By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Ingrid Reed has her arms folded standing in front of the 20 or so people in the Princeton Public Library on Monday to hear her talk about the issues facing New Jersey.
“And it’s really hard to be an elected official and make choices and set priorities when you are under strained fiscal conditions as we are,” she said at one point during the second installment of a five-part discussion series she is leading each Monday, starting at 5 p.m., through Oct. 23.
Reed, formerly of the Eagleton Institute, is talking policy and politics — things she lives and breathes. This day’s topic deals with the energy and the environment.
With the gubernatorial election about 30 days away, she seeks to bring her policy analyst’s perspective to a state known for its political wheeling and dealing. She wants the public to press the candidates, to go beyond what she termed “bland generalities” for answers on the “awful lot of problems” New Jersey has.
“So I think the best thing that can happen in this election season is for all of the candidates to hear very specific questions from citizens who are interested in what are the problems and how they’re going to deal with them,” she said. “Well, ask them what are they going to do to encourage solar and wind production in New Jersey and where do they think the responsibility should be for that.”
In a brief interview afterward, she laughs when asked if these are like college-level courses.
“We want people to have a chance to confirm for themselves that these are issues. And then what I try to do is simplify it but also sort of provide a context for it,” she said. “I mean, there’s no point in discussing, for example, what you want the governor to do for the environment if you don’t have some understanding of what our fiscal condition is.”
Later, she sized up the governor’s race between Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and former ambassador and Goldman Sachs executive Phil Murphy, the Democratic front-runner.
“I’m sort of surprised that neither party seems to be engaged in their candidate’s election, that it seems to be the candidates are running their own campaigns and I don’t feel that energy of Democrats getting behind Murphy and Republicans getting behind Kim Guadagno,” she said.
She said part of that is probably because people see the contest as a forgone conclusion, with Murphy ahead by double digits. A Monmouth University poll out this week has him leading her by 14 points.
So while Murphy and Guadagno march toward Nov. 7, Reed will keep a close eye out.
“If I weren’t doing this, I would be smelling the roses. It’s just so much fun,” she said. “I love being engaged with people who want to know and want to do things.”
