Corzine adviser ready for challenge

TRENTON - Bradley Abelow will walk through a glass doorway just a few paces down the hall from his old office in the Statehouse today to begin a new job as top adviser to Gov. Corzine.

But the onetime Wall Street executive, who has spent the last 20 months mopping red ink off the Garden State's balance sheets as state treasurer, might as well be landing on another planet.

It is one thing to develop a complex fiscal survival plan from a thicket of state debt reaching into the billions of dollars. It is quite another to be the governor's political point man - crisis manager, negotiator, legislative liaison, tactician and enforcer.

And yet, despite his brief tenure in Trenton in the narrow role of fiscal fixer, Abelow, 49, appears well positioned to drive Corzine's agenda forward as chief of staff. He is being greeted with high praise from the lawmakers he will need to push things forward.

His move into the "front office," as Abelow called it last week, marks the next phase in the much-watched Corzine experiment of placing corporate-world wizards into posts normally occupied by professionals with public-sector pedigrees.

"I think he's developed some good relationships with the Legislature [and] he's learned how to get things done," said Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. (D., Camden), who went toe to toe with Corzine during the budget impasse that precipitated a state government shutdown in 2006.

Since arriving from the private sector in January 2006, Abelow has survived two contentious budget deals, a debate on property taxes, a state shutdown, and the growing rancor over a Corzine plan to increase revenue from the state's tolls roads as a way to reduce debt.

Abelow chuckles with a bit of exasperation and drops his head into his hands at these memories. He said he learned at least one political lesson from these challenges - that policy and politics are inextricably linked.

"I can't separate the politics from anything else that happens here," Abelow said during an interview last week in the treasurer's office, where tall stacks of documents were piled onto what would soon become his former desk.

"Believe it or not," he added, "the shutdown of the government seems like a long time ago now."

Even though it seems a distant memory, Abelow said the shutdown "was horrible for everyone. We knew it at the time, we felt it then, we feel it now. That's not a good way to conduct business and we're sorry that it ever reached that juncture."

And yet, he said, political leaders have since shown an understanding that new approaches are needed to rein in the state's finances.

"The budget shutdown really was about recognition - trying to give recognition to the fact that we have a structural budget deficit that we said then and we're saying now isn't going to go away in one year."

In the short time he has been exposed to the state's backslapping and dealmaking political scene, Abelow has walked away from these high-pitched crises christened and chastened but fortified, it seems, with respect from key politicians.

"Brilliant" is how State Sen. Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat from Gloucester County, describes the former Goldman Sachs executive who has run the state's finances with a steady hand, a dry wit and an easy smile.

"Listening - I think that's his best quality," said Sweeney said. "And I think that's going to help him as chief of staff."

Camden County Democratic Sen. John Adler predicted a "period of growth pains" while Abelow learns to convert his corporate finance skills into political muscle.

"It may well be an awkward growth period where the chief of staff learns to say, 'No, we're not going to make deals for votes,' and where the legislators understand the proper scope of negotiations," Adler said.

Abelow will need every ounce of political capital he has amassed thus far to advance the hallmark of the governor's fiscal recovery plan: the toll road revenue plan to finance transportation projects, school construction, and any number of other state projects.

Details are expected to be shared with the public in coming months but heated political opposition already has emerged with the prediction of higher tolls.

The governor said Friday he expected a "seamless transition" with Abelow taking over from chief of staff Tom Shea, a veteran of the New Jersey political scene who is going into consulting work.

"Brad has been an integral part of everything that we've done in the last 19 months," Corzine said after a public appearance at a Labor Day event aboard the battleship USS New Jersey in Camden.

Corzine said Shea would stay on as a consultant on the political end. "He'll be available as a kitchen cabinet member," Corzine said.

Abelow said he looked forward to relying on the staff members already there who "are extraordinarily loyal to the governor and the carrying out of his agenda."

Abelow became treasurer in January 2006 after a successful career as an executive at Goldman Sachs, where Corzine had been chairman and chief executive officer before pursuing public office.

Their relationship appears airtight as Abelow becomes Corzine's right-hand man in public office.

"The key for the chief of staff is to be able to speak on behalf of the governor, and this is a guy who has the governor's trust," Roberts said, adding: "He has mine; I have full confidence in him."

For his part, Abelow appears to be entering this new job with a hefty dose of humility and pragmatism - lessons learned from the fiscal battlefield of the last 20 months in which compromise was the result of battles waged with conviction.

"I'll quote the governor," Abelow said, "about 'perfect being the enemy of the good.' "