Anti-Christie TV ads set to be broadcast

Star-Ledger
By Jenna Portnoy
April 9, 2013

TRENTON — Television ads aimed at debunking Gov. Chris Christie’s economic record will start airing Wednesday, highlighting the role unlimited, anonymous money will play in this year’s governor’s race.

One New Jersey, a liberal advocacy group, purchased time on cable networks to air a 30-second spot, titled “Real,” that vilifies the Republican governor’s fiscal track record.

“Under Republican Chris Christie, New Jersey had the highest increase in unemployment in the country last year,” a female voice intones, accompanied by images of people shaking their heads with disappointed looks on their faces. "Nearly one in ten jobless. The worst unemployment in the region.”

The ad refers to the state’s 9.3 percent unemployment rate, which exceeds the national average of 7.7 percent, Christie’s veto of a millionaire’s tax and a bill that would raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation.

Though the governor remains popular, a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Wednesday shows 42 percent of voters approve and 49 percent disapprove of his handling of jobs and the economy.

Federal law prohibits issue advocacy groups — known as 501(c)(4)s, after their federal tax code designation — from working with candidates, but the ads could bolster the fledgling campaign of Christie’s Democratic challenger, state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex).

“The sad truth is that New Jersey is falling further and further back due to the wrong-headed policies and misplaced priorities of the past few years,” Joshua Henne, spokesman for One New Jersey, said in a statement. “No amount of hype or hyperbole can hide the fact that middle-class and working families are hurting, while millionaires and powerful interests get special treatment.”

The Christie campaign has touted private sector job growth and likens Buono to former Gov. Jon Corzine.

“The governor has a great record of turning around the economic mess of New Jersey,” campaign strategist Mike DuHaime said, “… Governor Christie has New Jersey moving in the right direction whereas Senator Buono, as the architect of Jon Corzine’s budget, has a disastrous record of raising taxes, recklessly increasing spending and increasing debt which all led to unemployment doubling.”

This year, outside groups that are not required to disclose their donors will spend at least $25 million on the governor’s race, the state’s election watchdog predicts.

Such groups have been active throughout Christie’s term. In a little less than two years, a group founded by the governor’s college friends, the Committee for Our Children’s Future, spent more than $6 million on pro-Christie television commercials.

In 2010, Buono called on the now defunct Reform New Jersey, which spent money promoting Christie’s legislative agenda, to disclose donors, which the group voluntarily did a few months later. In 2011, she made the same request of One New Jersey, but the group has no plans to disclose. David Turner, Buono’s campaign spokesman, said she still supports disclosure of donors.

Christie has not taken a position on a bill (A3863) that would force groups that advertise for or against candidates to say where they get their money. The bill was approved by an Assembly committee last month, but must make it through the full Senate and Assembly before it hits the governor’s desk. Buono supports the measure.

“We just believe … it’s in the best interest of the public to know who’s contributing to these groups and how much these groups are spending in an attempt to influence the election in New Jersey,” said Jeff Brindle,

executive director of Election Law Enforcement Commission. “So much of this money is going to be spent anonymously and it’s not going to discriminate against Republicans or Democrats. It’s going to be on both sides.”

One New Jersey was formed by the Democratic campaign firms Message & Media, operated by consultants Steve DeMicco and Brad Lawrence who helped elect Corzine and former Gov. Jim McGreevey, and Henne’s firm, White Horse Strategies. Both firms have worked for Buono’s state senate campaigns, but are not currently working for her gubernatorial campaign.