Debates and the State of the GOP primary

Since last week there were two gubernatorial debates in the GOP primary. We watched both and we don’t believe that the debates settled anything. We weren’t overly impressed with either candidate in the first debate. Steve Lonegan demonstrated his grasp of the issues better than Chris Christie; however, his delivery was off big time. We believe Lonegan is capable of performing better than he did in the first debate. We believe he did so in the second debate.

Christie came across better in the second debate than expected. For those of you who have not noticed, Christie is not a great public speaker, nor is he particularly polished in his delivery. Christie did come off better polished than expected in the first debate. His detail on issues is still vague.

In the first debate, neither candidate lost the debate by making an egregious flub, saying something patently untrue, or looking like they were unqualified for the position. So, probably, you could say that Lonegan won the debate, or it shows that his internal polling indicates enough positive momentum that he doesn’t need to go over the top (more on internal polls in our Freditorial). That’s Lonegan’s shtick, and the fact that he didn’t have to resort to it, tells us something about how his campaign views this race.

On six occasions Chris called the McGreevey-Corzine record a failure. It’s unclear when he ties the two together, which one is dragging the other down.

If the top three issues are still property taxes, the economy and jobs, then each candidate should have done a better job of turning the COAH question, the Supreme Court question and the home rule question into property tax questions. By keeping the discussion in the minutia of inside Trenton policy, each failed an opportunity to talk about how these issues hurt the taxpayer’s bottom line.

Christie parried the thrusts of Lonegan admirably, starting by reminding viewers that Lonegan stretches the truth and uses selective sound-bites, and then when Lonegan stretched the truth and used selective sound-bites, Christie called him on it. That’s a tactic the Christie campaign has already begun to use against Corzine: lay the foundation that Corzine always uses his obscene wealth to sling mud in negative campaigns, and then call him for it when it happens.

Neither candidate came through the screen to inspire a vote for their candidacy, and in that sense, it’s probably a knock against Lonegan. Lonegan’s best characteristic is his enthusiasm in delivering his policy explanations, and he didn’t seem to have any enthusiasm in stock for the first debate.

In the second debate both candidates markedly improved their performances. This was great news for Christie as he came across as more like a statesman who was worthy of his near celebrity status. Christie demonstrated a grasp of the issues comparable to Lonegan’s. His overall performance was strong.

Unfortunately for Christie, Lonegan improved his improved his performance in the second debate as well. This was the Lonegan we expected in the first debate.

Lonegan’s strong performance prevented Christie from doing anything to slow Lonegan’s momentum as self-identified conservatives who are still undecided are starting to break toward Lonegan.

Christie did manage to score some points by calling Lonegan’s flat tax proposal into question repeatedly. Whether or not his claim that Lonegan’s policy would raise taxes on 70% of New Jersey taxpayers is accurate we do not know. But, what we did walk away with is a sense that Christie did do a good job blunting Lonegan on taxes just enough to remain the front runner in the race.

When Christie said that a married couple earning $80,000 a year would see a 40% tax hike under Lonegan’s plan, his point resonated.

On the other hand, Lonegan successfully managed to call Christie on the carpet for not offering many specifics of his own when it comes to taxes and the budget. Lonegan for his part did score when he retorted to Christie “I do know that under my plan a taxpayer earning $70,000 would see their tax rate go from 6.35% down to 2.1%. So you don’t need to be a mathematician to see it will cut taxes for nearly every taxpayer in New Jersey.”

Lonegan did point out that the “expert analysis” of his flat tax plan offered by Christie claiming that it would increase taxes on 70% of New Jersey taxpayers, was offered by Peter Lawrence the State Treasurer in 2001. Lawrence, for those of you who don’t remember advised legislators that there would be no harm in increasing pension payouts by 9% for state workers. This point resonated as well.

Christie attacked Arthur Laffer, a man viewed by many as the godfather of supply side economics, after Lonegan touted Laffer’s endorsement. To the small universe of people who follow this stuff that was probably not a good move. To free market conservatives this would border on heresy.

While Christie was strong, the zingers went to Lonegan. For example after each candidate punted on rating themselves and their opponent’s conservatism on a scale of 1-10, Christie added, “I went to law school because I couldn’t do math or science very well so I can’t give you an answer on a 1-10 scale.” Lonegan immediately interrupted with “And that is reflected in your plan for cutting taxes.”

Despite scoring more zingers and one-liners about Christie’s lack of a tax plan, Lonegan was the victim of the best zinger. In a question about illegal immigration Christie explained that as a prosecutor, it was “guys like you Steve, who hire illegal immigrants that made my job so hard.”

The fact is that this race has tightened. And after two televised debates not much has changed with that regard.

Share