Response by Stephen Salmore

The findings of the latest PublicMind poll are interesting and can be viewed in a somewhat different way. By comparing the percent of voters who rate a governor as best to the percent who rate that same governor as worst, it is clear that Tom Kean is seen as the best recent governor of New Jersey, with 32% rating him as best and only 2% rating him as worst. The only other governors to have a positive ratio of best-to-worst are two Democrats, Hughes and Byrne. Their absolute numbers are fairly low because they served more than three decades ago and quite a few New Jerseyans do not remember or do not know much about their administrations. Those who do know something about them, give more positive marks than not.

The remaining three governors, McGreevey, Whitman and Florio, all received higher "worst" ratings than "best" ratings. Whitman comes away as the best of the worst with 21% saying best versus 26% saying worst. McGreevey and Florio are much closer, with Florio at 9:21 doing worse than McGreevey at 12:26. However, even looked at this way, the numbers show that the public perception of a governor is not completely partisan, with Democrats and Republicans at both the top of the scale and the bottom of the scale.

Still, given these numbers, some Republicans will certainly want to run as Tom Kean Republicans. But I wonder how many Democrats will want to run as Florio or McGreevey Democrats.

Comment by Fairleigh Dickinson University Research Professor of Political Science, Stephen Salmore (Ph.D., Princeton University). Steve specializes in both national and New Jersey politics and presently operates Raritan Associates, Inc. He is co-author of Parties, Elections and Campaigns and New Jersey Government and Politics. Dr. Stephen Salmore can be reached at 973-292-3633.