New Jersey Sen. Lautenberg Appears Early Favorite, Despite Weak Ratings

[Ron Burgundy]

CQPolitics.com - As Democrats set out to defend their tenuous Senate majority in the 2008 elections, New Jersey may seem like an unlikely source of heartburn. The contest coincides with the presidential election, and New Jersey has favored the Democratic contenders for the White House in the past four elections. Plus, no Republican has won an election for the Senate in the state since incumbent Clifford P. Case in 1972.

The Democratic incumbent who is up next year, Frank R. Lautenberg, first won a Senate seat in 1982 and was re-elected in 1988 and even in the tough Democratic year of 1994. He chose to retire rather than run for re-election in 2000, but made an unexpected comeback in 2002 when he won under unusually strained circumstances — filling in after Democratic Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, facing career-threatening ethics controversies, belatedly dropped out of the race.

But Lautenberg, who turned 83 in January, has an image that is far more gruff than grandfatherly, and that has contributed to public approval ratings that are subpar as he heads into another election year.
Despite its long losing streak in Senate races, the New Jersey GOP can point to some races that they made much closer than had been expected.

In 1990, Christine Todd Whitman — who would later be elected governor three years later — forced seemingly unbeatable Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley to the wire. Lautenberg himself had to fight to hold off veteran state lawmaker Garabed “Chuck” Haytaian in 1994, while in 2000, Wall Street financier Jon Corzine (now the governor of New Jersey) just edged out Republican Rep. Bob Franks, despite spending more than $60 million of his own money on the campaign.

In an unusual statistical anomaly, all three of these races were decided by 3 percentage points, with the Democratic winner taking 50 percent and the Republican loser finishing with 47 percent.

And while President Bush’s state showing in his 2004 re-election contest wasn’t exactly a cause for Republican celebration, Democrat John Kerry’s 7 percentage-point edge looks modest compared to 2000 party nominee Al Gore’s 16-point margin over Bush.

Yet it is far from clear at this early point in the 2008 campaign cycle that the Republicans will be able to field a challenger who presents a serious threat to Lautenberg.

The Senate contest would turn into a battle of the titans if Lautenberg were challenged by either Whitman, who headed the federal Environment Protection Agency during Bush’s first term, or former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who served from 1981 to 1989 and more recently co-chaired the federal commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

But Whitman and Kean have rebuffed previous entreaties to return to the political fray and there are no signs so far that 2008 will be any different.

State Republican officials will ponder giving a second shot to state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., the namesake son of the popular former governor, who lost to interim Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez (news, bio, voting record) in the 2006 race for a full term in the seat Menendez filled after Corzine vacated it to take over as governor.

It is hardly unprecedented for the New Jersey GOP to give a second chance to a losing statewide candidate. Whitman was a successful example of this. Businessman Doug Forrester, who initially challenged Torricelli in 2002 and ended up losing to replacement Lautenberg by 54 percent to 44 percent, claimed the party’s nomination for governor in 2005, though he lost that race to Corzine.

But the younger Kean is noncommital about a possible challenge to Lautenberg. Spokesman Justin Richards said, “Senator Kean’s first priority is running for re-election to the State Senate this year. He has not yet discussed running for U.S. Senate in 2008 or governor in 2009 with his family, but will not close the door on either option.”

And there is uncertainty within Republican ranks, based on the 2006 outcome, about whether Kean — the current state Senate minority whip — could do with a little more political seasoning.

Enjoying near-universal (albeit largely inherited) name recognition and running against a Democrat in Menendez who was plagued by news stories about ethics controversies in his past, Kean for a brief time enjoyed a small lead in some polls.

But by November, Kean’s practically one-note focus on the corruption allegations against Menendez wore thin, and the incumbent — aided, to be sure, by the year’s overall pro-Democratic political tide — won by a relatively comfortable vote of 53 percent to 45 percent.

David P. Rebovich, associate professor of political science at New Jersey’s Rider University, said Kean’s “disappointing performance” against Menendez has hardly endeared him to New Jersey Republicans. He added that Kean may be more inclined to run for governor after Corzine leaves office.

After Kean, the Republican bench looks a bit thin. Still-youthful Rep. Mike Ferguson, regarded by some Republicans as having statewide potential, has said he will take a pass on the Senate race. First elected to the House in 2000 when he was 30 years old, Ferguson in 2006 had to battle to hold off Democratic state Rep. Linda Stender by less than 2 percentage points in the politically competitive 7th District.

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, who has made headlines for investigating political corruption in New Jersey, is seen as a dream candidate by some state Republicans. But he passed up a challenge to Menendez in 2006 and told the Associated Press in early January of this year that he planned to stay in his prosecutorial position through at least early 2008, making a Senate bid unlikely.

Despite his tepid approval ratings, Lautenberg makes a daunting target. The multi-millionaire founder of a leading paycheck processing firm, Lautenberg has the capacity, if he so needs, to substantially finance his own campaign.

His hard-nosed style enabled him in 1982 to defeat Republican Millicent Fenwick, a well-liked and quirky congresswoman reputed to be the model for the Lacey Davenport character in the Doonesbury cartoon. In 1988, Republicans thought they had found the perfect candidate in Pete Dawkins, a former Heisman Trophy-winning football star for Army who went on to be a highly decorated general and then a wealthy Wall Street businessman; but Lautenberg defeated him with the aid of a then up-and-coming campaign consultant named James Carville.

Lautenberg’s staunchly pro-labor voting record likely will again help him in a state where unions retain more clout than in most of the rest of the country. Lautenberg received 100 percent ratings on key votes from the AFL-CIO in 2005 and from the Service Employees International Union in 2006.

Rebovich attributes Lautenberg’s lackluster popularity to New Jerseyans’ generally negative view of their politicians fueled by complaints about high taxes, the tawdry personal scandal that forced Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey to resign in 2004, “and the successful prosecution of over 80 public officials the last five years by Christopher Christie.”

But he also indicated that Lautenberg has left himself vulnerable with an abrasive style and mediocre record of legislative accomplishments. “Lautenberg has never been associated with any major legislation or policy accomplishments,” Rebovich said. “And, his political style is that of the attack dog.”

Indeed, without a committee chairmanship or leadership position, Lautenberg has tried to make the most of Senate seat by establishing himself as one of the most vociferous critics of the Bush administration.

During the 2004 presidential election, Lautenberg took to the Senate floor to respond to attacks on the military record of Democratic nominee Kerry, a Senate colleague from Massachusetts. Brandishing a cartoon of a chicken hawk, he ridiculed Vice President Dick Cheney, who did not serve during the Vietnam War: “We know who the chicken hawks are,” bellowed Lautenberg from the well. “They talk tough on national defense and military issues and cast aspersions on others. When it was their turn to serve, where were they? AWOL, that’s where they were.”

Lautenberg’s lack of standing in the Senate’s seniority system, though he is winding up his fourth term overall, is the result of a broken promise. Senate Democratic leadership, as they courted Lautenberg to replace Torricelli on the ballot in 2002, assured him they would reinstate his seniority — a vow they abandoned after the election.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20070222/pl_cq_politics/newjerseysenlautenbergappearsearlyfavoritedespitew eakratings [link]