BOB MENENDEZ

Menendez addresses South Jersey labor this morning.

CHERRY HILL - U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken) campaigns in Camden County today for incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine.

"The eyes of the nation are on New Jersey," cries the senator at this labor rally behind Camden County Democratic Committee headquarters.

He forges the connection between GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie and the man for whom Christie fundraised in the 2000 election before landing the job as U.S. Attorney as a returned favor from Bush.

"Are you going to vote for a Bush pioneer who will try to implement the same policies that led us into the worst economy since the Great Depression?" asks Menendez to scattered boos.

CHERRY HILL - "Machine, what machine?" deadpans retiring Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden), shuffling into Camden County Democratic Committee headquarters amid hundreds of bodies pushing toward the back door and the rally under a blue sky.

"There is no such thing as a machine."

Camden County Democratic Party leader George Norcross III is in the crowd, but his younger brother, Donald, is running the program.

President of the Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO Central Labor Council and assistant business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 351, Donald Norcross is also a candidate for the Assembly in the 5th District.

The union men and women on the pavement cheer heartily when Building and Trades chief Bill Mullen pays his respects to the labor leader who helped elect almost 200 union people since he took over the Southern Labor Council.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken)

A robocall from U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken) went out over the weekend targeting pockets of New Jersey's 500,000 registered voters who count themselves among the Latino population: Newark's North Ward, Elizabeth, Union City.

A second call will go out tonight, one in English and one in Spanish, broadening Menendez's reach into a combination of Latino and registered Democratic voters.

A third will go out tomorrow on Election Day.

"The senator has been very much engaged in the day-to-day operations of the Corzine campaign," said spokesman Mike Soliman. "He has been on the phone with the governor constantly and has attended events on behalf of the governor, both with him and as a surrogate, and he is looking forward to a victory with Jon Corzine tomorrow."

Menendez never headlined the kind of big tent Jersey City rally for Corzine in the closing days of the campaign that some party members say the governor needed to shore up a beleaguered - and gun-shy, following the arrests this past summer of numerous political operatives - lower Hudson County.

            Assembly Republican Leader Alex DeCroce said today the first order of business for Paul J. Fishman, soon to be the new U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, should be to determine if both U.S. Senators and two congressmen from New Jersey crossed ethical and legal bounds by exerting undue influence on the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to approve a medical patch for injured knees manufactured by a major campaign contributor.

            “If the charges leveled by the FDA are true, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that Senator Robert Menendez, Senator Frank Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman put the interests of a campaign contributor ahead of the health of people in pain,” said DeCroce, R-Morris and Passaic. “This could be one of the worst cases of ‘pay-to-play’ perpetrated by any public official in New Jersey.

            “Every surgical procedure has risks,” he noted. “How anyone can push for approval of a device medical experts deemed to be unsafe, exposing patients to serious risks is incomprehensible to me. Menendez, Lautenberg, Pallone and Rothman must be held accountable for such recklessness.”

            The New York Times reported today that scientific reviewers for the FDA repeatedly and unanimously over many years decided that the device, known as Menaflex and manufactured by ReGen Biologics Inc., was unsafe because the device often failed, forcing patients to get another operation.

            But after receiving what an FDA report described as “extreme,” “unusual” and persistent pressure from four Democrats from New Jersey — Senators Menendez and Lautenberg and Congressmen Pallone  and Rothman — agency managers overruled the scientists and approved the device for sale in December.

            Three executive officers at ReGen, which is based in New Jersey, contributed a total of $26,000 to the four Democratic representatives beginning in October 2007, according to OpenSecrets.org.

If these allegations are true, then it is very important that New Jersey find and aid any state patients victimized by political failures, Kean said. Governor Corzine should order the health commissioner to start her inquiry today.

Democrats have a real problem in New Jersey, if a new poll released by Public Policy Polling, a North Carolina-based firm that polls mostly for Democratic candidates and Democratic-leaning interest groups, is correct.  The poll has President Barack Obama’s favorables upside-down among N.J. voters, 45%-48%.

The poll has New Jersey’s two Democratic United States Senators also upside-down: Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) has approvals of 38%-44%, and Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) has approvals of 27%-40%. 

“There are more Obama voters in New Jersey now who don’t approve of him than there are (John) McCain voters who believe he’s doing a good job,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “This is the first time we’ve found that anywhere and it makes you wonder how effective Obama’s really going to be on behalf of Jon Corzine.”

The weirdest part of the poll: 21% of New Jerseyans believe Obama is not a natural born citizen, 19% say George W. Bush had advance knowledge of 9/11, and 8% say Obama is the Anti-Christ.

State Sen. Dana Redd (D-Camden)

Sources close to Gov. Jon Corzine have said for months now that he won't pick a white male for lieutenant governor.

Not enough balance.

A week ago three names seemed fairly solid in a firmament that nevertheless shifts daily: state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) and Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells.

If the first two were white, they were women, at least. But the fact that they weren't males wasn't the only obvious jump-off-the-page quality they shared.

Both women had reputations as elected officials who wouldn't easily get pushed around. 

Weinberg earned a rep - and endeared herself in the process to Corzine - as an enemy of the Bergen County Democratic Organization, while Buono aggressively sought the budget chairmanship despite efforts by leadership to install somebody more pliant.

JERSEY CITY -- After easily winning a low-turnout election in May, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy was sworn into his second full term today.

The event, which was formal but with the occasional dose of humor, was attended by the state’s top politicians: Gov. Jon Corzine, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) and U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken), who argued that Healy, having won 53% of the vote in a five man race, had won a mandate based on his five-year record.  

Also sworn in were the city’s nine council members, most of whom were already incumbents.  All but one of them ran on Healy’s slate.  
    
Healy gave 30 minute policy-focused inaugural speech that he seemed anxious to get through, occasionally stopping to tell the audience that he was almost done and asking the person running his teleprompter to speed things up.

Former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli is hosting a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) today in Englewood, The Record’s Herb Jackson reports.  

Of note is the event’s honored guest, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken), who currently chairs the DSCC and has a history of feuding with Torricelli.  

Menendez told Jackson that Torricelli “stepped forth and said he was willing to help Senate Democrats, and we accepted his help.”

The money will not make its way into any New Jersey campaigns, as the state’s next U.S. Senate race will take place when Menendez is up for reelection in 2012. 

Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford, Rick Perry... Chris Christie?

That’s the association that U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken) and U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) tried to make today on a conference call with the press, during which they panned Christie, the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, for saying he would not accept some money from the federal stimulus package during the primary campaign.  

“It is beyond my comprehension that Chris Christie… has aligned himself with these folks,” said Menendez.  

Now that the primary is over, Democrats are jumping on the conservative principles Christie espoused while fighting Republican rival Steve Lonegan in the primary.  Today, the focus was on comments he made during media appearances in March. 

Governors Palin, Jindal, Sanford and Perry – leading lights of the conservative movement -- have all famously attempted to reject some of the stimulus funds that were offered to their states.

On WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer" show, he  said he would “be reluctant to accept” portions of stimulus funds that had “strings attached from Washington, DC.”  In later appearances and campaign events, according to a Democratic State Committee press release sent out after the call, he said that he would reject portions of the money and that the conservative governors' positions "make sense."