The race for governor helped give PolitickerNJ.com our best month since the site launched on February 1, 2000.

As compared to the four weeks before Election Day 2008, visits to our site are up 93%.   Page views have increased by 151%, and time on site has gone up 44% -- our readers send more than 12 minutes per visit on PolitickerNJ.com.  We had over 3.5 million page views during the month leading into Election Day 2009, and nearly 600,000 visitors!

Attorney General Anne Milgram had already decided she would leave her post when Gov. Jon Corzine lost his bid for re-election.  She has been seeking jobs in Washington, D.C., where she lived when she worked on Corzine's U.S. Senate staff.  Her spokesman, David Wald, told PolitickerNJ.com yesterday denied reports that Milgram was headed to the U.S. Department of Justice to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

It will be interesting to see what the new Republican governor does with Wald, who was dominate political reporter in the state from 1978 to 2000, when he left the Star-Ledger to join Corzine's campaign staff when he ran for the Senate.  Wald worked in Corzine's Senate office before taking the Attorney General's communications director after Corzine named Zulima Farber to the post after the 2005 election.

Gov.-elect Christopher Christie will also have to decide what to do with other former reporters who wound up getting jobs with Democratic governors in recent years.  Deborah Howlett, who was covering Corzine for the Star-Ledger when he hired her as Communications Director, is sure to be a goner.  Corzine demoted Howlett a few months ago, although she remains on the front office payroll.

Gov.-elect Christopher Christie told the Star-Ledger that he would not rule out appointments for Ralph Marra and Michele Brown, two of his top colleagues at the U.S. Attorney's office. 

"People who have real problems won't be in the administration. People who have problems that are contrived for attempted political advantage won't be hurt by that.  That doesn't necessary mean they're going to be in, but if they're not in, that won't be the reason why they're not," Christie told the Star-Ledger's Claire Heininger. 

Christie could also be talking about former Morris County Freeholder John Inglesino, who stepped out of the spotlight after he became a campaign issue during the primary election.

Marra has been mentioned, although not by Christie or any of his top advisors, as a possible candidate for Attorney General.  Brown had been viewed as a likely candidate for a top administration post until Democrats made her into a campaign issue.

The White House is expected to announce that Judith Enck, New York's Deputy Secretary of the Environment, will be the new Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Alan Steinberg, who held the post during the Bush administration, left in January.

Complaints from Warren County Republicans over their treatment by the Express-Times has provoked an angry response from the newspaper's publisher:

Warren County GOP Chairman Douglas Steinhardt, in an e-mail to local GOP leaders:

"What can you say about the Express-Times? Sure, they got the legislative races right, but Daggett, Fitting and Theise? Not only does it show its political bias and obliviousness, but they went about by dragging our Freeholders through the mud. We can be proud of our Freeholders' accomplishments and relieved that the Express keeps endorsing their challengers.  It seems to all but insure our success!"

Former Warren County GOP Chairman Walter Orcutt, responding to Steinhardt's e-mail:

It's time to send a message to the Express Times.  We have put up with their bias for years and I for one have vowed not to ever purchase that paper again.  As elected officials, planning and zoning board members and other who direct the placement of legal notices and advertising; it's time to stop feeding the machine that does NOTHING for Republicans, and in fact,  they appear to go out of their way to do harm to our message, our values and our accomplishments. Drop your subscriptions or simply do not purchase the paper.  Pretty much every bit of the "news" is available on-line at their site for free (or go to the library) so let's beat them at their own game!   (...and you will be doing something positive for the environment - ok, maybe you need to find something else for the bottom of the bird cage)

Express-Times publisher Martin Till, responding to Orcutt:

Mr. Orcutt,

Can you please explain our bias to me.  Let me see, we endorsed Bush twice, we endorse more Republicans than Democrats, we cover all the candidate equally (both sides complain to us, so we must be doing it right).

I can assure you The Express-Times has no agenda or bias.  And I'm glad that as an a American, you value free speech and opinion.

As a registered Republican, former Army Green Beret and Publisher of this newspaper, I find your email to be insulting and quite frankly, stupid.

Debate, discussion and differing opinions are what have made this country great.  Believing there is only one way to solve problems and trying to eliminate different opinions is to me, un-American.

If you need paper for you bird cage, just print out your stupid emails.

Best.

Martin K. Till
President & Publisher
The Express-Times

Republicans across the state are in awe of George Gilmore, the Ocean County GOP leader who delivered a 70,000 plurality for Gov.-elect Christopher Christie on Tuesday.  That's bad news for U.S. Rep. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill), who is preparing to seek re-election next year to a second term in Congress.  Republicans held the third district seat from 1884 until 2008, but have struggled to find a candidate and are way behind in fundraising - Adler has $1 million in his campaign account and has raised more money than any other freshman.  But now Christie and Gilmore are positioned to raise some serious money, and there's a fairly good chance the GOP will just left Gilmore pick a candidate.

The election of a Republican governor raises some interesting questions about the future of New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas Fisher, a Democrat who resigned his seat in the State Assembly earlier this year to take the job.  Past agriculture secretaries have not been as political as Fisher, who was out on the campaign trail for Democrats this fall.  Gov.-elect Christopher Christie may ask him to resign as part of the change of control of state government, but it's not certain that Fisher will go easily.

New Jersey has one of the most powerful governorships in the nation, but on agricultural issues, the Governor has relatively little clout - the result of a deal with South Jerseyans to gain political support for the ratification of the 1947 State Constitution.  As a result, the Governor has limited say on the appointment of one member of his or her cabinet, the Secretary of Agriculture, and even takes direction from an agricultural trade association on the appointments of policy-makers.  This is a throwback to the old days when state boards exercised considerable power, especially in the areas of health, education, the environment, and alcoholic beverage control.

Dana Redd's victory in the Camden mayoral race was as easy as everyone expected, which means Democrats will need to fill her fifth district State Senate seat.  Possible candidates include Assemblymen-elect Donald Norcross and Angel Fuentes, outgoing Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, Camden City Councilwoman Dana Burley, and Camden City Councilman Whip Wilson.  Redd will need to step down no later than January 1, when she takes office as mayor; a special election convention would be held 7-35 days after her resignation.  If it's Norcross or Fuentes, a second special election convention would need to be held to fill their Assembly seats.

Senate President Richard Codey says the White House talked to him about running for Governor if Jon Corzine dropped his re-election bid, according to a must-read story in the Star-Ledger.  Codey says that Corzine was close to ending his bid for a second term last July, especially after a large group of Hudson County politicians were arrested on federal corruption charges, and said that White House political director Patrick Gaspard told him their internal polls had him leading Republican Christopher Christie. 

Worth noting is a huge load of crap from Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine, who issued a press release last night suggesting that he never really thought Jon Corzine would win re-election.  "In New Jersey, the party in power in the White House hasn't won the Governor's office since 1985... It would have been historic if not unprecedented to win one or both of these races given historical trends," Kaine wrote. 

The race for Governor "turned on local and state issues and circumstances and on the candidates in each race - and despite what some will certainly claim - the results are not predictive of the future or reflective of the national mood or political environment," Kaine said.  "Exit polls showed that both races turned on local issues... the President's approval ratings are better today than the share of the vote he received in 2008."