Bush Revives Stump Themes for N. J. Race : Talks of Taxes, Crime in Bid to Aid Lagging GOP Gubernatorial Campaign

President Bush sought Friday to turn the New Jersey gubernatorial race into a rerun of last year’s presidential election, raising the twin specters of increased taxes and a soft touch on crime if a Democrat is elected.

At a Republican Party fund-raising luncheon, the President said that the race between Republican Rep. Jim Courter and Democratic Rep. James J. Florio will decide whether New Jersey “reverts to failed social policies that blame everyone but the criminal.”

And New Jersey Republicans, he said, “oppose those liberal Democrats who cherish new taxes like moths drawn to some kind of a candle.”

Extending Coattails

In exercising in New Jersey and Virginia the prerogative of a recently elected President to try to extend his coattails to gubernatorial elections, Bush is facing a complicated task this year:

--In New Jersey, voters have developed a tradition of alternating the governorship between Democrats and Republicans every eight years, and Republican Thomas H. Kean is about to leave office after two four-year terms. Thus, although New Jersey has been friendly territory for Republican presidential candidates, the GOP has no lock on other contests.

In addition, Courter’s campaign has foundered over questions about his positions on key issues--his response to last July’s Supreme Court ruling increasing the restrictions on abortions satisfied neither side of that issue--and over staff departures.

--In Virginia, the Republican candidate, Marshall Coleman, is opposed by a black Democrat, Douglas Wilder. With the Republican White House courting support among blacks, there have been no signs that the President is eager to join the fray there.

May Avoid Giuliani

Similarly, White House officials have indicated that Bush is unlikely to find the time to visit with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the Republican running for mayor of New York City against David Dinkins, a Democrat who is black, when the President is in New York on Monday to address the United Nations General Assembly.

Much as Bush built his 1988 presidential campaign against Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis around the fears of crime and higher taxes, he sought to rally support for Courter on Friday by reminding Republicans in this central New Jersey town that a vote for the Republican ticket “means a vote for candidates who’ll take a tough approach to the criminal element.”

And, in a state that for years fought the imposition of an income tax and relied heavily on soaring property taxes and a sales tax during Republican and Democratic administrations alike, Bush argued that “the old New Jersey’s attitude was: If one tax didn’t work, try another one.”

Lacks the Drumbeat

Indeed, the only 1988 theme missing from the President’s stump speech was Bush’s drumbeat of patriotism and embracing of the American flag.

But Courter is facing on Nov. 7 what appears to be a more difficult task than the Bush campaign turned out to be.

He is from the less-populated western reaches of the state, and Florio is a well-known figure in the growing South Jersey suburbs outside of Philadelphia. In addition, Florio ran for governor in 1981, losing to Kean by a razor-thin margin of about 1,600 votes.

The Bush visit couldn’t have occurred at a more useful time for Courter. The Republican candidate is struggling to latch onto Kean’s popularity and to benefit from the state’s recent prosperity, which has brought a marked drop in unemployment in recent years but which has yet to be felt in the deeply depressed old cities of Newark in the north and Camden in the south.

Spokesman Resigns

Courter has been fighting reports that Republican Party leaders are trying to take over the campaign. Last Sunday, his campaign spokesman resigned over differences with the Kean Administration.

In addition, his Washington-based campaign consultant, Roger Stone, resigned in July when questions were asked about a Stone business associate’s connection to federally subsidized housing loans.

Bush, who left Washington just as the rains from the storm that ravaged South Carolina began to arrive, headed up the East Coast after his stop in New Jersey for a weekend at his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Me.