Charles Stile

Political Columnist, @PoliticalStile

Assemblyman John Wisniewski strode into an upscale, historic Metuchen restaurant on Wednesday in a navy blue business suit, looking very much the part of an established lawyer-legislator, a role he has inhabited for nearly two decades.

He could have easily blended into the scenery of the Chamber of Commerce-looking crowd packed into the dining room.

So, it was a little jarring to hear Sayreville Democrat describe himself as the Bernie Sanders-inspired insurgent candidate for governor, vowing to buck the party establishment that has swiftly closed ranks behind Phillip Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany and an ex-Goldman Sachs executive.

“When the insiders had a choice as to who is going to be the next governor, they went with the guy with the big checkbook,’’ Wisniewski said, striking the populist, anti-establishment tone that he honed earlier this year as chairman of Sanders’ New Jersey campaign.

Wisniewski, 54, who enjoyed a brief stint as a much-sought cable news guest while he was co-chairing the legislative probe into the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, is among a crop of 2017 candidates for governor positioning themselves as the new populists, eager to tap the deep voter discontent that fueled Sanders’ surprisingly robust challenge of Hillary Clinton and carried Donald J. Trump into the White House.

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, is casting herself as an anti-tax populist on a popular Central Jersey radio station. Bill Brennan, an activist and former Teaneck firefighter who is seeking a special prosecutor to investigate Gov. Chris Christie’s role in the George Washington Bridge scandal, announced plans last week to run for governor as an “our revolution” Democrat and under “the Bernie Sanders mantle.” Steve Rogers, a Trump supporter from Nutley, pledged to “restore and renew New Jersey’’ by shaking up the political status quo.

Then there is Wisniewski, a two-decade Trenton veteran whose political career was financed by the usual roster of special interests — trade unions, developers, pharmaceutical companies — now railing against the closed-door machinations of a party that nurtured his career, and which he later lead as state chairman. Wisniewski became state chairman in a deal brokered by the very party insiders that he now criticizes as dictatorial and detached from the grass-roots anger.

“I’ve seen how the inside track works on Democratic politics," he said, "where no dissent is allowed, no discussion is brooked, that what you’ve got to do is listen to a handful of party leaders who are going to decide for me and for everybody else who our president should be, who our governor should be, and we ought to just sit back and accept it, because, after all, they know better.''

That kind of anti-machine rhetoric is not going to win him any friends among the Democratic Party leadership, which has pretty much invested in Murphy, despite the inevitable comparisons to the last former Goldman Sach’s millionaire who wooed the party with his checkbook, Jon. S. Corzine. Corzine’s fumbling term from 2006 to 2010 made him easy prey for Chris Christie, the aggressive U.S. attorney who would go on to dominate New Jersey politics for the next seven years. But Murphy’s high-energy outreach — it’s hard to find a Democratic official anywhere who hasn’t met Murphy in person or who hasn’t indirectly benefited from his checkbook — melted away intraparty fears that Murphy, who served as the Democratic National Committee’s chief fundraiser from 2006 to 2009, is a sequel to Corzine.

As it stands, it’s highly unlikely that party chieftains will reconsider their decision, despite Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss to Trump last month — a traumatic event Wisniewski cites as a cautionary tale about the risks of an early “coronation” of a nominee.

“I don’t think Phil Murphy has been anointed,’’ said John Currie, the state Democratic Party chairman, who then proceeded to downplay Wisniewski’s strongest selling point — his Inspector Javert-like role in pursuing the investigation of the lane-closing scandal.

Wisniewski, with co-chair Sen. Loretta Weinberg of Teaneck, stubbornly pursued the case when most Democrats privately doubted the case or shied away from challenging the Christie administration. After the scandal erupted in January 2014, Wisniewski became a hot commodity for cable news producers as the scandal became a national story. The case has proved to be Christie’s undoing, but party officials have not been rushing to reward Wisniewski.

“No one knows Wisniewski other that (voters) in his district,’’ Currie said. “He got a little play on (MSNBC’s) 'Rachel Maddow' show. I don’t know how many people watch it. I’m not that concerned, to tell you the truth.”

A Fairleigh Dickinson/Public Mind poll last week found that veteran Wisniewski is unknown to 69 percent of New Jersey voters. Yet, Wisniewski is undeterred.

He draws inspiration from another Democratic Party outsider who upended the conventional wisdom 20 years ago, despite having no name recognition, little money and no support from the party chieftains. W. Michael Murphy (no relation to Phil), the former Morris County prosecutor and stepson of the late Gov. Richard J. Hughes, entered the 1997 Democratic primary for governor with polls showing that only 1 percent of potential voters had ever heard of him.

But Murphy’s jaunty, off-the-line campaign made a splash with humorous television commercials — one featured an everyman Murphy touring the state in a minivan — and touting populist proposals, such as raising taxes on smokers to fund public schools and a vow to eliminate beach-tag fees. “Free the beaches,’’ Murphy said.

In the end, Murphy took 21 percent of the vote and carried Mercer and four smaller counties, and came in second in 12 other counties. He finished in third place, behind then-state Sen. Jim McGreevey of Middlesex and former South Jersey Rep. Rob Andrews, but Murphy showed that a little imagination and an appeal to the grass roots could gain traction.

Wisniewski believes that by reprising a modern, Murphy-styled campaign, boosted this time by Sanders' backing — the Vermont senator said he intends to campaign for Wisniewski next year — and using his ability to reach donors and voters through social media, he can seize the nomination.

“That candidate (Murphy) had about two or three months to raise money and get a message out and came close; we’re talking about three times the amount of time that he had. We’re talking about a different generation where online activity counts as much as 21 county chairs,” said Wisniewski, who has hired Robert Becker, a Sanders’ campaign operative who served as Michael Murphy’s campaign manager in the 1997 race.

“The old logic of how you approach a statewide campaign doesn’t really apply anymore, and we’ve never really had an opportunity to test it,’’ he said.

Yet, some doubt that Michael Murphy’s model can be successfully retooled for a modern campaign. For one thing, Murphy caught fire at a time when the power of the county committees was much weaker. County parties had been governed by a state law requiring them to hold “open” primaries for gubernatorial candidates, but the state Superior Court ruling struck down the law in 1994.

The 1997 campaign was the first time in 20 years in which party leaders were allowed to place their favored gubernatorial candidate on the same ballot “line” listing endorsed candidates for freeholder, sheriff and town council. It gave county leaders enhanced power over the primaries, but the new system had yet to be tested, and the results that year were mixed — party stalwarts didn’t automatically fall into line behind county leader’s endorsement.

That environment gave an outsider like Murphy room to flourish. But since then, the county chairmen have tightened their grip on the system, to the point where no candidate has any chance of nabbing the nomination unless he or she captures the endorsements of key, Democratic-rich counties. All of New Jersey’s 21 county parties are unified behind Murphy.

“This time the one with all the lines will probably win,’’ said Murphy, a Trenton lobbyist who is now supporting Phil Murphy’s candidacy.

And Wisniewski won’t be the only candidate using social media to raise money and visibility. Murphy has already run advertising on apps and social media news sites.

Yet, Murphy’s campaign has adopted a leave-nothing-to-chance approach, scouring Wisniewksi's record in Trenton for votes that they say belie his posture as a left-leaning acolyte of Sanders'. They also point to the municipal work his eight-employee law firm has won over the years, and the campaign contributions he’s pumped into the party infrastructure.

“There is no greater insider that John Wisniewski, who is one of the architects of the mess New Jersey now finds itself in,’’ said Julie Roginsky, a Murphy strategist.

Wisniewski dismisses suggestions that he’s a consummate insider, and noted that his embracing of Sanders is “a logical progression of where I’ve been,’’ a centrist Democrat who increasingly found himself at odds with party leadership over high-profile priorities. He opposed Corzine’s plans to privatize the New Jersey Turnpike, a move that was widely unpopular in his Middlesex County district, which is traversed by the Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and other major commuter arteries.

Yet, he also voted against the 2011 overhaul of public employee health and pension benefits, a bipartisan deal brokered by Christie and Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Gloucester County Democrat. The law raised workers' retirement age, forced them to pay higher amounts toward their benefits and ended cost-of-living increases for pensioners. Wisniewski cites his role in investigating the lane closures as an example of defying the conventional wisdom of the party hierarchy.

“When the investigation started under the Assembly Transportation Committee, there were a number of Democrats who said, ‘John, do you really want to do this? This will be embarrassing for you. It’s a traffic jam. This guy is popular, and …we have things we need to get done and we don’t want you messing that up,'” he said.

Wisniewski promises to march to his own tune this year as an outsider — even if the powerful insiders in his own party aren't listening.



