newjerseynewsroom.com

BY CARL GOLDEN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev once defined a politician of the West as someone who promises to build a bridge where there is no river.

It was a Russian peasant folksy way of warning against believing a candidate's promises because they were all part of a do-anything-say-anything-to-get-elected campaign strategy.

Rather than chuckle or grimace at the cynicism of Khrushchev's characterization, the campaign of Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie appears to have adopted it as its strategy.

• Rollback the increase in the state's income tax rates;
• Rollback the sales tax increase;
• Cut the state' corporate tax;
• Repeal toll road increases;
• Refuse Federal stimulus funds if they come with strings attached;
• Restore homestead rebates to prior levels;
• Increase funds for higher education;
• Deal with the projected structural budget deficit of $8 billion without raising new tax revenue;
• Cut local property taxes;
• Pay for it all by eliminating waste and demanding a new and better deal with public employee unions.

While tax weary New Jerseyans suffering under an unprecedented personal economic battering can find something to like in any or all of the Christie program elements, they are sufficiently savvy to realize that it is simply not believable.

Despite pleas to add some detail to his tax and spending cut ideas, Christie has steadfastly refused to venture beyond clichés like identifying and eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in state spending.

He's concentrated instead on attacking Corzine's record and ridiculing the property tax reduction plan offered by independent candidate Chris Daggett.

His once seemingly insurmountable lead in polls has shrunk steadily and he's in a tie with Corzine in the low 40 percent range while Daggett has displayed surprising strength by reaching as high as 20 percent.

There is widespread disappointment over Corzine's first term and over what many people see as his inability to deal effectively with the state's tax and spending issues. While polls suggest voters are willing to cut him some slack as a result of being hammered by the worst national recession in decades, they remain restive and frustrated by what they see as a failure to exert stronger leadership to lead the way out of the economic bog.

Daggett has flailed away at both Corzine and Christie; at the Governor for failing to act firmly and decisively and at Christie for failing to utter anything of substance.

Critics have relentlessly pounded away at Christie's stubborn refusal to give any hint of how he'd deal with the state's fiscal difficulties while many of his supporters continue to fret privately that his strategy is deeply flawed, resting as it does on the belief that anger with Corzine is so intense that voters in large numbers will opt for change for the sake of change and specifics be damned.

Christie, they believe, needed to draw a sharper contrast between himself and Corzine by, at the very least, revealing what he'd do differently. Otherwise, they feel, he's asking voters to take a chance, cross their fingers and accept his representations that he can do what he's promised.

While a part of the surge by Daggett can be attributed to a level of popular dissatisfaction with both parties, his achieving heights never before approached by an independent candidate is traceable in larger part to his property tax reduction plan.

Even the Christie campaign understood the growing threat presented by Daggett's increased support and its concern manifested itself in television commercials paid for by the Republican Governors Association tying Daggett together with Corzine and charging the independent's plan was in reality a $4 billion tax hike. Whether Daggett can sustain and build upon his current level of support is problematic; history suggests he cannot.

As a practical matter, though, the window of opportunity for Christie to alter his strategy slammed shut weeks ago. He has no choice but to continue to pledge that his Administration can pull off a seemingly contradictory program of cutting taxes for everybody and increasing spending for many others while he continues to remind voters that he's not Corzine and that a vote for Daggett is a vote denied to Christie.

Next week, we'll learn whether his strategy will be validated or whether his strategists will be excoriated.

In a lengthy piece on the governor's race in the Sunday Magazine of the New York Times, the author wrote:

"Christie was turning the traditional notion of political accountability on its head: not only was it not unprincipled to make a bunch of vague campaign promises that had almost no chance of becoming reality, but in fact it was also the only truly principled thing to do, because politicians never followed through on the details of their proposals anyway."

Like building a bridge where there is no river.

Carl Golden served as press secretary for Govs. Kean and Whitman.