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Conservative Jay Webber, 35, lost a primary challenge against State Sen. Bob Martin in 2003When conservative Jay Webber ran for the State Senate four years ago, he found himself battling a liberal incumbent who, for the campaign, positioned himself to Webber’s right. The more Webber battled, the more money the incumbent spent refusing to move over.

Now, State Sen. Robert Martin is retiring, and with Assemblyman Joseph Pennacchio moving up to the Senate, Webber is battling Martin’s old advisor in a hotly contested primary for an open Assembly seat.

Former Kinnelon Councilman Larry Casha, 53, lost a Special Election Convention for Assembly to Joe Pennacchio in 2001 Lawrence Casha is using Martin’s old campaign strategy: he’s trying to position himself as the true conservative in the race – doing whatever he can to prevent Webber from moving him out of line.

It’s a three-man Republican primary for two seats in the Assembly in district 26, but Webber and Casha, a former Kinnelon Council President, both support the incumbent, Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce. They say they are strictly vying for Pennacchio’s Assembly seat.

Casha, a longtime GOP insider and fundraiser with a strong base in Montville, where he grew up, has won the most endorsements of elected officials and party leaders.

Webber, a former congressional aide, has strong ties to conservative activists. This week he picked up the endorsement of New Jersey Right to Life. He also has the organization line in Passaic County, home to thirty percent of the district’s voters. He shares the party endorsement with Pennacchio and DeCroce.

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New Providence Councilman Brooke Hern tells a great story about his experiences as an aide to then-Congressman Robert Torricelli:

"I had only recently graduated from the Political Science program at American University, and I had landed a job working for the Torch. It was my responsibility to keep the Congressman on schedule and fully briefed for each stop along the way. Typically, I would begin and end most days either at the Congressman's house or at our district office. But this not-so-typical day in politics would end dodging cars in the streets of Newark.

Moments before my unexpected stop, we were making our way past was was the site of the Torch's Senate office in the Gateway complex. The Congressman was talking on his cellular telephone. As we turned the corner and proceeded along McCarter Highway, he suddenly ended his call and issued an unexpected command: "Stop the car, right here!" Naturally, I checked the mirror and began to pull into the far right lane, when he commanded, "No! Right here!" That was quickly followed by a resounding "get out! Get out! GET OUT!" At first I thought perhaps the car was on fire, and that he was merely concerned for my safety. But as I stepped out of the car and watched him slide into the driver seat and speed away, it was quite clear that I had just been tossed aside like a dead armadillo.

As I watched the Congressman drive away, I realized that my keys were in the ignition of his car, and that he was approaching a red light at the corner. I quickly made my way to the car and tapped on the window, and told him that I needed to retrieve my keys. Otherwise, I would not be able to drive my car and get into my house. When the light turned green, he pulled through the intersection and over to the right side of the road. As he twisted himself into the back seat and aggressively wrestled with his suit jacket, he reprimanded me because he could not find his keys. I reached into the car and removed my keys from the ignition. He finally located his keys, closed the window, and drove away.

Then I walked to Penn Station and took a bus to our District Office in Hackensack, where I retrieved my car and drove home. I appeared at his house the next day to pick him up. Thereafter, we never spoke of the incident. We simply carried on as if it never happened."

Hern is now a Republican.

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Can’t get enough Max Pizarro and David Rebovich?  Then you can watch them on television tonight and over the weekend. 

Pizarro will be featured on Reporters Roundtable on NJN, hosted by Zachary Fink.  He’ll appear along with reporters Tom Hester of The Associated Press, Adrienne Lu from The Bergen Record and Michael Symons from Gannett New Jersey.  The show will air on Friday at 6:30pm and Sunday at 10am. 

Acting Governor Richard Codey says he will cut a radio advertisement in support of Jon Corzine's campaign for Governor on Tuesday. Codey made the announcement to a group of Democrats assembled Saturday morning at a local campaign headquarters in West Orange. The Codey ad comes a week after Doug Forrester began airing a TV spot featuring former Governor Thomas Kean.

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The Republican Party on Thursday united behind state Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., as its new Senate Minority Leader, while state Sen. Leonard Lance stepped aside in the face of a torrent of young blood.

Descendent of the state's first governor, son of a former two-term governor, and with a failed U.S. Senate run behind him and still only in his late 30s, Kean sees last Tuesday's election results as a rejection of Democratic leadership over the course of the last six years.

"Today there are more Republicans in the State Legislature, more Republican freeholders than before, more mayors than there were and more council seats," says Kean.

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The centerpiece of the Corzine “Housing Agenda” is 100,000 taxpayer funded, government mandated Low Income...oops, excuse me for being politically incorrect, I meant to say “Affordable Housing Units.”

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New Jersey Republicans do well in years when the Yankees sweep the Red Sox in a five game series. The last time it happened at Fenway Park was in 1943 and Republicans won the Governor's race by 127,760 votes. In 1951, when New York swept a five game series with Boston at Yankee stadium, Republicans picked up two State Senate seats and five Assembly seats.

The Yankees have reached the World Series in four of the six years that a member of the Kean family has run for statewide office in New Jersey. When Hamilton Kean won a U.S. Senate seat in 1928, the Yankees won the World Series with four straight wins over the St. Louis Cardinals, but when Kean ran for re-election in 1934, the Detroit Tigers won the pennant. In 1958, Robert Kean was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and the Yankees defeated the Boston Braves in seven games to win the World Championship. The Yankees made it to the World Series in 1977, when Thomas Kean Sr. unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for Governor, and beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games. When Kean Sr. ran again 1981, the Dodgers defeated the Yankees, four games to two. Like his grandfather, the year Kean Sr. ran for re-election (1985), the Yankees did not make it to the post-season.

Editor's Note: It could be argued that the number is really four out of seven -- the Yankees did not play in the 1905 World Series, when John Kean won re-election to a second term in the U.S. Senate (the New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Athletics), but that was before the direct election of United States Senators. The bottom line is that when Keans run for re-election to statewide office, the Yankees never make it to the World Series, giving George Steinbrenner some reason to fear for the success of his 2012 team if Thomas Kean, Jr. defeats Robert Menendez this year.

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Congressman Bill Pascrell will return to the House Homeland Security Committee.  The seven-term Democrat had served on the panel for four years, but gave the spot up to join the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership has now decided to give Pascrell a waiver so that he can serve on both committees.  He is the only New Jerseyan on the Homeland Security Committee.

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A funeral service for the late Donald Tucker, a Newark city councilman and assemblyman from the 28th District, is scheduled for next Tuesday. Essex County Democratic Chairman Phil Thigpen is expected to announce soon that the special election convention to fill Tucker's Assembly seat will be held after the November 8 election, so as not to distract from the gubernatorial race. If the vote takes place immediately after the general election, the new assemblyman or woman could be sworn-in in time to take part in what is expected to be a close Democratic caucus vote for majority leader. Two Essex candidates -- Wilfredo Caraballo and William Payne-- are expected to seek that post. Caraballo and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman are considered the front-runners.

Tucker's widow, Cleopatra Tucker, is publicly lobbying for both of her husband's seats. She has also begun making phone calls to party leaders. However, Essex insiders say that she has not been active in the party and is a longshot for either job.

The 28th District includes Irvington, Belleville, Bloomfield and about one-third of Newark. The district's Senate seat now belongs to Ron Rice, who is from Newark's West Ward. The other Assembly seat is occupied by Craig Stanley of Irvington. Belleville and Bloomfield make up about 40 percent of the district, and could unite behind a candidate at the special election convention. But if a suburbanite wins the Assembly seat, it could provoke a primary challenge next year from a Newark candidate. It also might splinter the party, possibly prompting a primary challenge to Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, who will run in next June's primary with the new Assembly member. Insiders say DiVincenzo is likely to push for the seat to go to a woman who could become a consensus candidate. One insider said the early favorite is Evelyn Williams, the Democratic leader in Newark's South Ward and a former school board member. Williams apparently is on good terms with most of Newark's competing power brokers.

Tucker's city council seat could potentially remain vacant until next May's municipal elections, unless 5 of the 8 remaining members can agree on someone to fill the at-large position. The main stumbling block figures to be the reluctance of at-large council members to create a new incumbent who would essentially become their competition next May. Besides Tucker's widow, two names being mentioned are Ras Baraka, the son of controversial poet Amiri Baraka and a deputy mayor, and Rice, the state senator and another deputy mayor. Baraka apparently has strong support from the younger crowd, though Rice, who would probably abandon his plans to run for mayor next year if he snared the $80,000-a-year council post, is apparently spreading the word that he has the votes.

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GOP State Chairman Tom WilsonState GOP Chairman Tom Wilson thinks that Democrats are “full of SCHIP.”

Wilson circulated a New York Times story by email today about an intra-party Democratic spat today over a compromise between Democrats and Republicans regarding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that would provide less money for states to cover parents.

Eight senators, including New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, said they would not support a bill that took money away from parental coverage.

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