Back from the dead?

Former New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio was once the most hated man in the Garden State. Now he's running for the Senate.

By Jake Tapper

Sep 11, 1999 | Jim Florio carries around some pretty visible scars. As a light middleweight boxing champ for the U.S. Navy, with a record of 12 wins and three losses, he had one of his cheeks permanently crushed, leaving part of his face slightly sunken.

He has scars of a more figurative nature, also -- the political kind that sting just as badly but don't necessarily end a career. For a while, his hard-charging pugilism served him fairly well as a politician, first as a state assemblyman, then a member of the U.S. House.

But after he was elected governor in 1989, he ran into trouble.

In his aloof style, Florio moved almost immediately to raise taxes, pissing off pretty much the entire state in the process. This opened the way for Christine Todd Whitman to challenge him in 1993, and though he managed to come from way behind during the campaign, his loss to her was an especially ugly, bruising match. "Dump Florio" bumper stickers became as common throughout the state as big hair and mini-malls.

Six years later, Jim Florio wants to climb back into the ring.

He is seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat about to be vacated by retiring septuagenarian Frank Lautenberg, the seat that Whitman announced this week that she would not be seeking. In an interview with Salon News before Whitman's surprising announcement, Florio said he was psyched for a rematch.

But even without Whitman in the equation, Florio faces some very troubling numbers: the $300 million fortune of Jon Corzine, 52, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who is also chasing the Democratic nomination.

"One is attempting to get political support," Florio explains in an interview with Salon News. "But in this new age wherein one is required to get financial support as well -- which is an obscenely disproportionate part of the process -- policy and traditional campaigning are all on the back-burner with an exclusive focus on raising, in this case, $12 million."

When Florio, 62, first ran for the New Jersey Legislature, in 1969, it cost him "something like $1,200," he says. When he first ran for the House in 1974, he says he spent $93,000.

For this race, he projects that he'll have to raise 10,000 times what he raised for his first political foray 30 years ago.

Corzine's fat wallet makes this aggressive fund-raising necessary, Florio says, since his opponent is "committed to writing a $10 million check to his own campaign." Florio adds that "this makes him formidable notwithstanding the fact that he has no public record, he has not voted in primary elections, and he has not said what he is going to do. In this new world, one becomes a force just by having money -- which is somewhat lamentable."

In between fund-raising gigs, Florio has a lot of work to do in order to convince New Jersey voters up and down the Turnpike that he's a changed man.

Next Page: Cursing him in the bars

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