How Phil Murphy squandered a chance to sell his tax increases and budget plans Both sides dig in their heels with 12 days to go.

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

You might have seen Gov. Phil Murphy on television over the weekend taking a premature victory lap through college campuses and suburban neighborhoods, and along the Jersey Shore.

"In Jersey, charting a new direction isn’t easy,'' says Murphy, the eternal optimist. "But finally, things are getting done."

Democratic leaders exploded last month when they read about a possible Murphy media blitz aimed at pressuring lawmakers to back his tax hikes. The ad is nothing of the sort. It casts an almost sunny, Utopian vision — Morning in New Jersey with a smiling Phil Murphy leading the tour.

There is no mention of the budget drama in Trenton that could lead to a state shutdown in less than two weeks.

Instead, Murphy takes credit for some big-ticket issues — fixing mass transit, lowering college tuition and fully funding public schools — that are still being negotiated.

"Join us,'' he says at the end of the 30-second spot.

The ad underscores Murphy's belief that just about any issue can be resolved or any resistance can be conquered by a relentless, stubborn optimism. But it also is a reminder of how Murphy has squandered a four-month opportunity to sell his ambitious $37.4 billion plan to New Jersey voters.

Murphy has put together a bold, liberal vision that includes raising a slew of taxes that, by and large, inflict only a minor cost on middle-class residents. It's a message not many people have heard, because Murphy never launched the hard sell, the "inform and engage" strategy deployed by former Gov. Jim Florio, who backed a massive tax increase and is now touting it in his new political memoir.

In his February budget address, Murphy argued that a small sacrifice will pay for long-neglected needs — new trains, better schools, funded public employee pensions. He was offering a new, post-Christie era bargain, a classically liberal one framed in Wall Street speak. Invest now, he asserted, and reap "multiples" of dividends later.

Yet Murphy never consistently asked voters to buy into the deal. Yes, there was a budget speech. And there were press events where the budget was highlighted. He forcefully made the case when pressed by reporters. There was the 100-days speech at Rutgers, where he noted that tax hikes "are the right thing to do."

But it was a diffuse, disorganized sales job that lacked a core message and repeated focus. The new ad, financed by New Direction New Jersey, ''a nonprofit operated and financed by Murphy supporters,'' is another example. It creates an illusion that New Jersey has morphed into a progressive utopia without acknowledging that the hard work of getting there still needs to be done.

"He tried to do a new issue every day rather than two or three main issues and focus on that,'' said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University poll. "They don't understand the arc of telling a story of the things you want to do. It sounds like he's taking the buckshot approach."

Murphy seems to have misread his 13-point victory in November as a mandate for his tax hikes, when, in fact, voters picked him because he was a clear break from the Christie era. Pushing a nearly $1.7 billion tax hike was also going to be a tough sell, with voters still smarting over a 23-cent hike in the gasoline tax.

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And complicating his plans is Senate President Stephen Sweeney, the Gloucester County Democrat who underwent a swift conversion from champion of a millionaires' tax to staunch opponent. Instead of offering a hand in solidarity to the Democratic governor, Sweeney gave him a thumbs down. The new Assembly speaker, Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, was also less than overjoyed with the proposed sales tax hike.

So with that level of resistance, the uphill challenge was clear. Murphy needed to mount an aggressive public relations campaign. He needed to harness public support and make the legislators squeamish for opposing him. Murphy needed to find a way to bring them to the table.

Yet the sustained campaign never came. He didn't mobilize his staunch allies, public employee unions, for help. He quickly pulled the plug on town halls. The soft-sell television ads may have come too late to make any difference.

Murphy's liberal agenda

Meanwhile, Murphy has turned his attention to just about everything else. He embraced beleaguered liberals who wandered the desert during the Christie years. Murphy signed landmark legislation establishing pay equity for women. He restored funding for Planned Parenthood. And he pushed through tough new gun control measures.

He tore into the much-loathed President Trump, pushing back on just about every Trumpian excess that threatened to bring harm to New Jersey. Meanwhile, Murphy, the newcomer to state politics, seemed caught off guard by the historic tax aversion of Assembly Democrats, who run for office every two years.

Some are skittish about voting to restore the sales tax in advance of 2019 elections, when all 80 Assembly seats are up for reelection — and at the top of the November ballot.

Asked last week if he felt that he adequately sold his budget and tax hikes to the public, Murphy said, "I don't know, is the answer, because I've never done this before. We are going to find out whether we get to a good place or not."

Murphy and the Democratic-controlled Legislature have a June 30 deadline. As the new governor heads into the home stretch of his first budget, it's clear that he does not have the upper hand. Sweeney and Coughlin are pushing plans to finance a budget without his tax hikes.

Sweeney argues that it's time to begin the long-postponed task of cutting government costs, which has historically been a Republican priority.

Murphy, meanwhile, wants to raise taxes and raise spending for transit and schools and for some of his liberal goals, like expanding programs for preschoolers.

As of Friday, the sides seem farther apart than ever. Sweeney vowed that Democratic lawmakers will approve their own budget with the goal of sending it to Murphy by June 21.

"We never thought we'd be fighting a Democratic governor over Democratic priorities," Sweeney said Friday, referring to his call to increase aid to "underfunded" school districts.

"But these programs represent New Jersey values. If you cut them out, you change who we are as a state. We did not come this far to go backwards,'' he said.

Murphy released his own testy response — but without slamming the door shut in the Legislature's face.

“I have a simple approach: Fix what’s broken and make sure that everyone is paying their fair share. New Jersey didn’t elect me to paper over problems with the same failed policies of the past,'' he said in a statement.

It lacked the celebratory or confident tone of his first ad. He didn't ask the legislators to "join" him. It may be too late for that.