Winter 2004 Edition     

Ed Trawinski:  After the Race   After his loss in the bitterly contested 2003 race for State Assembly,  Fair Lawn News talked with former Fair Lawn Mayor Ed Trawinski about his campaign.       How much campaigning did you do? Non-stop beginning in January of 2003 when I made the decision to try to obtain my party’s nomination as one of the two Assembly candidates.  The only time that the campaigning stopped was for about six weeks beginning in or about March of 2003 due to my daughter’s serious illness and on September 11, 2003 with no press or fanfare.  Otherwise, virtually every night there was at least one campaign stop/event, virtually every weekend both Saturdays and Sundays were filled with campaign stops/events.   For the two months prior to the primary there was constant daily door-to-door campaigning to Republican households and beginning right after the July 4th to targeted households in District 38.  In all Lou Tedesco and I knocked on about 3,000 Republican household doors prior to the primary and about 9,500 targeted household doors between July 4th and November 3rd.     Fundraising, strategy sessions, issue briefings and personal phone calls occupied virtually every free minute for the better part of a year.   Did you enjoy it? Yes and no.  I certainly enjoy meeting people, understanding their points of views, listening to their concerns, suggestions and generally discussing the issues with them.  I do not enjoy the fundraising aspect of campaigning, but without elimination of 'Pay to Play' (i.e., collecting political donations in exchange for government contracts) and meaningful campaign finance reform dollars will continue to be the “Mother’s Milk” of elections.     I certainly do not enjoy being the target of the politics of personal destruction which, unfortunately, is, in large part what campaigning has become.  However, I defy anyone to find a piece of literature or campaign ad from me where Mr. Gordon or Ms. Voss were personally attacked for what they do for a living, the type of people they represent, the type of students that they teach or anything dealing with their personal lives.    What do you think were the most important issues of the campaign? I think the fact that the people ignored the issues is, in and of itself, the most important issue of the campaign and is increasingly becoming the most important issue of any campaign.  In my opinion the New Jersey Legislative race needs better New Jersey coverage.  Where are our cable tv stations?  Where was our local Fair Lawn Cable Channel?    If not for the Fair Lawn League of Women Voters they would not have been an assembly candidate’s debate at all.  People cannot continue to vote solely along party lines and expect things to get better.  We need to better inform them on the issues, and they need to want to be informed.  If people focused on issues we would go along way toward solving our problems and making NJ a better place in which to live and work.   We could let people see for themselves the complexity of the issues.  We could even debate and discuss them.  And then working together we could even work on solving some of them instead of spending countless hours focusing on how can we answer the repeated personal attacks that are being asserted against us.    Do you think both parties simplify issues and make people think there are easy answers to complex problems? Yes and I do not think that it is just the fault of the candidate(s) although we should receive much of the blame.  However some of the blames lies with is the electorate themselves and much lies with the media.  They are looking for easy simple answers to complex problems.  I also think that there is enough blame to go around that includes the press which gives very little time and almost no space to the issues, the system itself which does not even require the parties to debate, the news/television media which didn’t even undertake to have a debate between the candidates and then some of the parties that purport to be independent such as the statewide League of Women Voters.  For example on the very complex question of school funding and a constitutional convention, the statewide League of Women Voters (not the Fair Lawn League of Women Voters) in its questionnaire would only accept a “Yes” or “No” answer as to the candidate’s position on the question.  They went so far as to indicate that if you attempted to explain your answer or said anything but yes, it would be reported by them as a negative answer.  Unfortunately, this does a huge disservice, in my opinion to a meaningful debate on extremely complex issues.    The questionnaire by the statewide League of Women Voters was not unique.  Most purported public interest groups (which really in truth are special interest groups) provided similar type “guidance” in their questionnaires stating that if you attempted to explain your answer that it would be viewed as either a non-answer or a negative answer and all they were looking for was yes or no responses.  Life itself is not black or white.  There are many shades of gray just as there are in dealing with the complex problems that face the people of New Jersey .    Did the issues and candidates’ actions and positions get distorted? Absolutely yes.  For example it was suggested that my running mate voted for and was responsible for numerous tax increases in Little Ferry.  This, despite the fact that during his entire time as Mayor of Little Ferry, under Little Ferry’s form of government he could not even vote on the tax increases as its Mayor unless there is a tie.  The list could go on and on.  By the way I do believe that there is a legitimate difference between criticizing and pointing out the differences and problems with a candidate’s record versus attacking the candidates personal life.     Do you think that the campaign helped people understand issues and how they can be solved? With rare exception no.  Everything is reduced to a thirty second sound bite, at best, or a short statement on a piece of campaign literature or a negative attack on one’s opponent.  There is virtually no real discussion of the issues and their solution.    What did you think of local news coverage (including Fair Lawn News) of the race? Fair Lawn News provided more information on the race and the issues than any other media source. The Bergen Record gave it its usual window dressing to try to show they were doing their duty, but spent more time worrying about its editorial board endorsements or justifying why it prints some planted personal attack end of campaign stories but not others than covering the issues and the race.  Excluding the efforts of Fair Lawn News, the rest of the local coverage was virtually non-existent and pathetic.  There were more pictures of Mayor Ganz and the Council in the Fair Lawn Shopper in any one week’s paper than there was throughout the entire campaign any articles discussing the race, the issues, and any interviews with the candidates or anything close to it.    Actually the Fair Lawn Shoppers lack of coverage was quite amazing considering that three former elected officials from Fair Lawn were vying for the same office that can have an enormous impact on the people of Fair Lawn and District 38.     Where is the money coming from to fund these campaigns? In large part the money is coming from those who are rewarded for their campaign contributions by engaging in “Pay to Play”.  They make campaign contributions not just here in District 38 but in “safe” legislative districts or counties for the parties, (say in Camden County or Hudson County for the Democrats) and then because of giant campaign financial law loopholes through which one could drive through a truckload of dollars, the monies are then pumped into targeted races such as here in Bergen County.   With all the money being spent, does it mean that legislators have to “pay back” their contributors somehow? Absolutely.  Just take a look at how Bergen County has been “put for sale” or take a look at the “For Sale” sign on the Fair Lawn Municipal Building to lawyers, professionals, banks such as Commerce Bank.  There absolutely is “pay back” to the big contributors and in the end we all end up paying for it with our tax dollars that fund the government contracts (many of which are no-bid as professional service contracts!) that are tailored and handed out under the guise of helping us.   What did you think of the ads the Republicans and Democrats ran? For the most part the ads were non-informational and non-helpful of understanding the issues.  But they seemed to be the kinds of ads that the voters seemed to respond to.  For example, our polling showed that our opponent’s personal negative attack ads on myself and my running mates had a far greater impact in moving voters away from us and toward the Democrats than did our positive ads about ourselves.   Do you think people lose respect for elected officials after these kinds of campaigns? Some people say that they do but I really do not believe that people “lose respect for elected officials”.  Those that have the respect continue to maintain that respect, which I think is about one-third of the voters.  I believe another one-third of the voters can be swayed during the course of the campaign and I believe that another third of the potential voters don’t believe that their votes really matter at all.   The Republicans paid to entice Democrats to vote for the Green Party candidate, Matt Ahearn.  What did you think of that? I think the question as written is a little misleading. I am not aware of any payments made to anyone to vote a particular way.  If you are referring to the Republicans paying for an ad to encourage votes for Matt it was a strategy decision by party leadership. It is not something that I would have supported because I wanted to win the election by persuading people to vote for me based on my record as opposed to seeking to split the Democratic vote to our advantage.    Regardless, I do believe that Matt Ahearn should be commended for his courage in stepping out and speaking out against politics as usual.  One only need to listen to Matt’s comments at the Fair Lawn League of Women Voters Debate to appreciate that there is a lot of good common sense, truth, and merit to his discussion and positions on the issues especially with respect to the impact of money and corrupting influence of “Pay to Play” in the system. By the way the Democrats also sent mailers encouraging people not to vote for Matt as the Green Party candidate.