Wally Edge's blog

Frank "Pat" Dodd (D-West Orange), above, wanted to serve as second two-year term as Senate President, but dropped out when Majority Leader Matthew Feldman (D-Teaneck) had the votes.

Post-Election Day politics in New Jersey might feature as many as five contested races for Legislative leadership positions: Senate President, Assembly Speaker, Senate Majority Leader, Assembly Majority Leader, and Assembly Minority Leader. 

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland) faces a challenge from Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford).  Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) is retiring; Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman is running for Speaker against John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville), and possibly against Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan (D-Union) and Sheila Oliver (D-Adubato).  Those races create openings for Majority Leader; perhaps more importantly, the contests create campaigns for Senate Judiciary Chairman and for Budget and Appropriations committee chairmanships in both houses.

Some of New Jersey's best leadership fights:

Gov. Jon Corzine is airing a new TV ad airing on Spanish language TV stations featuring an endorsement from U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken).  Menendez, the only Latino in the U.S. Senate, touts Corzine's investment in the construction of new schools and his leadership during an economic crisis.  

There is some speculation in Star-Ledger circles that Tom Moran, the former columnist who is returning to his old job after an eighteen-month stint working corporate communications for PSE&G, is being groomed for higher office.  The word is that Moran is the crowned prince of the editorial page, and will become the Star-Ledger's soul after the aged John Farmer retires.  Farmer, a veteran reporter and columnist, began writing editorials after Fran Dauth took her buyout package last year.  Moran has some experience writing editorials, and the word is that's who editor Jim Willse wants.

Four years ago, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero wanted his political ally, former Assemblyman Ken Zisa, to take a vacant State Senate seat in the 37th district.  Corzine, then the Democratic nominee for governor, jumped into the tumultuous world of Bergen County politics and endorsed a Weinberg, who had been one of the first elected officials to back him for the U.S. Senate in 2000.

Ferriero was livid.  His support of Corzine earlier that year helped push Acting Governor Richard Codey out of the Democratic primary. Ferriero wanted his guy in the Senate, where the power of senatorial courtesy can be invaluable to a County Chairman.

Corzine and Ferriero had a decent enough relationship that 89-year-old Nancy Corzine, a retired school teacher from Oak Park, Illinois and Corzine’s mother, contributed $37,000 to the Bergen County Democratic Organization.

When the District 37 Democratic County Committee voted, Zisa defeated Weinberg by one vote.  Weinberg won after an extended court battle that demonstrated enough voter fraud to give her a victory.  It took Corzine and Ferriero a while to be friends again.

The Inside Edge respectfully disagrees with an Asbury Park Press report that Gov. Jon Corzine will announce his pick for Lt. Governor "to coincide with the visit of President Barack Obama to New Jersey Thursday."  While that may have been the conventional wisdom ten days ago, it now seems that Corzine will not announce his running mate until after the Obama visit.  But Democratic sources say that reality TV star Randal Pinkett is the front runner and that if he accepts the nomination, an announcement could come on Friday.  Final decisions have not yet been made, and it could easily turn out that the APP is right and this website is wrong.  Stay tuned!

Two Democratic Congressmen who were on the House Judiciary subcommittee that questioned Christopher Christie  on Thursday found themselves with unrelated political problems of their own soon after the GOP candidate for Governor left Washington.  House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers' wife, Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges -- she took envelopes stuffed with cash.  And Steve Cohen, the subcommittee chairman and the Democrat who most aggressively challenged Christie on deferred prosecution agreements, will face a tough primary in a district where African American voters are the majority.  Popular five-term Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, an African American, said Thursday that he will challenge Cohen in the 2010 Democratic primary.

Gov. Jon Corzine has dumped former Senate President Raymond Bateman from his seat on  the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority and has replaced him with Joseph Spicuzzo, the Middlesex County Sheriff and Democratic County Chairman. Bateman was the Republican nominee for Governor in 1977, and is the father of State Sen. Christopher Bateman (R-Branchburg).

Gloucester County GOP Chair Loran Oglesby has canceled the Republican convention and will instead award the organization line for statewide, legislative and county candidates after a vote of an Executive Screening Committee she appointed on Friday.  Oglesby is facing a challenge for re-election in a party vote that will come the week after the June primary.

Local sources suggest that Christopher Christie had the votes in place to win the convention - rival Steve Lonegan is no longer competing for organization endorsements - and that Oglesby's decision to change the endorsement process could be a signal of her intention to back Lonegan.  In 2008, Murray Sabrin ran on the Gloucester organization line.

With new polls released by Quinnipiac University and Rasmussen Reports, Fairleigh Dickinson University decided to re-release their March 4 poll on the New Jersey gubernatorial primaries this morning.  The data in their previous poll appears to be the same as the one released today. 

Left to right: Congressmen George Robeson, Henry Loudenslager, Charles Wolverton, William Cahill and John Adler.

Only two Democrats have won what is now the third congressional district since Chester Arthur was President: Thomas Ferrell and John Adler.  PolitickerNJ.com looks at the chain of custody, not district numbers, to determine the lineage of a particular seat in Congress.

In 1882, with just 50.1% of the vote, Ferrell, a former State Senator, Assemblyman and Glassboro Committeeman, ousted Republican George Robeson, a two-term Congressman with an impressive resume. A Civil War General, Robeson spent two years as state Attorney General and nearly eight years as U.S. Secretary of the Navy in the cabinet of President Ulysses Grant.

Ferrell was beaten for re-election in 1884 by Republican George Hires, a former Salem County Sheriff and State Senator.  Hires won 50%-45%, starting a 124-year streak of Republican victories in this congressional district.