Bret Schundler

TRENTON - Former Education Commissioner Bret Schundler on Wednesday emphatically denied misleading Gov. Christie about an error on the state's application for Race to the Top funds that may have cost the state $400 million. Schundler, who was fired by Christie on Friday, accepted responsibility for the error but said he had not misinformed the governor. He released a seven-page chronology detailing his version of the events leading to his dismissal, along with a handful of documents to support his story.

In the opening stages of his Republican campaign for governor, Bret Schundler moved swiftly to corner the support of two key political factions: opponents of abortion rights and gun control. His first major fund-raising appeal came with endorsements from Pat Robertson, Dan Quayle and Bill Bennett, national spokesmen for the Christian Right and leaders in the battle to make social conservatives dominant in the Republican Party. Six months later and locked in a primary contest against former U.S. Rep. Bob Franks, Schundler has long since moved to expand his base and is highlighting pocketbook issues such as property taxes, highway tolls, and economic advances in Jersey City, where he is mayor.

With opponent Bret Schundler surging in the Republican governor's race and his own campaign scrambling to recover, Bob Franks opened up a sharp new line of attack against Schundler yesterday in a bid to prevent the biggest upset in New Jersey politics in more than two decades. Franks launched his assault in response to a Quinnipiac University poll that had Schundler leading by 15 percentage points among Republicans likely to vote in Tuesday's primary. Among all registered Republicans, Schundler and Franks were tied.

Concluding that a run for governor was too big a gamble, Republican Christopher J. Christie shook up the 2005 campaign yesterday by declaring that he would stay put as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey. The decision was made after it became apparent that Christie would not have a clear path to the Republican gubernatorial nomination but instead would face a treacherous primary. Christie, whose high-profile corruption prosecutions of Democrats and Republicans over the last three years made him a rising political star, had wrestled for months over whether to test that popularity in a campaign for governor.

Martin Z. Braun missed the point in his article about the Croft Farm (June 11, "Tenancy of township-owned house questioned"). Despite having spoken to me at length, he failed to state the facts. Marge and Paul Della Vecchia have a job to do at the Croft Farm; they are the caretakers, not "tenants. " Both are longtime township employees. Paul Della Vecchia has been in charge of the township's athletic programs for 20 years. Braun did not bother to report that when the township purchased the Croft Farm in 1984, vandals frequently damaged the empty house, prompting the decision in 1988 to encourage a municipal employee to live there as a caretaker.

Forrester will cut taxes I urge my fellow Republicans to vote for Doug Forrester in the primary election. The importance of electing an honest, conservative businessman such as Doug Forrester to represent the Republican Party cannot be understated. As many of you know, I have been in the forefront of efforts to root out corruption and demand that New Jersey government uphold the legislative Code of Ethics. Doug Forrester also detests corruption and government waste, and he will see to it that ethical standards are not only enforced but also strengthened.

More than two dozen Democratic women running for the legislature criticized Republican gubernatorial nominee Bret D. Schundler yesterday on a range of issues, including reproductive choice, sprawl, auto insurance, education and gun control. They said they could not name a single issue on which they agreed with Schundler, who is running against Democrat James E. McGreevey. "Independent women, Republican and Democratic women are going to help Jim McGreevey over the top because Bret Schundler is so out of step with the things that we stand for, as far as our families are concerned," said Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg (D., Bergen)

Since the day he nearly beat Christie Whitman in 1997, Democrat James E. McGreevey has worked tirelessly toward one goal: becoming governor of New Jersey. Last night, he got his wish. New Jersey residents chose moderation over experimentation, decisively rejecting Republican risk-taker Bret Schundler. Mr. McGreevey, 44, mayor of Woodbridge, persuaded voters that Mr. Schundler's ideas on guns, abortion and education were too far out of the mainstream for New Jersey. He convinced them that he could better safeguard the state in this time of national crisis and economic uncertainty.

In a major victory for Bret Schundler, state election officials yesterday ruled that his campaign for governor does not have to repay the New Jersey Scholarship Fund $885,000 for the cost of television ads that the nonprofit organization ran last year featuring him. Buoyed by the Election Law Enforcement Commission's unanimous decision, the Schundler campaign immediately called on Bob Franks, Schundler's opponent in the Republican primary, to...

Gov. Christie sacrificed points on New Jersey's application for $400 million in federal schools aid rather than appear to give in to the state's largest teachers union, his former education chief testified Thursday. In an appearance under subpoena before the Senate Legislative Oversight Committee, Bret Schundler said Christie made "a bad decision" when he insisted on scrapping compromises with the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) that had won the union's support for the state's Race to the Top grant application.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Trenton-Ewing ranks fifth among "America's Brainiest Metros," up there with Boston and other cosmopolitan citadels of scholarship. Actually, I was surprised Trenton-Ewing is a metro area. What's next? Sewell-Turnersville? Willingboro-Westampton? Whatever. Our national list-o-mania ("America's Five Finest . . . Figs!") may be symptomatic of an epidemic of mass meaninglessness, but the latest ranking can certainly boast great timing. This smarty-pants survey arrives right after Bret Schundler's spectacular flunk-out as New Jersey's chief of education - and as he and the class bully, Gov. Christie, keep up their bare-knuckle schoolyard brawl.

Bret Schundler is a man of impressive administrative and political credentials hired only this year to head the New Jersey Department of Education. None of that stopped Gov. Christie from firing him over a bureaucratic error a little more than a week ago. An upright, cerebral sort, Schundler drew the line when Christie accused him of lying, issuing a seven-page chronology - with appendixes - to refute the governor's story. Think this first bona fide disaster of his administration got Christie to change his firin' ways?

TRENTON - Former Education Commissioner Bret Schundler on Wednesday emphatically denied misleading Gov. Christie about an error on the state's application for Race to the Top funds that may have cost the state $400 million. Schundler, who was fired by Christie on Friday, accepted responsibility for the error but said he had not misinformed the governor. He released a seven-page chronology detailing his version of the events leading to his dismissal, along with a handful of documents to support his story.

Gov. Christie shed lots of credibility in the blundering drama that led him to fire his handpicked education commissioner, Bret Schundler. For those of you who may have missed a riveting show last week, the drama began when the U.S. Education Department decided not to award New Jersey $400 million in a school grant program called "Race to the Top. " (Pennsylvania didn't win a grant, either). Ten states received this coveted aid. The federal government rated states' applications on a numerical system, awarding points in several categories that reflected each state's level of commitment to education reform.

In the end, the pragmatic side of New Jersey Republicans won out in the nomination Tuesday of Douglas Forrester as their candidate for governor. For all the sparring over issues and the cascade of TV ads, the decision by a large number of Republican voters came down to a single, cold calculation: Forrester had a better chance than Bret Schundler to defeat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon S. Corzine in November. The electability factor not only propelled Forrester to victory but helped the GOP dodge a campaign bullet, according to GOP officials, political operatives and independent analysts.

Forrester will cut taxes I urge my fellow Republicans to vote for Doug Forrester in the primary election. The importance of electing an honest, conservative businessman such as Doug Forrester to represent the Republican Party cannot be understated. As many of you know, I have been in the forefront of efforts to root out corruption and demand that New Jersey government uphold the legislative Code of Ethics. Doug Forrester also detests corruption and government waste, and he will see to it that ethical standards are not only enforced but also strengthened.

The seven Republican gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey clashed one last time yesterday before Tuesday's primary, but no one scored the kind of victory seemingly needed to change the dynamics of a race that centers on the two front-runners - Bret Schundler and Doug Forrester. Sparks flew during the debate as Schundler and Forrester accused one another of unfair attacks late in the campaign. And frustration showed in the hard-edged responses of some of the other candidates who have been unable to emerge as serious contenders.

"We're running a guerrilla campaign," exclaimed Bill Pascoe, Bret Schundler's spokesman, about his candidate's plans for the last week of the Republican gubernatorial primary. That's because the 2001 GOP nominee does not have the money to match the spending of Doug Forrester, the other front-runner in the race. Forrester, who lost the 2002 U.S. Senate race to Frank Lautenberg after Robert Torricelli dropped out, is running ads on the network affiliates in Philadelphia and New York as well as on cable television and radio throughout New Jersey.

New Jersey Republican voters have a deep field of candidates seeking to become their nominee for governor. The seven men in the June 7 GOP primary offer a wide range of experience in public office and the private sector. While polls suggest a two-way race between businessman Doug Forrester and former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, several of the lesser-known candidates have proven they belong in the campaign. The seven are running to take on the presumptive Democratic nominee, U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, who will spend tens of millions of his personal fortune on the fall campaign.