The Record's political focus on governor's race in N.J. is turning off primary voters

Two takes on President Trump's first foreign trip, with his family in tow, from Patrick Chappatte, a Lebanese-Swiss cartoonist who draws for the International Herald Tribune and other newspapers in Europe.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Talk about deja vu all over again.

Charles Stile, The Record's burned-out political columnist, is getting a big kick out of smearing the four Democratic candidates for governor of New Jersey with a bunch of timeworn GOP labels.

In a front-page column on Monday, Stile claimed the Democrats are making a "grand lunge to the left."

He also used such labels as "progressive" and "liberal" to refer to the Democrats vying for the nomination in next Tuesday's primary (Monday's 6A).

And when will Stile and other bored reporters stop claiming every election for governor, U.S. senator and congressman is a referendum on the election of Donald J. Trump?

Most vetoes ever

After nearly eight years of Chris Christie, the November election for governor will be nothing more than a desperate electorate trying to salvage their state from complete ruin. 

The GOP bully set a record for vetoes by a New Jersey governor, giving a lie to his claim of being a "bipartisan compromiser" -- a lie Stile regurgitated in column after column.

He is the most anti-environment and anti-mass transit governor in the state's history, and he vetoed a phase-in of the $15 minimum wage as well as a tax surcharge on millionaires.

Stile's boring columns, and other coverage exploiting the deep partisan divisions in Trenton and Washington, D.C., are big turnoffs to readers and voters.

In New Jersey, those voters are desperately seeking information on such issues as property taxes, and state aid to schools and mass transit.

Voter apathy was one of the factors cited in the election of Trump on Nov. 8. And Christie won his last election in 2013 with the lowest turnout ever in a gubernatorial contest.

Memorial Day

The annual salute to service members from North Jersey killed since 9/11 ran on the Local news front on Memorial Day.

This year, the payroll-slashing Gannett Co. ran an ad from an Englewood car dealer along the bottom of the page, screaming, "We want your current lease!"

How patriotic.

Today's Local front carries this headline:

"A little rain doesn't

stop Memorial Day"

That turns out to be inaccurate, because the weather was cited when the Memorial Day Parade along Palisade Avenue in Englewood was cancelled.