Word: florio
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...results were less pro than anti, not so much for Republicans as against almost anyone in office. And even that reading has to be qualified. The New York City and New Jersey elections were so close that shifts of a very few votes would have reelected both Dinkins and Florio and no doubt led pundits to interpret the results very differently (although most American elections are decided by relatively small margins). Moreover, it is still possible for incumbents to win big. In Houston Mayor Bob Lanier promised to put more cops on the streets and did; the crime rate dropped...
Clinton sought to put the best face he could on the election results. Far from being a repudiation of him, he said, they indicated a continuation of the very desire for change that had carried him into the White House. Perhaps, but as Dinkins, Florio and others have discovered, the desire for change that can sweep a candidate into office in one election can sweep him right out again four years later...
...billion increase to pay for a new state health-care plan, and in California, the motherland of tax protest, voters made permanent a half-cent increase in the sales tax for hiring more fire fighters and police. Even in New Jersey, anger at the $2.8 billion increase Florio pushed through in 1990 would not by itself have been enough to beat him, in the view of Whitman's campaign manager, Ed Rollins. His attack against Florio focused on the idea that the state's economy is still sluggish and schools are still poor, "so you got taxed a lot more...
Late on Election Day last week, the message magicians who had brilliantly guided Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign could hardly contain themselves. James Carville and Paul Begala predicted a "twofer": Governor Jim Florio, their horse in New Jersey, would coast to re-election, and politicians everywhere would learn the Big Lesson. "Florio shows you can do the hard things that have to be done ((like raising taxes)) and defeat an opponent who offers feel-good stuff ((like tax cuts))," Carville crowed...
Reality hit within hours. The race that would make the case for activist government was lost. Carville and Begala were almost too depressed to put their spin on things. "I couldn't look Florio in the eye last night," Carville began. "But," he added, pitching forward cheerfully, "today's the first time in a while that I read the business section before the front page." Sure enough, the "real stuff," as Carville called it, was encouraging: housing starts, manufacturing, productivity and construction spending were all up. Perhaps the man who had won the White House by promising to focus...