Eleven months out, Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex) is trying to gain traction as a candidate for governor of New Jersey in a field that includes a wealthy financier who has never seen the inside of a caucus room, and assorted candidates from a Republican party whose leader has made their brand as popular than anthrax.

Yet it won't be as easy as these circumstances imply.

The presumptive Democratic frontrunner, Phil Murphy, can bury him in an avalanche of money and establishment support, as party chairman John Currie continues to use Wisniewski as a pincushion - most recently labeling him a "failed" legislator. And the Republican field will undoubtedly use Wisniewski's 21-year record in the Legislature as an example of extravagant liberal government.

In anticipation of both, Wisniewski is emphasizing his experience as he kicks off his campaign, mentioning it frequently in a discussion with the Star-Ledger Monday. An edited transcript:

Q. You've said many times that the governorship in this state is too powerful. How do you reconcile that when you're running for the office?

A. The frustration is not only that the office is too powerful, but that the occupant does not want to part with that power. One reason I'm running is to drastically reform the office, because we can't continue to run this state under the conditions our constitution sets forth. When you have a governor who unilaterally declares revenues for the coming year and puts together a budget based on it, it creates a chronic structural deficit, which we've had for a decade or more. The largest reason is the governor's ability to set the rules and the Legislature having no power to change or question it.

Q. Why are you the better alternative to the establishment choice, Phil Murphy?

A. This wouldn't be the first time the establishment was wrong. But more importantly, experience does matter. Our government has become unmanageable, so transactional in getting deals done it's not about delivering the public benefit. You have to have an understanding of how it happened and what should be done to restrain it. The best example was the gas tax debate, when we were forced to give away $1.2 billion a year (in offsets) to fix the transportation system. This was completely irrational: We had county political leaders weighing in with their legislative delegation, insisting that votes be cast for this bill - not because they suddenly got mushy about tax breaks for the super wealthy, but because they wanted a funded TTF and they didn't care about the consequences. And in the deliberations, I had more than one colleague say, 'We can worry about the budget later.' That mentality got us into the fiscal mess we're in. We can no longer engage in the same financial gimmickry just to get by. How does it make sense to give away $12 billion over 10 years? How do you fund pensions? How do you fund health care and education?

Q. You supported the gas tax hike, but opposed the tax cuts that went along with it. Why?

A. As long as I chaired the Transportation Committee, I've said that raising the gas tax is the only sensible way to fund capital improvements, because you help pay for it in proportion to use. But I didn't support it because it's not a long-term funding solution, which is what we needed. This program will only last eight years. Then it will be out of money - zero. I don't know if anybody can rationally say in eight short years we'll be able to come up with some funding mechanism to do all the work that is needed. And in the process, at the price of doing business with this governor, we gave away $12 billion in revenue that we certainly can't afford. And if we could, we should have used that money to fund transportation. Instead, our system is badly underfunded, in terrible need of repair, and it's not managed well.

Q. So what's the solution?

A. The $2 billion a year that's being spent is barely enough to keep things in good repair. The problem is you would need to raise the gas tax even further to spend more money, and there's a point in time where you just can't raise enough money to fix it fast enough. We're going to have to look very closely at public-private partnerships as a way of getting some of this work done, simply because there won't be the resources available in our budget for it. We had all the funding in place for a new trans-Hudson Tunnel. The current governor threw that money away, and now we're literally back at square one on how we're going to fund it.

Q. Speaking of Hudson crossings, you discovered the "time for traffic problems in Fort Lee" email. Are you satisfied that the Legislature has done its job on Bridgegate?

A. There's more we can do, and I'm disappointed we're not doing it. Based on the trial testimony, people who came before the joint committee clearly couldn't tell the truth. So what we've done is set precedent that it's OK to lie to the Legislature without consequences. So I'd like to see them put up a resolution that reconvenes the committee with the same membership and continue our work. Remember, we never got phone records from the governor - we didn't want to interfere with the federal investigation - and there are so many unanswered questions about the involvement of the (unindicted co-conspirators).

Q. We have the nation's second lowest credit rating, and largest pension deficit. If you are governor, can public worker unions expect to take another hit?

A. It's not about public unions, it's about the integrity of government. The state made a commitment to defer compensation to a whole bunch of employees and said, 'We're going to give it to you on the back end when you retire.' If we can walk away from that promise, then it becomes very easy to start walking away from other promises. We can debate on how it wasn't the smartest deal, but it doesn't matter: We made the promise and we need to live up to it because it's the right thing to do, and because government has to have a level of integrity in what it promises.

Q. You support a moratorium on charter school growth, even though parents in our cities consistently pick charters when given a choice. What do you say to them?

A. I support their choice, and in a majority of cases, charters have filled the gap where there is a lack of performance on a locally run system. My concern is that under this administration, charters have begun to morph into boutique schools, not havens for students looking for a challenging alternative. When you have charters created for the purposes of teaching a foreign language, that's a different mission than those created because of a lack of academic opportunity. So until we get the rules under control, we need to hit a pause button. Charters will continue to exist and operate. But we can't create new ones under the rules that this administration proposes, because it will drastically change the playing field. If we take these public dollars and provide more academically rigorous environments for kids, great. But if we're doing it to provide what is essentially an amenity, that's not why we created them.

Q. Will it take a better understanding of public-school budget impacts before you release that pause button?

A. If we can fully fund the School Funding Reform Act, we wouldn't need to have the same level of concern about the diversion from public schools to charters. The problem is we've yet to fully fund the Reform Act. I'd like to do it as Governor - let's look at how the dollars flow and districts perform through that system. That would be one calendar year. And then we can move forward with potentially creating additional charters.

Q. Let's talk energy: An FDU poll says 71 percent prefer clean energy investment to fossil fuels, and 63 percent say we're moving to renewables too slowly. What goals should the next governor set?

A. We have to increase the percentage requirements needed for renewables. I would say that by 2030, we ought to be at a goal of 50 percent renewable. We've done a great job on solar, but the economic incentives have fallen off, and this governor has diverted clean energy money to balance the budget - we have to stop doing that, and provide further incentives for solar installation. Wind energy is an underutilized asset. We're a coastal state, which means our coastal regions have an abundance of wind energy that's untapped.

Q. So how can you beat Phil Murphy, who already has the endorsement of nearly every key party chairman?

A. There are 10 counties that have conventions where the rank and file choose their nominee. Some of those chairs have expressed their preference, but the rank and file still have to make their decision. I plan to spend a lot of time talking to them. Look, we've seen this movie play out before, where a well-intentioned, wealthy individual buys the governor's office. It didn't turn out so well for us, and in my opinion, it led directly to the election of Chris Christie. We can't allow that to happen again. Most importantly, experience matters. And when you look at the problems facing our state, it's not the right time to elect a governor who has to learn on the job. I intend to participate on our public financing system, and that will give our campaign $6.5 million which will allow me to wage a very competitive race. If we see anything by the outcome of recent elections, voters are looking for something different. They are not looking for a coronation, they're not looking to be told what's in their best interest. They think they can figure that out for themselves.

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