newjerseynewsroom.com

BY JOE TYRRELL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

In the heart of Chris Daggett country, voters seem as confused as the opinion polls about what impact the independent gubernatorial candidate will have in Tuesday's election.

An unscientific survey in Basking Ridge found some enthusiasts each for former Republican Daggett, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and GOP nominee Chris Christie.

But for every potential voter who professed support for one of those candidates, there was another who was undecided on whether to support any of them.

"I'm probably not going to vote, I wouldn't know who to vote for," said one woman, who declined to give her name. "I don't like either of them," she explained, referring to Corzine and Christie. Asked about Daggett, she tentatively amended, "I'm still considering him."

To have any chance, local resident Daggett needs to run strongly in comfortable suburbs like Bernards Township. But Christie does, too. While Somerset County does not have enough votes to put a Republican over the top, few could hope to carry the state without it.

This year, even Corzine has a chance, at least to minimize damage. In 2008, for the first time, the number of registered Democrats surpassed Republicans in Somerset County. That presaged a rousing victory for Barack Obama, but produced mixed results farther down the ticket.

Although they ran the strongest race of any Democrats in the past 30 years, Montgomery Mayor Cecilia Xie Birge, a one-time democracy activist in China, and North Plainfield Councilman Doug Singleterry came up just short for county freeholder. They are back on the ballot this year, and both parties are cautious.

Republicans have adopted a party line, uniformly telling voters not to waste their support on Daggett, a one-time top aide to GOP Gov. Thomas Kean.

Daggett "has a lot of friends and neighbors, and some of them will probably vote for him," said Somerset Republican Chariman Dale Florio. "But they have to weigh that against the chance to bring real change to the state with Chris Christie."

Democrats expect Daggett, although hidden away in a corner of the ballot, to run strongly in Somerset. But they are uncertain whether this hurts, helps or has no effect on their chances.

"I think Chris Daggett is going to do very well in Somerset," said Peg Schaffer, the county Democratic chairwoman. "There are a lot of socially liberal Republicans in the county."

As a former state and federal environmental official running with the backing of the Sierra Club, Daggett is that most endangered of species, a fairly liberal Republican. His habitat is an area once represented in Congress by Millicent Fenwick, scary territory for the red state radicals who dominate the national Republican Party.

Although they pooh-pooh his chances, the Somerset Republican freeholder candidates clearly are hoping a little Daggett rubs off on them. During their political careers, incumbent Jack Ciattarelli and Pat Scaglione, the Bridgewater council president, have been hard working and thoughtful. They are also describing themselves as independent.

Ciattarelli pointed out that he has expressed different opinions from his four freeholder colleagues, and succeeded in getting them to form the state's first county-level council to promote energy efficiency.

While a leader of the majority party in Bridgewater, Scaglione said he has taken controversial stands, such as helping kill a developer's proposal to provide space for municipal offices. That also would have meant more development, and it was better for the township to pay for a new building itself, he said.

Democratic ads mock the Republican claims of independence with bobble-head dolls, heads bouncing up and down to emulate 5,626 "yes" votes in 18 months, with just one "no" vote from Ciattarelli.

Many of those were routine measures, Ciattarelli noted. During a similar period the larger Middlesex County freeholder board, all Democrats, cast roughly three times as many votes, also with one "no," he said.

"I feel very strongly that it doesn't matter if it's Democrats in Middlesex County or Republicans in Somerset County," Birge said. "How can you defend one-party rule, say you don't need independent voices or watchdogs? If that's what you think, why even have elections?"