Jersey GOP looks to the future

New Jersey's Republican Party is getting attention from celebrity candidates after Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie's Nov. 3 victory over Democratic Gov. Corzine.

But as the Grand Old Party dreams of future conquests, the question arises: Will it sharpen its criteria for candidates?

"They have not been enormously effective in how they handled candidate recruitment in the past, but this is certainly a new era," Montclair State University political scientist Brigid Harrison said. "The fact is, they will have more candidates than in the past."

Two celebrities have cast flirtatious glances at the party in recent weeks.

Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs has implied through a spokesman that he could be a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in 2012. Former Eagles offensive tackle and current San Diego Charger Jon Runyan is interested in a U.S. House seat. While Dobbs has long been a reporter and commentator, Runyan has not been involved in politics.

Both are speaking through paid representatives at this point, leaving gaping questions about how serious they are and why they would run for office in New Jersey.

Dobbs is speaking through Robert Dilenschneider, who has said a Dobbs Senate candidacy is "definitely one of the options on the table." But there have been signals that Dobbs could run as an independent or even might run for president.

Runyan has spoken only through a Republican consultant to say he would try to unseat U.S. Rep. John Adler, a Democrat in the predominantly Republican district that spans Burlington and Ocean Counties and includes Cherry Hill in Camden County. But at a news conference announcing his signing with the Chargers last week, Runyan told sports reporters that he wasn't fully committed to running for the House.

He would not be the only one in the field. While Runyan is the favorite of Burlington County's Republican establishment, he is not on the short list in Ocean County, which, like Burlington, has a powerful GOP organization.

In recent years, Republicans have looked for self-funders - whether they had political experience or not - simply because the party couldn't keep up with the Democrats' money machine. Because Democrats command majorities in the Legislature and Congress and have a hold on the governor's office through mid-January, they have raised vastly more funding than Republicans have.

Before this year's governor's race, the Republican Party seemed to be sounding its death rattle.

The GOP's 2008 Senate race was a game of musical chairs for rich people. While feisty right-wing candidates were mounting poorly funded campaigns, the party establishment shunned them, believing they could not win a general election in a deep-blue state.

So the party backed Anne Evans Estabrook, a millionaire developer. She dropped out of the race in March 2008 after a minor stroke. For about a week, Andy Unanue was the candidate of choice. And no wonder: Unanue is the millionaire heir to the Goya Foods fortune. His candidacy imploded after party leaders couldn't persuade him to leave a Colorado ski vacation to announce his run. They eventually tapped former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer, who was badly underfunded and lent his campaign $300,000, only to see Democratic U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg vanquish him.

For a while, the GOP looked at another multimillionaire - biotech entrepreneur John Crowley - to run in this year's gubernatorial race.

Estabrook, Unanue, and Crowley had two things in common: They were wealthy self-funders, and they had little political experience.

Christie was different. Though affluent, he did not finance his own campaign, and he had a political history. He also had some name recognition from his years as a U.S. attorney. He could set the mold for future candidates, or not.

Without talking specifically about Dobbs or Runyan, state committee chairman Jay Webber, a Morris County assemblyman, said, "I would never support a candidate simply because he or she could self-fund." But personal wealth wouldn't hurt, he said.

"Republicans, because they now have a governor's seat, will have an ability to raise money, and because you have an ability to raise money, you might get eager, ambitious, attractive, smart candidates who get real party support," Rider University political scientist Ben Dworkin said. "Those candidates might have been on the sidelines when the Republican Party didn't have the ability to attract them."

These days, the party can be choosy, he said.

"They're not desperate for victory just for the sake of a victory. They won with a strong conservative candidate in Chris Christie in a Democratic state. Now they want to make sure that Runyan or Dobbs or whomever else is expressing interest is actually a legitimate Republican on the issues," Dworkin said.

And those candidates are going to have to be strong in their own right, he said, noting: "This isn't tiddledywinks. It's New Jersey politics."