Governor's Race: A TV Reporter's Chronicle of the 1993 Florio/Whitman Campaign

In journal-style entries, Aron, a correspondent for public TV in New Jersey, offers an insightful chronicle of one of the country's most-watched gubernatorial campaigns, with enough detail to satisfy political junkies. Entries on the Republican primary race between Christine Todd Whitman and Cary Edwards are followed by the more interesting account of the race between the upper-class Republican Whitman and progressive Democratic incumbent Jim Florio. Aron portrays the strategies of the candidates' handlers and tracks the daily campaign salvos, as substantive issues vie for attention with political gaffes: Whitman's hiring of the creator of the Willie Horton commercials as a media consultant and Florio's mistaking a Whitman aide for a man charged with violating pesticide regulations. Aron observes presciently that Florio erred by attacking Whitman rather than trumpeting his own accomplishments and cites numerous other reasons--personality, the public's tax phobia--for Florio's loss. His postscript suggests that, whatever the truth about Whitman aide Ed Rollins's claim of manipulating black ministers, other factors influenced the black vote. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)