Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno

In recent years, a few inter-party contests stand out as wars, and as George W. Bush's numbers threatened to flat-line in New Jersey, Democrats felt a surge of confidence in Monmouth County, where they ramrodded GOP excess and Bush backlash into annual wins on the freeholder board and a Senate victory by Ellen Karcher for territory that could be described as leaning in their favor but finally uneasy.

2007 proved the Democrats' penultimate chance to squeeze as much citizen angst as possible out of the GOP's control of Monmouth and Bush's perceived deepsixing of his own party, and nowhere was the countervailing intensity better demonstrated than Jennifer Beck's challenge of Karcher in the 12th District and, in less publicized if no less intense fashion, Kim Guadagno's battle with Belmar Police Chief Jack Hill for a vacancy at county sheriff.  

Both women won - Guadagno narrowly - and in the process earned reputations as tough, well-prepared campaigners.

Consequently, at various stages of Chris Christie's journey as a Republican gubernatorial candidate, Beck and Guadagno have been mentioned in GOP circles as potential candidates for lieutenant governor, with the former's name surfacing as early as last summer while Christie was still U.S. Attorney, then fading for the most part; and Guadagno's coming louder late in the process here.

If the potential LG candidacies of Bergen County Clerk Kathe Donovan and state Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington) have generated more ink than either Beck's or Guadagno's,  the latter two share an advantage of having weathered some of the most brutal and competitive dynamics of recent Monmouth County election history.

In that 2007 cycle, Senate President Richard Codey's (D-Roseland) $6 million buck-up of Karcher and South Jersey Democratic boss George Norcross III simultaneous buttressing of Karcher's Assembly running mates made Beck's run that much more of a frontline effort, with those statewide egos at stake. 

While not as glamorous and ubiqutous that year, the Guadagno-Hill race was about as hard-boiled as any Republican-Democratic contest of this decade, with Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vic Scudiery enamored of Hill's blue collar candidacy and Republicans equally exhilarated by Guadagno's thickset resume, which included prosecutorial background, jobs as assistant state Attorney General and assistant U.S. Attorney, and a professorship at Rutgers-Newark.

Now Guadagno has emerged as a legitimate shortlist LG candidate, according to Republican insiders.

"Christie is ten points up in the polls, and at this point he doesn't want someone who would hurt him," said a GOP source. "Kim Guadagno is someone he knows, someone he's worked with, and she's faired very well during the vetting process."

Guadagno didn't return calls for comment. 

During the Republican Primary, she told PolitickerNJ.com that she is focused on her job as sheriff and would not respond to questions about lieutenant governor. 

But it's Guadagno - who during her 2007 campaign championed the federal deputization of local law enforcement officials under the provisions of 287(g) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act - getting the late-in-the-game insider LG buzz as Christie sizes up his options.

In part because of her hard line stance on illegal immigration, allies of movement conservative Steve Lonegan labored hard to try to land Guadagno's endorsement in the GOP primary, and although she backed Christie, former Lonegan primary allies like her for lieutenant governor.

"I've met her and heard her speak and she seems to be a Reagan consevative," said Assemblyman (and state Sen.-elect) Mike Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) "It's the message of the person at the top of the ticket which is going to win the governor's race, but certainly the sheriff makes an attractive candidate." 

Guadagno also impresses more moderate Republicans like state Sen. Sean Kean (R-Wall), who've watched her campaign and work up close.

"I think Kim would be fantastic. Basically she's chief executive officer and hundreds of people report to her," said Kean. "She's a very capable individual, has a great sense of humor, and she's attractive physically, which doesn't hurt in politics. We need a big number out of Monmouth, which is why Kim or Jen would be great for the Christie ticket. 

"I would be thrilled if it was Kim or Jen, but if either of them becomes lieutenant governor, we would also have to be thinking about keeping that senate and sheriff's seat," added the senator, ever-conscious of the warzone Monmouth has been over the course of these recent years.

If there is an obvious downside to Guadagno, besides the possibility that she might project too much conservatism for what is ultimately a blue state - and this from GOP insiders - it's that her law enforcement profile mirrors Christie's professional background, which arguably wouldn't provide the best confidence builder for a party looking to prove its economic know-how during this nationall recession. 

But Republicans still smarting over the back-to-back meltdowns of Anne Estabrook and Andy Unanue as statewide candidates look at an aggressive and tested winner like Guadagno, who held Republican territory in a hard election year, and they aren't surprised when the word is she's holding her own through the LG vetting process.