From the Trenton Times -
Jumping into the political fray
Thursday, October 03, 2002
By JIM GOODMAN
Democrat Frank Lautenberg, buoyed by a state Supreme Court ruling putting his name on the Nov. 5 ballot, leapt into his campaign for the U.S. Senate last night with a blistering attack on President Bush and New Jersey Republicans who tried to block his entry into the election.
There is no guarantee the U.S. Supreme Court won't reverse the New Jersey court's decision, but Lautenberg all but declared the court fight won and called on Democrats to rally around him in an all-out battle for union rights, Social Security benefits and a woman's right to have an abortion.
At a rally last night in the ballroom of the Trenton War Memorial, the 78-year-old Lautenberg had some 500 supporters, most wearing union T-shirts, stomping their feet and cheering full throttle as he promised them he will campaign with the same kind of vigor he employed when he won his first term in 1982, his second in 1988 and his third in 1994.
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Supporters point out that Lautenberg began two of those campaigns as an underdog and won the third in a year when Republicans scored huge victories in Congress.
The Democrat, who grew up poor in Paterson and became a self-made millionaire businessman, barely alluded to his opponent, Republican Douglas Forrester, as he promised to fight for laws to protect retirement benefits and push for measures to punish corrupt corporate executives.
Lautenberg charged that the Republican effort to keep his name off the ballot was "an attempt to roll back the tide, to not permit people to have a voice and to encourage the kind of leadership that President Bush would like to have" in the U.S. Senate.
He said Bush wants a Republican-controlled Senate and conservative Supreme Court that oppose the kind of rights Democratic presidents and Congresses have fought for on behalf of working people and women.
"He (Bush) makes no bones about it," Lautenberg told the cheering Democrats who rallied for him.
Lautenberg took special aim at Bush's decision to limit stem cell research.
The president, he said, has no right to say "no" to people - like Christopher Reeve and Nancy Reagan - who say that stem cell research is essential if we are going to cure some diseases, including bone and memory diseases.
He said the president also has no right to ban essential medical research here, even as it goes on in other countries.
The attack on Bush echoed the kind of criticism Lautenberg aimed at President Reagan when Lautenberg was one of the most liberal members of the Senate for 18 years.
Although Lautenberg's voice sounded a bit rusty at times, it pumped up the audience.
The rally was stacked with union members, but their enthusiasm appeared far more spontaneous than what was on view a week ago in the same hall when U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle exhorted union members to do their utmost to rescue U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli's failing campaign.
One of the union members at last week's rally was asked yesterday what happened to the Torricelli T-shirts she and others wore last week. "It's in the crash-and-burn file," she said. "He's just the latest in a long list of people who have crashed and burned around here."
Torricelli abandoned his bid for a second term on Monday, a victim of voter polls that showed him losing support almost daily while new revelations about improper gifts he received as a senator were being reported.
Torricelli was "severely admonished" by a bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee last July. More recently, a letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office described other charges against Torricelli as credible.
AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech was on the stage with Gov. James E. McGreevey, U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine and state Democratic Committee Chairwoman Bonnie Watson Coleman as they gathered around Lautenberg last night.
Two days earlier, Wowkanech was on hand as Torricelli announced he was quitting as a candidate. As Torricelli delivered his tearful farewell, Wowkanech appeared to brush back tears of his own. The labor leader said last night, however, that he wasn't crying.
"I wasn't crying," he asserted. "I feel sorry for him, but I wasn't crying."
Lautenberg strategists say the new Democratic candidate is ready to spend $15 million in the final weeks of the campaign. That would include money raised by Lautenberg, his own money and so-called "soft money" from national Democratic sources.
With "soft money," political groups can run TV ads and mailings that mostly attack opponents without naming the candidate being helped. As a result of recent campaign reform laws, this is supposed to be the last year that "soft money" can be used.
Lautenberg is expected to begin airing his first TV commercials this weekend.
Copyright 2002 The Times. Used with permission. |
