Biography of Christine Todd Whitman

Name: Christine Todd Whitman
Bith Date: c. 1947
Death Date:
Place of Birth:
Nationality: American
Gender: Female
Occupations: politician, governor

Christine Todd Whitman

Christine Todd Whitman (born 1947) managed to defeat her opponent, James Florio, the incumbent Governor of New Jersey, with very little political experience.

From the beginning, Whitman was perceived as a long shot for the office--a woman and a Republican was considered an awkward mix. She advocated sweeping tax cuts, as well as abortion rights. And, in the beginning of her campaign, her platform was very disorganized. However, Florio had so offended his constituents by raising taxes and reacting slowly to the plummeting economy in his state, that in the end Whitman won.

Whitman has definitely been characterized as a woman of privilege--a millionaire who made much of her money on Wall Street. She descended from a well-to-do family with strong ties to the Republican party. Whitman's husband also has ties to the Republican party--his grandfather was once governor of New York. Whitman's siblings have also been involved in politics.

Whitman was not a career politician by any means when she ran for the New Jersey governor's office. Her only previous political experience had been winning election to the Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders, which is the governing body of that county. She served there for five years. Republican governor Thomas H. Kean subsequently appointed her to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, where she served until 1990.

That year she took a major plunge into the political spotlight by running against New Jersey Democratic senator Bill Bradley, a very popular incumbent. It seemed at first that she would be token opposition against Bradley. However, Florio had just been elected as governor, and as such raised taxes by $2.8 billion and instigated an unpopular increase in the state sales tax. This infuriated many New Jersey residents. Whitman kept her campaign focused on Florio's unpopular tax hikes, instead of on Bradley's work. Her technique succeeded, and she won an unprecedented 47 percent of the vote--hardly the margin of an "easy walkover" opponent.

Her finish in this campaign put her in an excellent position to run for the governor's office. She had such an impressive showing against Bradley that she was considered a prime contender. And Florio's tax policies would make her job easier. After his tax program went into effect, New Jersey dove into a recession deeper than that being experienced by the rest of the country. "Rarely has a state fallen so quickly from economic grace.... Its ... disaster is entirely Florio-made," wrote Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr. in a Forbes editorial.

Florio's approval rating plunged to 20 percent. In 1991, the Democrats lost their majority in the state legislature, for the first time in 20 years. This made Florio's job even more difficult, since his ideas went against the politics of the Congress. They tried to repeal a sales tax increase, he vetoed it; they tried to repeal a ban on semiautomatic weapons, he vetoed it. When election time rolled around in 1993, Florio had an unimpressive approval rating of roughly 50 percent. However, he had the backing of the newly-elected president, Bill Clinton.

Campaign Scandals

But Whitman's campaign was not without foibles either. She hired Larry McCarthy as her media consultant in August of 1993, to the outrage of many--he was responsible for the allegedly racist "Willie Horton" advertisements which aired during George Bush's campaign against Michael Dukakis. In response, Whitman countered that someone else had been in charge of the infamous ads, but McCarthy soon quit. While the controversy simmered, Whitman removed herself to go on a remote biking trip in Idaho.

Another scandal broke after she released her tax returns, which indicated that she and her husband had grossed an impressive $3.7 million in 1992. This fact made it harder for Whitman to seem like a "regular person" to the voters. Journalists also called into question her use of two rural homes as working farms. To respond to this, Whitman conducted a press party at one of the properties. Reporters found themselves at a real down-home event, with baked beans being served, and Whitman conducting tours in blue jeans. Her candor about the matter and willingness to answer questions scored points with many people.

Another problem with Whitman's campaign was her perceived lack of direction. It took her a long time to put together a clear tax package that would appeal to voters. In September of 1993 she finally unveiled her economic plan, which included many tax cuts, including one to slash income taxes 30 percent over several years. While the news sounded good, the voters seemed skeptical rather than enthused.

Whitman also attacked Florio's record on social programs. In a move to gain favor with conservatives, Florio had advocated making tighter restrictions on welfare allocations to mothers. One of the proposed changes involved forcing the women into naming the fathers of their babies. Outraged, Whitman attacked his ideas. "What is the governor's next idea in his headlong rush to embrace right-wing radicalism?" she was quoted as asking in Congressional Quarterly. "A program of tattoos for welfare mothers? A badge sewn on to their clothing identifying them as welfare recipients?" Her tactics backfired, however, when the Florio camp countered with angry letters from Jewish leaders who were outraged at Whitman's use of a Holocaust analogy for comparison.

Malcolm Forbes, one of Whitman's campaign advisers, wrote that "What makes Mrs. Whitman's tax ideas and approach so different, indeed so truly breathtaking, is that she plans to make her tax cuts the core of the budgeting process. Spending decisions will be made around the cuts, not vice-versa." Despite news like this, the public for the most part remained unconvinced, and the race was very close in the month leading up to the election.

Turning the Tide

Something changed that helped Whitman turn around the election. As her campaign gained momentum, she put increasing confidence into her campaign manager, Ed Rollins. A political analyst who had helped achieve Ronald Reagan's 1984 win, Rollins became a controversial figure when he switched camps to assist H. Ross Perot in his 1992 presidential bid. Shortly after taking the job with Perot, he left in disgust. In the last weeks of Whitman's campaign, Rollins simply took the reins, and immediately began to reorganize her campaign approach. "For much of the campaign," according to Congressional Quarterly, "Whitman seemed unable or even unwilling to capitalize on the anyone-but-Florio sentiment." Rollins changed all that by focusing on Florio's unpopular record in her stump speeches. Rollins also advised her to keep her own promises on the back burner, because she had encountered so much skepticism about them.

The tactic worked. The Eagleton Institute poll showed the incumbent governor as being ahead just one week before Election Day. But the undecided vote was just too close to call. Whitman won the November 2, 1993 election by just 26,000 votes. Constituents were just too concerned with Florio's previous records to place any confidence in him.

With her long campaign over, Whitman should have been able to breathe a sigh of relief. But, just a short time after the votes were in, Rollins told the press that the reason they had won was because they had paid African-American ministers to suppress the vote among their parishioners. "We went into black churches and we basically said to ministers who had endorsed Florio, `Do you have a special project? And they said, `We've already endorsed Florio.' We said, `That's fine--don't get up on the Sunday pulpit and preach. We know you've endorsed him, but don't get up there and say it's your moral obligation that you go on Tuesday to vote for Jim Florio,'" Rollins was reported as saying in Time. Money was also supposedly paid to election workers in Democratic neighborhoods (who were supposed to be getting people to the polls) to stay home. Rollins bragged that these measures were key in Whitman's election to governor.

His comments unleashed a furor of responses from many people, most notably black ministers. Edward Verner, head of a Newark black minister's organization, commented in Time: "To suggest that the black vote or the black church is up for sale is a racist lie." Whitman herself was appalled, and claimed that her manager's statement was an unequivocated lie. Rollins soon retracted his statements, telling People that his remarks were "an exaggeration that turned out to be inaccurate." However, a federal judge ruled that an investigation would be necessary. Whitman assured the voters that she would agree to a new vote if any illegalities were uncovered.

Rollins's wife, Sherrie, claimed in People that her husband "feels awful about this furor he has created. He did not intend to hurt anyone. He feels so badly for Christie. He did not want to taint her victory." It turned out that no proof could be found to substantiate Rollins's initial claims, and by November 29, 1993, the Democrats abandoned their campaign to have the election results decertified. On January 12, 1994, state and federal investigators ended their investigation into the campaign and deemed Whitman innocent of the charges.

"Don't let the hullabaloo over the alleged anti-voting activities of campaign manager Ed Rollins blind the nation to the significance of Christie Whitman's victory last month in the New Jersey gubernatorial election. She won on character and substance," Malcolm Forbes asserted in one of his magazine's editorials. After the election, Whitman went right ahead with her daring tax-cut proposals, even declaring that if they didn't work, she wouldn't run for re-election.

Whitman was very busy making personnel and policy decisions shortly after the Rollins controversy cleared. She made headlines when she added female state troopers to the group who were assigned to protect her and her family. She complained to Governor Florio that he had violated an understanding between the two of them and extended contracts, endorsed salary increases, and appointed people to positions before she took office.

Governor of New Jersey

On January 18, 1994, Christine Todd Whitman was officially inaugurated into the office of governor. And she faced serious challenges--the size of New Jersey's deficit had swelled to $1 billion. She nixed a proposal to use taxpayer's money to lure the Philadelphia 76ers from their home in Pennsylvania to Camden, New Jersey, and fully outlined her plans to cut state income taxes. In her inaugural address, she was so bold as to ask the Legislature to put into effect a five-percent tax cut retroactive to January 1. Her campaign promise had been to start cutting taxes by July 1, but she felt it necessary to start her proposals immediately.

Whitman's ultimate goal was to see state income taxes reduced by 30 percent within her first three years in office. She went on record as saying that she hoped these cuts would not force municipalities to raise taxes to cover missing state aid, but also said that she would not be responsible if this did happen.

Whitman outdid herself by reaching her goal in just two years, as opposed to the three she promised. She was also involved in educational, environmental, and auto insurance reforms, and took steps to balance the state budget.

Whitman's popularity swelled not only in her home state. People named Whitman one of their twenty-five most intriguing people of 1994, calling her "a one-woman political slogan."

Whitman was the first-ever governor and first woman chosen by the GOP to give the rebuttal to President Clinton's State of the Union address in 1995. Her audience was impressed with her response and the buzz began about the possibilities of her candidacy for vice president in 1996. Robert Dole, the Republican candidate, ultimately chose Jack Kemp as his running mate.

In 1997 Whitman was opposed by Democratic candidate Jim McGreevey for reelection to the position of governor. She won the race by a narrow margin, about 26,000 votes of 2.2 million cast. Following the announcement that Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg would vacate his Senate seat at the end of this term, Republican leaders urged Whitman to seek the seat in the 2000 elections. Although she formed a campaign committee in the spring of 1999, Whitman ultimately decided that the time and money required to be a winning contender would interfere with her duties as governor to too large of an extent.

With ambitious and far-reaching tax plans, Whitman impressed many political leaders. As Malcolm Forbes commented: "Opponents and pundits underestimated her backbone."

Whitman's environmental policy as governor of New Jersey proved to be a blend of fiscal conservatism and social moderation, as she took care to attend to the specific needs of her state. As governor, she vetoed a bill outlawing partial-birth abortions, opposed school prayer and advocated gay rights.

With its large number of Superfund and environmental pollution sites, New Jersey can hardly be called a paragon of environmental health. And so when, in her first term as governor, Whitman reduced the staffing at the state's Department of Environmental Protection, simplified the application process for obtaining building permits and reduced the fines imposed on those convicted of polluting, she came under heavy criticism from environmentalists. In her defense, Whitman argued that she was simply trying to make the state more attractive to business.

She also opposed letting New York dump its garbage in New Jersey, and imposed environmental regulations on water and sewer facilities in new developments. She fought suburban sprawl and supported a referendum that provided more than $1 billion to preserve open space in the state. But environmentalists felt her regulations on development were inadequate, while developers criticized those restrictions she did place on new building.

Whitman points out that under her leadership, New Jersey's air became cleaner. To substantiate her claim, she points out that the number of days New Jersey violated the federal one-hour air quality standard for ground level ozone dropped from 45 in 1988 to four in 2000. She also notes beach closings reached a record low during her term of office.

Following her second term as New Jersey's governor, Whitman joined the Bush administration as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). When Whitman took on the role as EPA Administrator in January 2001, she was portrayed in the media as the lone member of the Republican socially liberal wing in an otherwise right-leaning administration. But as head of the EPA, it was presumed she would be safely out of range of making any decisions over social policy. After a year in office, she had achieved a reputation as a stronger, more experienced administrator than when she first took office. But she was still seen as the lone liberal within the Bush administration.

In looking back on her first year as head of the EPA, Whitman said in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor in March 2002, "It's definitely been a roller coaster, but satisfying. At the end of the day, these issues are very important so it's worth the ride."

Whitman went on to share some of her philosophy as EPA Administrator. On winning and losing political battles having to do with the environment, she said, "[T]here's an attitude that it's a zero-sum game. Somebody's got to lose for somebody to win, and it just isn't. It is possible, in fact necessary, to have a strong economy to have a healthy environment, because you need the money that the economy throws off to invest in protecting the environment."

On how she saw her role in the EPA, Whitman said, "I see my role here as ensuring that when we leave we can say that the nation's air is cleaner, water purer, and land better protected than it was when we started. It was something that I did, had as my mantra as a governor and I still believe it to be important and the president believes it to be important."

On her ability to apply what she learned as governor of New Jersey to problems that she faces in the EPA, she commented, "[O]ne of the things I learned as governor, too, is that every state is very different, and even within states it's very different. Obviously, what we did in this, where we have successes, I can bring those ideas and I can throw them out to the table and if there's something to be looked at that we did in New Jersey that can be crafted or changed in a way that would apply to other places, then great, I certainly will encourage people to look at it. I'm proud of our record, but I wouldn't presume to try to implement the New Jersey program on or force that on anybody."

On settling environmental disputes, she said, "[Y]ou need to have the enforcement ability, and you need to be able to vigorously enforce, but we can get more if you get the industries and the businesses to the table early on. If we're not spending our time and money in the courts and with lawyers we're far better off and we get better results and that's what we're about is results."

Historical Context

The Life and Times of Christine Todd Whitman (c. 1947-)
At the time of Whitman's birth:
Harry S Truman was president of the United States
Jackie Robinson joined Brooklyn Dodgers
Taft-Hartley Act restricted labor's ability to strike
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) established
The times:
1950-1953: Korean War
1957-1975: Vietnam War
1983: American invasion of Grenada
1991: Persian Gulf War
1991-1996: Civil War in Bosnia
Whitman's contemporaries:
Kim Campbell (1947-) First female Canadian prime minister
Carol Moseley Braun (1947-) U.S. senator/lawyer
Kathleen Battle (1948-) opera singer
Paloma Picasso (1949-) Spanish designer
Kathy Bates (1949-) American actress
S.E. Hinton (1950-) American writer
Selected world events:
1947: The House Un-American Activities Committee opened public hearings on alleged communist infiltration in Hollywood
1951: New Jersey Turnpike opened
1967: Newark, NJ, race riots continued for five days
1979:Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Premier Begin signed a peace treaty ending nearly 31 years of war
1982: Spain was accepted into NATO as its 16th member state
1994: For the first time in the history of South Africa, the nation's 18 million blacks voted in multiparty elections