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Assemblyman David Rible (R-Wall) today issued a statement indicating that he does not intend to pursue the office of Monmouth County Sheriff, which Kim Guadagno is vacating to assume the office of lieutenant governor.

"While I am honored that my name has been mentioned as a possible candidate for Monmouth County Sheriff, I have asked that my name be removed from consideration for this position," Rible said. "I am committed to devoting my time and energies to representing the residents of the 11th District. I look forward to serving in my new role as Assembly Republican Whip and working with Governor-elect Christie and the legislative leaders to offer change that the people of New Jersey deserve."

MADISON - Gov. Jon Corzine's campaign thought they were well positioned to win re-election against former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie leading right up to Election Day, Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan (D-Union) said today at a joint event with his Republican counterpart, Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

"Candidly, we thought we were going to win. We had numbers that showed on the Sunday before the election that we were in a position to win," said Cryan who, along with Webber, is also an assemblyman. 

Cryan made the point in response to a question from FDU pollster and political science professor Peter Woolley about whether the Democratic Party abandoned Corzine.  Although there were clearly base problems and the unaffiliated vote went heavily for Christie, the loss did not result in part from party leaders scuttling the campaign, as some have suggested after looking at the anemic turnout from the state's Democrat-rich urban voting districts. 

"We ran a campaign that appealed to the Democratic core in the hopes it would bring folks forward," Cryan said.  "Certainly we tried very hard to inspire the new Obama voter, who clearly needed more inspiration than we could provide." 

Cryan said that the campaign had trouble cutting through with their message.  Corzine had provided real tax relief, he argued, but it didn't live up to the campaign promise of "40 in 4" he made in 2005.

"You might have heard us mention more than once that we had the most property tax relief in history. It's not a lie -- we did. But nobody believed it," he said.

Webber argued that Corzine's appeal to their base on mammograms, abortion and guns did not work because the election above all a referendum on Corzine's four years in office.

"There's no one element of the campaign or election season that this is the reason why or that is the reason why. It is both a referendum on the incumbent and I think a real vote of confidence for our new governor," he said.

Webber said that Christie's victory showed that conservatives can win in traditionally Democratic states like New Jersey, though he stopped short of saying that it signifies a conservative resurgence in blue states. 

Christie, Webber said, did not run away from questions on hot button social issues.  But he didn't emphasize them. 

"You have your conservative principles and beliefs. You don't back away from them or try to explain them - you defend them when you have to.  But you talk about those kitchen table issues that voters care about," he said. "Certainly, Chris demonstrated that pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-voucher, pro-tax cut Republican can win in New Jersey."

Wakeup Call will retun on Tuesday, November 17.

Some links to stories in this morning's newspapers:

• Corzine, his time running out, mum on future
• Doblin: An inside look at the outsider now indoors
• Stile: Campaign finance reform hasn't stopped shadowy donors
• Corzine Hasn't Spoken With Bank of America on CEO Job
• Newark's Democrats: Don't blame us for Gov. Jon Corzine's loss
• Loopholes in N.J. campaign finance laws benefit biggest government contractors
• N.J. Gov. Corzine makes first public appearance with Gov.-elect Christie, vows smooth transition
• Gov.-elect Christie's transition team meets for first time
• Ex-N.J. Sen. John Lynch set to finish corruption sentence at Newark halfway house
• Engineering firm denies donating to Jersey City councilman
• NJ Gov-elect Christie forms budget-tax task force
• Corzine, Christie have cordial transition meeting
• Ex-Eagle Runyan may seek Adler's seat
• GOP wants Runyan to tackle Adler for Congress

WEST WINDSOR - At a town hall meeting tonight in front of a crowd of supporters, detractors and agitators, U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-Hopewell Twp.) defended his decision to vote in favor of healthcare reform legislation that Saturday passed in the House by a margin of 220-215. 

"The healthcare bill that passed requires standards of private employers, improves Medicare, and adds assistance healthcare coverage for almost all Americans," Holt, one of seven Democratic congressmen from New Jersey to vote in favor of the legislation, standing onstage in the Grover Middle School.

All five Republican congressmen from New Jersey voted against the bill, along with U.S. Rep. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill), the lone Democrat to cut from his party on the controversial bill.

"I'm very committed to a public option - a publicly administered government operated insurance policy - in addition to preserving an array of policies that currently exist," said Holt, who next year faces a challenge from GOP Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre, who opposes a public option.

Former State Sen. Richard Bagger, who will head Gov.-elect Chris Christie's budget transition team, served as Assembly Appropriations Committee Chairman from 1998 to 2002

Two Democrats who served with former state Sen. Richard Bagger when he chaired the Assembly Appropriations Committee hailed him as a wise choice to co-chair Gov.-elect Chris Christie's transition task force on budget and taxes.

"What an impressive and talented guy," state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen), chair of the senate budget committee, said of the legislator turned top Pfizer executive who Christie today named to the transition post along with venture capitalist Robert Grady.

"When he left it was a great loss to the New Jersey Legislature," Buono added of Bagger. "We're lucky to have him back. It says something about Chris Christie that he wound find someone that both parties hold in very high regard. And he's a nice guy on top of that. A real gentleman."

Former Assemblyman Bill Payne (D-Newark), older brother of U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark), also praised Bagger.

State Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Jersey City) could face a primary when she seeks re-election in two years.

The primary is a year and a half away, but state Sen. Sandra B. Cunningham (D-Jersey City) is in danger of being tossed off the Hudson County Democratic Organization's (HCDO) line in 2011.

That development could spark an intra-party fight like the one that engulfed Hudson County politics two and a half years ago, when a challenge by then-Assemblyman and Union City Mayor Brian Stack to former Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny's (D-Hoboken) had county-wide implications.  Back then, Cunningham kept the seat of former state Sen. Joseph Doria (D-Bayonne) for the HCDO, fending off a challenge by former Assemblyman Louis Manzo (D-Jersey City), who was backed by the rival Democratic organization led by Stack. 

That conflagration died down after the 2007 primary election, but Cunningham's decision in June to block Gov. Jon Corzine's appointment of Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has - at least for the time being - turned the party apparatus against her.

"I've seen smaller things spark forest fires here in Hudson County," said DeGise.

DeGise said he had the support of all 12 Hudson County mayors for the Port Authority spot.  With so much of the Port Authority's infrastructure in Hudson County - the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the Bayonne Bridge, most of the New Jersey portion of the PATH system, the Auto Marine terminal in Bayonne - DeGise said that the county should have a representative on the board of commissioners.

"Just one person - I think it's a curious system that allows for one person to block the will of a ton of others. But that's the system," he said.

Speculation that Corzine would appoint Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage to the post instead - a political ally of state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth), who is Cunningham's Trenton mentor - did not come to fruition.

There is no love lost between DeGise and Cunningham.  In 2001, Cunningham defeated DeGise in a non-partisan contest for mayor of Jersey City.  Glenn Cunningham died four years later, but the hard feelings between DeGise and Sandra Cunningham remained - so much so that it was considered no small feat for Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy and HCDO operatives to get them to run on the same ticket in 2007.

Still, while he doesn't hide his anger at Cunningham, DeGise thinks a public fight can be avoided.

"Diplomacy should always be used before a sledgehammer," he said.  "I can remember back now to '07, and the spark between Bernie Kenny and Brian Stack over the Senate seat just blew up into a county-wide fight, and I really to this day believe that better diplomacy could have been used to avoid that."

Steve Adubato, center, with Gov-elect Chris Christie, right, and Gov. Jon Corzine, at the North Ward Center during the Republican Primary election earlier this year.

NEWARK - North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato hit back today against those critics in his party who bashed him for embracing Gov.-elect Chris Christie in the aftermath of the gubernatorial election at the charter school Adubato founded.

The Democrat singled out longtime political foe Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland), who Tuesday evening at West Ward Councilman Ron Rice's fundraiser griped that the party bosses dropped Gov. Jon Corzine "like a prom dress."

"First of all, the election's over, if we didn't come together we're going to play partisan roles and we all lose," Adubato told PolitickerNJ.com. "Codey knows that. Come on. He picked a Republican, Leonard Lance, to swear him in. What was Dick Codey saying then? He made a deal with the Republicans to hold onto his Senate Presidency to save his seat when Nia Gill challenged him. Stop.

"Tell Codey this is America. Teach him a lesson. We don't control who does what when they go into the booth and vote."

Gov.-elect Christopher Christie's first big move - putting Richard Bagger and Robert Grady in charge of the state budget transition team - is an impressive display of gravitas and seems to avoid some of the early mistakes made by his predecessor, Jon Corzine.  Bagger and Grady offer an interesting contrast to Bradley Abelow and Gary Rose, two Goldman Sachs executives with no government or campaign experience, who were brought in by Corzine to run his economic shop. Christie has picked government insiders-turned-private sector outsiders who understand politics.  Democrats complained about Abelow and Rose all the time, but never about Bagger.

Bagger, who spent nearly a dozen years in the Legislature, knows his way around the state budget; he chaired the Assembly Appropriations Committee for four years, and was well-liked and respected by legislators from both parties.  He left the State Senate in after one year to move up within the Pfizer corporate structure, so he bears no responsibility for budgets passed by Democratic governors.  He also understands local government; he was a Mayor and Councilman in Westfield before his election to the Assembly.

Grady is an expert on budget matters; he was the Associate Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President George H.W. Bush, and understands New Jersey politics - and the media - from his years as Gov. Thomas Kean's Communications Director and as Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Millicent Fenwick.  He returns to New Jersey after spending more than fifteen years as a partner at the Carlyle Group, one of the nation's largest private equity firms.

Former State Sen. Richard Bagger (R-Westfield), left, and former OMB official Robert Grady, will head Gov.-elect Chris Christie's budget transition team

Former State Sen. Richard Bagger and former Kean aide Robert Grady will chair Gov.-elect Christopher Christie's transition task force on budget and taxes.

Bagger, a top Pfizer executive, chaired the Assembly Appropriations Committee for four years.  Grady, a millionaire venture capitalist who retired in June from his post as Chairman of Carlyle Venture Partners, served as Communications Director under Kean, and as Executive Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Bush.  He also served as Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Millicent Fenwick.  He also spent ten years as a professor at the Stanford University Business School. 

The Task Force Co-Chairmen will help develop recommendations to address the fiscal deficit that state experts have estimated at over $8 billion for the coming fiscal year 2011, and to respond to the shortfall in projected state revenues in the current fiscal year 2010, according to a statement released by Christie's transition office.

Left to right: U.S. Rep. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill), former Philadelphia Eagles tackle Jon Runyan, and State Sen. Christopher Connors (R-Lacey).

Ocean County Republican Chairman George Gilmore is not ready to roll over and anoint former Eagles tackle Jon Runyon as the Republican nominee for Congress in the 3rd District.

First, he at least needs to hear from Runyan, who lives in Burlington County.

"I'll wait for Mr. Runyan to make contact and we'll take it from there, but obviously there are a lot of viable candidates out there," said Gilmore.  "Some are from Ocean County, some from Burlington, and we'll have to wait and see how they all withstand the scrutiny that will be put on their strengths and weaknesses." 

Republicans from Burlington County, which makes up roughly the same portion of the 3rd District as Ocean County, recruited Runyan and wasted no time pushing out a statement quoting him as being "very interested" in running.  

But Gilmore - who gets Republican street cred for Christopher Christie's 70,000 margin of victory in Ocean County -- has his own stable of potential candidates, foremost among them state Sen. Christopher Connors (R-Lacey Twp.). 

Ocean County, which is represented by two congressional districts, has never put a native son in the House. 

Last year, Gilmore's party ran Freeholder Jack Kelly in a nasty and costly campaign against the eventual Republican nominee, Lockheed Martin executive and then-Medford Mayor Chris Myers (former Tabernacle Township Committeeman Justin Murphy also ran, getting nearly as many votes in the primary as Kelly did, and plans to run again this year).  Republicans feel they would have beaten U.S. Rep. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill) - who last year became the first Democrat to represent the district since the late 19th century - had they avoided the primary. 

Gilmore also noted that Runyan - a free agent who is not active in the NFL right now but has not retired - has expressed interest in past interviews about returning to play football.

"These are the questions we want to ask, but I have yet to have the opportunity to discuss this with Mr. Runyan," he said.