Free Republic

Republicans in New Jersey face an unambiguous choice in next Tuesday's gubernatorial primary between a Republican moderate and a candidate with strident and untested views. Bob Franks is clearly the better qualified of the two. Mr. Franks has shown himself to be a pragmatist with the experience and temperament to carry the party's banner admirably in the November election. What was expected to be an easy victory for Mr. Franks has turned into a bitter, close race with name-calling that threatens to discourage voters from showing up. That would be a big mistake, especially for moderate Republicans. Mr. Franks, a...

Bret D. Schundler, the crusading conservative mayor of Jersey City, soundly defeated former Representative Bob Franks in the Republican primary for governor today, setting up a sharply drawn November contest with James E. McGreevey, the Democrat. Mr. Schundler, an ardent opponent of abortion and a supporter of the rights of gun owners, who promised to lower taxes, cut government spending and take down the tollbooths on the Garden State Parkway, united both fiscal and social conservatives behind his campaign. His wide margin of victory, despite a Republican establishment united behind his opponent, gave the party's conservative wing the upper hand...

TRENTON — The man once described by teachers’ union leaders as “the antithesis of everything we hold sacred about public education” was chosen to serve as state education commissioner by Governor-elect Christopher J. Christie on Wednesday. The nomination of Bret D. Schundler to the post underscored the governor’s determination to press ahead with his push for school vouchers, more charter schools and merit pay for teachers. It was the first selection by Mr. Christie to suggest even the possibility of a confirmation battle with Democrats, who control both houses of the Legislature. Thus far, the governor-elect has chosen nominees heavy...

Businessman Michael Yun remembers what Jersey City, New Jersey, was like in the 1980s. "Like the wild, wild West," he said. The "streets weren't safe" and government was "out of control." Public services failed, businesses left, and corruption was rampant. Abandoned by the outdated railroad industry, it was the anemic neighbor of Manhattan, where feral dogs ran wild in the tall grass by the collapsed railway arteries and hypodermic needles, like seeds, littered the ground just west of the Hudson River. But all that changed in 1992 when Republican Bret Schundler did the impossible. After Mayor Gerald McCann was arrested...

IF YOU SUPPORT PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION, stay home on Election Day, or vote for a third-party candidate. This will help Bob Menendez get elected to the United States Senate, where he states he will block any judges who do not commit to abortion on demand. Indeed, his winning will result in viable, healthy babies continuing to be killed in the womb. IF YOU OPPOSE PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION, vote for Tom Kean on Election Day. He has said that he will support President Bush's judicial appointments as long as they commit not to legislate from the bench. This will result in...

Please join me at a Pre-Election Rally that I am hosting on Saturday, November 4th, from 7 to 11 pm, at the Bethwood, located at 38 Lackawanna Avenue in Totowa. Our special guests will include Tom Kean, Jr. and our Passaic County Freeholder candidates -- Art Soto, Keith La Forgia and Erik Lowe. Food and beverages will be served, and we are asking for a contribution of only $65 to the PCRRO (Passaic County Regular Republican Organization) to help cover costs and raise needed funds for our critical get-out-the-vote efforts. This election will be one of the most important in...

Supporting embryonic stem cell research is not only morally misguided but fiscally irresponsible, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler told a cheering crowd of 200 anti-abortion activists who gathered on the Statehouse steps yesterday to blast acting Gov. Richard Codey's $380 million research proposal. Schundler accused Codey of using the moral debate over whether stem cells should be extracted from embryos for potentially life-saving research to distract voters from the price tag. "To come up with that money, what are they going to do, of course? They are going to increase your taxes," Schundler told the crowd. "They have a $2...

Former Gov. Christie Whitman believes the Republican Party is in deep trouble. The GOP, she says, is now where the Democrats were a dozen years ago in Washington when they lost control of the House for the first time in 40 years. President Bush's popularity is at a low ebb and several GOP leaders have been snared in ethics scandals. "We're at a critical point," she said. "We're starting to see polls that look just like the polls looked to Democrats in '94." From a converted hayloft of the barn on her family estate in Oldwick, Whitman works each day...

Corzine Ready To Lower Tax Boom On N.J. CBS 2 Speaks To Upset Residents, Many Hint At Leaving Image Marcia Kramer Reporting (CBS) BERGENFIELD New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine unveils his belt tightening new budget on Tuesday. But even before the announcement, New Jersey taxpayers were expecting the worst. When Corzine voted for himself to become governor of New Jersey he knew that one day he would have to make some difficult and unpopular budget decisions. That day is Tuesday. And already people are lining up to oppose his expected tax hikes. ”It’s utterly ridiculous we have to have the...

Unlike Democratic voters in New Jersey, Republicans have a genuine choice on Tuesday when they select their party's nominee for governor. Bret Schundler, the former mayor of Jersey City, and Douglas Forrester, the former mayor of the small township of West Windsor, are leading a field of seven candidates. The winner will face Democratic Senator Jon Corzine, whose considerable wealth helped frighten off any real Democratic competition. Mr. Schundler is the livelier of the two. He is also far more conservative, veering at some distance from the moderate model that has worked for New Jersey Republicans in the past. Mr....

WEST WINDSOR, N.J., May 25 - They were both Republican mayors who took office as development was beginning to explode in their communities. But beyond that, Bret Schundler and Douglas R. Forrester, the leading candidates in the Republican primary for governor in New Jersey, have about as much in common as a skyline and a subdivision. Mr. Schundler was a political maverick from Wall Street who brought a burst of energy and conservative ideas to the state's second-largest city, Jersey City, in 1992. In his nine years as mayor, he slashed the city payroll and built charter schools. He persuaded...

The NJDEP Public Meeting on January 27, 2001 at Liberty State Park was the culmination of the battle against Mayor Bret Schundler's and the park's Development Corporation's proposal for a commercial, privatized Waterpark at Liberty State Park. The vast majority of over 600 people at the public meeting (and of the thousands of communications to Trenton) opposed the Waterpark. Many elected officials and mayoral candidates opposed the Waterpark. It wasn't a good day for Bret, not for a man running for Governor. Though he had retreated from Waterpark support only 3 days before the public meeting because of the writing...

Jersey City's downtown waterfront market is one of the strongest real estate areas in this country. Developers pay millions to buy small parcels of land. Colgate sold an acre for $10 million. Before Bret Schundler ran for office, he spoke against tax abatements at council meetings. When he ran for office, his campaign literature (Special Election 1992) candidate Schundler said, "... reducing sales and property taxes for all will promote far more jobs than tax abatements for the powerful few." Previously, Mayor Cucci gave abatements linked to affordable housing. Avalon Cove, an abatement that Mayor Cucci turned down because it...

LONEGAN FOR GOVERNOR www.loneganforgovernor.com -- “If Forrester’s record is the worst, then mine is the best!” LONEGAN COUNTERS SCHUNDLER’S $250 CHALLENGE AGAINST FORRESTER WITH $250 OFFER AGAINST HIS OWN RECORD. Listen to the latest radio ad about Illegal Alien Driver's Licenses Steve Lonegan Quote of the Day:     "When my grandparents came here from Italy and Ireland, they came here legally. They learned the language. They worked hard to build a better future.     "The operative word here is illegal. These are people who violated our immigration laws. I believe we should use our Homeland Defense funds to tighten...

Menendez blasts Bret for lost grant, Jersey Journal, Peter Weiss, 10/20/2001 "Bioterrorism has turned into a political issue in Hudson County. US Rep Robert Menendez, D-Union City, yesterday criticized the administration of former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, the Republican candidate for governor, for losing a $1 million anti-terrorism grant last year. Menendez supplied a copy of a May 16, 2000 letter from the state Department of Health and Human Services to Jersey City officials informing them that their grant application was rejected. The letter stated "weaknesses" in the grant application that convinced the state that Jersey City "would have...

In January, shock jock Craig Carton caused an uproar by insulting the acting governor's wife. More recently, he took aim at Asian-Americans. On Thursday afternoon, the NJ 101.5 WKXW-FM radio personality switched off his irreverent persona and turned on his serious, public-service side to host a live, two-hour debate among five of the Republicans running for governor of New Jersey. "Hopefully people know that at times we have the ability to be serious and straight and at other times, when it warrants it, to have a good time and not be so straight," Carton said during a commercial break at...

Any day now I expect Bret Schundler to call a press conference and make the following confession: "Throughout my life I have always grappled with my identity. At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and grasp the truth. And my truth is that I am a liberal American." But it does seem a little strange to see a candidate who has been tagged by the media as a right-winger taking the sort of left-wing positions Schundler's been espousing in this primary campaign. During a televised debate, Schundler was asked...

Thursday, May 05, 2005 Any day now I expect Bret Schundler to call a press conference and, with his family gathered around him, make the following confession: "Throughout my life I have always grappled with my identity. At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and grasp the truth. And my truth is that I am a liberal American." Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it does seem a little strange to see a candidate who has been tagged by the media as a right- winger taking the...

Bret Schundler is having trouble raising money. He hasn't won a single county endorsement so far. And he faces a spirited challenge for control of his conservative base. So why is Schundler so serene? And why are a growing number of Republicans privately picking him to win the nomination? "He's got a loyal base of supporters, and that support is growing," said one deflated party official. "Even people working for other campaigns, like me, are becoming convinced of it." When moderate Republicans talk like this, they sound like condemned men marching to the gallows. They are convinced Schundler is too...

I got this email from the Schundler campaign today. I love what Bret is doing...Take an issue and try to fix it before he is elected...What a novel idea. Campaign promise paid up before election day. New Jersey Property Tax Overpayment Notice Dear Larry, According to our records your family is being over-taxed for the property listed above, and many of the NJ elected officials in office now don’t care. AND, it’s not only you. Millions of NJ taxpayers have been overpaying for years, and state politicians have done nothing about it. I am not waiting to be elected; New...