[Coleus]

Here's what he said about the Schundler Campaign.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/566169/posts

[jern]

for a later read....

[Coleus]

6. Forrester was the only Senate candidate targeted for defeat by Sarah Brady who lost - coincidentally also the only one who never filled out an NRA questionnaire and therefore was not on the little orange postcard that the NRA sent out in other states (or the one sent promoting Scott Garrett).>>>>>>

Anti-Gun Agenda Cost Candidates for House and Senate
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/784336/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/784336/posts?page=30#30

[KeyWest]

The Dem in Nothern Maine is pro life. The Pub pro choice. Guess who won.

Had the pub been pro life, he would have won. They were both cookie-cutter so that made the difference.

Those who are pro life are not tied to a political party. If the Dems have a good candidate who is pro life he has a good chance of winning.

[nutmeg]

bump

[A CA Guy]

Forrester was no prize from what I saw of him, and I should know turkeys with Simon here in CA folks! LOL

[barkeep]

Much that is true in the article, a lot of specifics arguable. The nut of Forrester's loss was that he had built a lead pointing out Torch's criminality, which was too much even for NJ. Once he had no Torch to run against, from what I saw of Forrester, he had NOTHING to run on, no platform of what he supported, and zero ability to shift gears from anti-Torch to pro-Forrester.

[JonH]

I thought he lost because he failed to call Howard Stern.

[Torie]

The above is mostly silly season stuff. Anyone who watched Forrester debate knows why he lost. He was not likable (OK, he was more likeable than the Torch, but then so is Satan), and did not clearly articulate his position on issues in a persuasive fashion, or in many case, seem like he had a handle on them. I was amazed to see the fossil actually out debate him.

[ChadGore]

I used to live in Morristown, Parsippany,(along 80) Hawthorne and Wycoff (up around 208) and I can tell you this analysis is spot on. The good people of the GOP in NJ would do well to head it's advice.

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP for great freeping.
This is a very interesting article. Bookmarked.

[montag813]

Forrester lost becuase he had a pathetically weak team, led by CM Bill Pascoe, who refused to run hard-hitting ads against Frank Lautenberg, including ones submitted by my team and ideas submitted by others we know of.

Our ads centered on 9/11 and the war on terror, and how Lautenberg was out of touch with America and too extreme for New Jersey on the issue of opposing the death penalty for terrorists who murder Americans, and a vote to cut $1 billion from the intelligence budget and $80 billion from the defense budget. We pointed out that if it were up to Frank Lautenberg's extreme views, the killers of Daniel Pearl and even Osama bin Laden himself would be spared the death penalty. The ads were called too "divisive".

We also raised the age issue in three major ads, the softest focusing on the sheer hypocrisy of his criticism of Millicent Fenwick being "too old" for the Senate at age 72, when he will be 79 in January. The hardest ad simply ran a video medley, not unlike the Rush Limbaugh audio medley, showing a bumbling, incoherent Lautenberg from their first debate. The ad ended with a big question mark and was punctuated with voices saying "What?" "Huh?" etc.

None of our ads were factually incorrect. They were smash-mouth politics, which is desperately needed to knock off a nasty, fear-mongering SOB like Lautenberg.

The Forrester campaign REFUSED to run a single one of our ads. Meanwhile Lautenberg was beating their brains in every day on NYC and Philly networks. We told them they would lose. They did. There was never a question.

Pascoe and his team did not even run a single ad at ALL for THREE WEEKS after Torricelli pulled out, wating precious time to define their candidate to the public and losing an opportunity to crush Lautenberg with attack ads and build his negatives while he was still not funded and while the Democrats were still in disarray.

MAke no mistake, despite what was written above, this race was totally winnable using advertising. We were heavily involved in the ads for Chambliss, Talent and Jeb Bush. Those were all highly aggressive campaigns committed to destroying their opponents. They all won. Pascoe and the Forrester team thought it was out of bounds to attack Lautenberg over 9/11 and his disgraceful record on terror, defense and intelligence. However the Chambliss team saw no problem in shredding a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran over national security issues. THIS is the difference. You either win through TOTAL WAR, or the Democrats will defeat you through lies, fear and deception.

The Forrester failure shows how fear of waging total war against the Democrats can lead only to failure.

[Lancey Howard]

"Doug Forrester actually said he would vote against conservative judges supported by President Bush"

Wow. This I did not know....
IF this is true, then I am delighted that Forrester lost.

I have maintained on many threads over the past couple of years that New Jersey is a scumbag little pissant state, hopelessly lost down the liberal toilet forever. But I now wonder if maybe New Jersey is a decent place after all and it is the New Jersey Republican Party that is the pack of scumbag little pissants.....

[Lancey Howard]

...his clients were 12-0 on Tuesday, with one race still in doubt. Among his successful clients this year were conservative Democrat Russ Pitman, who defeated 20-year liberal Republican incumbent Len Kaiser for North Arlington Mayor, conservative freshman Virginia Republican State Senator Ken Cuccinelli, and the Coalition Against the Tax Referendum which defeated a proposed Northern Virginia Sales Tax increase by a 55-45 margin.

Wowza!
This guy Rick Shaftan sounds like somebody you hire if you are a conservative who wants to win.

[jwalsh07]

Forrester wasn't a good candidate. He had no center. He doesn't believe in anything and he couldn't or wouldn't give a straight answer to a straight question, specifically on abortion and guns. I would have had a hard time voting for him myself.

[Antoninus]

I voted for Doug, but I had nowhere near the passion for this campaign that I had for Schundler. I never did get around to picking up that lawn sign or bumper stickers. Why? Because he was a wet noodle on abortion, plain and simple. Forrester got 882,292 running as a 'centrist'. Can anyone tell me how many votes Schundler got running for Governor last year? I can't find the results anywhere.

[Hugin]

WHY FORRESTER LOST - AND LOST BADLY…

Because there was no Torecelli memorial service?

[navigator]

Thanks for posting this Coleus. I found it very informative. Will put it to use right away.

~n

[YankeeReb]

I lived in Northern Sussux for about 10 years, it was very republican /conservative ..much more so than where I live now in CT. I always wondered why the NJ repubs seemed so RINOish. If they ran some real conservative canidates I'm convinced they'd have done a lot better than they have over the last decade. Instead we got the likes of Witless Whitman and Marge Roukema so nobody thinks theres any difference between the 2 parties.

[Keme]

If all this is true, then why did Schundler lose so badly? Why didn't these Reagan Democrats vote for him? I respectfully disagree with you, I think NJ is a lost cause for conservativism.