Increasingly, many see the race as not just a contest between Mr. Torricelli and his Republican challenger, Douglas R. Forrester, but a choice between a senator they view as ethically compromised and the risk of a Republican-controlled Senate.

This is a view that Mr. Torricelli would like more voters to take in an increasingly Democratic state, which now has a Democratic governor, two Democratic senators, a Democratic State Assembly and an evenly divided State Senate.

But since he was "severely admonished" by his Senate colleagues in July, his once-formidable base has turned spongy enough that two polls released this week show Mr. Forrester with a slight lead among likely voters and an unusually high percentage of Democrats wavering.

In the independent Quinnipiac University Poll, 29 percent of registered Democrats said they did not think that Mr. Torricelli had "the honesty and integrity to serve effectively" as a senator. In the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll, only 50 percent of Democrats said they held a positive opinion of him, while 35 percent said they were reserving judgment.

So, with Democrats holding a single-vote majority in the Senate, Mr. Torricelli is casting his campaign as a choice between a Democratic Senate and a Republican one. What the campaign is about, he says, is not personalities, but a conservative tide that would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, turn back hard-won environmental protections and plunge the nation into war.

"That's the best issue that Torricelli's got," said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "The only strong argument he's got left is party control of the Senate."

The argument seems to play well in this town full of Democrats, which gave Mr. Torricelli 70 percent of the vote in 1996 and the new United States senator, Jon S. Corzine, 72 percent in 2000.

Jessica de Koninck, a lawyer and former council member in Montclair, said that Mr. Torricelli represented her views on almost every issue, including abortion and gun control.

"I'm not finding it a difficult choice," she said. "Torricelli is not a warm and fuzzy guy, but that's not in my top criteria."

Others have more misgivings, though many say that they will probably stick with Mr. Torricelli in the end.

"I have struggles with it," said David Szmak, a psychologist who said he nonetheless planned to vote for Mr. Torricelli. He said that in addition to the threat of war, "I'm concerned about the role of social services, about shortchanging our poor while rewriting the tax laws" to favor the wealthy.

Down the street, the Rev. Judy Tomlinson, on her way home from the Unitarian Church of Montclair, said she would probably vote for Mr. Torricelli "in spite of everything" because control of the Senate "is very overriding."

"It has to do with things like choice," she said, "things like judicial appointments — that's probably the most important — and I feel we have to have checks and balances in Washington if we are going to keep our civil liberties."

But New Jersey's Senate race is just one of a half-dozen that will determine the balance of the Senate, Professor Sabato said. He said that if Republicans were behind in other states, some of the more sophisticated Democrats could vote against Mr. Torricelli without worrying too much about tipping the Senate.

The Democrats begin with a considerable advantage in New Jersey. Among registered voters, 25 percent are Democrats and 18.6 percent are Republicans. While almost all the rest are unaffiliated, voters broke decisively for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential race and for James E. McGreevey in the governor's race last year.

In the Quinnipiac poll, among those who said that the prospect of the Democrats losing the Senate would affect their vote, two-thirds said they were more likely to vote for Mr. Torricelli.

"I've thought about it as I've read about him," said a woman in Montclair who did not want to be identified because of her job as a teacher. "I think what he did was wrong, but I can't in good conscience let the Republicans get control of the political process."

David P. Rebovich, the managing director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics, said many Democrats would reach the same conclusion. "The Democrats who have fallen off are the ones most likely to be swayed by the argument that the Senate is at stake," Mr. Rebovich said.

But Cliff Zukin, the director of the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll, said: "I don't think voters are that analytical, most of them. And most people left to decide at the end tend to be the least analytical and informed. To depend on that is dangerous."

Mr. Zukin's latest poll found a "great lack of enthusiasm" among Democrats, he said. When asked how much interest they have in the race, just 35 percent of Democrats replied "a lot," while 44 percent of independent voters and 47 percent of Republicans did. "For independents to have more interest in a race than Democrats is remarkable," Mr. Zukin said.

In the last few years, though, New Jersey's Democratic Party has fired up a formidable get-out-the-vote effort, especially in Hudson and Essex Counties, that has delivered more votes than polls had predicted. Bonnie Watson Coleman, the chairwoman of the Democratic State Committee and an Assembly member from Trenton, said that after "a slow period when the Ethics Committee thing came out," environmental and women's groups and, most of all, labor organizations, were helping because of what was at stake.

But even in firmly Democratic urban areas, more than the usual amount of persuasion may be needed.

In Newark, Dominic Nemmi, a flower vendor, said of Mr. Torricelli: "It's tough to believe him now. I don't think all the dealings got in the way of him being a decent senator, but I am not sure if he'll get my vote this time around."

Lorraine Cryan, a clerk who lives in Elizabeth, described Mr. Torricelli as "not a person I think should be in government."

"But I will have to wait and see about other issues before casting my vote," she said.

The people quoted in this article are Yellow Dogs, through and through. But fortunately Yellow Dogs represent a small % of the Democrat Party--probably less than 20%.

Forrester has to get about 2/3 of the mushy middle to win and I think he can do it. The mushy middles don't like scandal and they don't like partisanship. They won't know or care about control of the Senate shifting and they won't vote solely on the issues of abortion and gun control.

I don't think Torricelli will win, but if he does, he'll be a pariah like Condit is. He doesn't have the political skills to pull his rear out of the fire like Clinton did. He just comes across as whiney and boorish--not sincere.

What the campaign is about, he says, is not personalities, but a conservative tide that would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, turn back hard-won environmental protections and plunge the nation into war.

Torricelli forgot to mention scaring the old folks with taking away Social Security.

The people quoted in this article are Yellow Dogs, through and through. But fortunately Yellow Dogs represent a small % of the Democrat Party--probably less than 20%.

The people quoted in this article are not representive of the whole state of NJ. Granted, NJ usually leans democratic, but Montclair is a real DemocRAT stronghold. Montclair is a very wealthy NYC suburb, dominated by leftist professionals. Montclair is probably almost as far to left as Cambridge, Mass. or the Upper West Side of Manhattan.They would vote for Robert Mugabe or Saddam Hussein for Senate as long as they were pro-abortion and pro- gun control. I'm still optomistic about the Torch being thrown out. It is my hope that signicant numbers of democrats in NJ's blue collar communities either won't vote for the Torch or even vote for Forrester because they are so offended by the Torch's corruption.

This jumped out at me too. I registered non-partisan because my father did a stint in the FBI and wanted to remain above politics.

I know several older (some dead) voters in MD who registered Democratic just so they could vote in the primary for the worst candidate in the slim hope a Pubbie could get elected.

Maybe that's how Mikulski got in, she was opposed by the Demonrat machine the first time she ran for Balto City council. She just kept winning with that D and mindless/thoughtless voters.

but one would think the Democrats would be in favor of Roe vs. Wade, because it'd force the births of (typically) more Dummy-crats.

Poverty pimps ALWAYS abuse and exploit their own first.

just remember, many of the interviewes are well educated professionals.

Yeah, that's the *problem*. Educated fools.

In fact... I think they're fools BECAUSE they're educated, not in spite of it...

Agreed. Montclair is also a college town and those are notoriously liberal. This viewpoint is certainly not representative of several of my family members who live in south Joysey.

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