Not all Republicans happy with Bergen freeholder slate

Bergen County Republicans feel that the scene is set for a competitive freeholder race.

Three incumbent Democrats are up for reelection to the all-Democrat board. There’s Bernadette McPherson, who just lost her mayoral seat in Rutherford by a landslide; David Ganz, who lost his mayoral seat in Fair Lawn to Republican Ed Trawinski in 2005 (although he was reelected to the freeholder board that same year); and the brand new Vernon Walton, a former Englewood councilman who lost that seat to Democratic Assemblyman Gordon Johnson in 2006.

“McPherson and Ganz, I think, are the soft underbelly of the Democratic freeholder board,” said Republican state Sen. Gerald Cardinale.

Add to the chastened incumbents a few local circumstances, like the growing EnCap controversy, the indictment of former Democratic state Sen. Joe Coniglio and having the popular Republican Kathleen Donovan on the ballot for reelection as county clerk, and some Republicans feel that they have the makings for a good race and a chance to win a Freeholder seat for the first time since Lisa Randall won one in 2003.

“The (Democrats) each have baggage,” said Republican strategist Thom Ammirato. “You’ve got great issues floating around them.”

But Ammirato is concerned that his party could be its own worst enemy.

The party’s policy committee met last week and recommended three candidates for endorsement by the county committee. On the ballot at Thursday’s convention with asterisks next to their names will be Paul Duggan, who ran last year and is running this time to take on Walton for the unexpired term of former Freeholder Connie Wagner; Deirdre Woodbyrne, a Ramsey resident who’s Vice-Chair of the Bergen County Young Republicans; and former Ramsey Councilman Jeffrey Heller.

Passed over for the committee’s endorsement was Christopher Calabrese, a 32-year-old from Upper Saddle River who runs a real estate business in McPherson’s home turf of Rutherford. But Calabrese intends to continue to fight for the organization line, and he’s got some influential people behind him.

Calabrese’s backers champion his age and wealth. He’s already got $25,000 lined up and pledged to raise $100,000 by June.

“We’ve been losing because we don’t have resources,” said Ammirato, who’s also concerned about having two candidates from Ramsey on the same ticket. “Money does matter, despite what some people think.”

Calabrese’s candidacy was crippled by former state Senate candidate Clara Nibot, who sits on the screening committee, and 39th district Republican chair Mike Ryan, who stood up and announced that he endorsed Heller. After Calabrese gave a speech that members considered less-than-impassioned, Nibot got up and asked how long he had been a registered Republican. The answer: one year. Until then, he had been undeclared, but said that he always voted Republican.

“I know that I was the reason that Mr. Calabrese was not chosen,” said Nibot. “You’re talking about representing the Republican Party and you want to run for the Republican organization and you just became a Republican?”

Nibot said that Calabrese should have revealed his recent party conversion in his resume, which she described as “very poor.”

“Ok, he registered Republcian last year, but why does he not want to mention this?” she said.

Nibot also said that she’s worried about Democrats infiltrating the Republican ticket to sabotage the race.

But to Republican activist and fundraiser Joe Caruso, who founded Red Faction Political Action Committee, said that Calabrese’s recent party registration shouldn’t be an issue.

“If that’s such an issue then Reagan should never have been president,” he said.

Caruso said that he has nothing against the other candidates, and is particularly happy with Deidre Woodbyrne, another 30-something candidate who he helped recruit (Cardinale, taken with her speech in front of the committee, said that “she’s like an Obama”). But Calabrese, he said, has the time and the money to devote to make this a competitive race.

“Why don’t we listen to what his ideas are? The deliverance of his speech could have been better, but his speech was really good,” he said.

Some Republicans lament that such a large screening committee had a say in the process, and contrast the open style of the BCRO unfavorably to the one-man rule of their Democratic counterparts under Chairman Joe Ferriero. Republican Chairman Rob Ortiz has taken some slack for this, along with criticism that he couldn’t deliver the policy committee’s votes to recommend Anne Evans Estabrook for U.S. Senate, despite his own endorsement.

But Ortiz doesn’t take issue with the way the committee made the decision, and said that having two candidates from the same town isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“I think it’s just a testament to the strength of the candidates coming from that particular town,” he said. “They are a shining example of a very strong republican club, a very strong republican town.”

But whether the Freeholder candidates really do have a shot against the better funded Democrats depends largely on what goes on at the top of the ticket. Republican freeholder candidates tend to do better in off-year elections, and 2008 is anything but that.

But the Republicans say that Barack Obama will work better for them than Hillary Clinton, who is sure to have the BCDO apparatus in full gear if she’s the nominee.

“How well or poorly we do will depend a lot on how McCain does, on how I hope (U.S. Senate candidate Joe) Pennacchio does, and how (congressional candidates) Vince Micco and Scott Garrett do,” said Bob Yudin, who ran for freeholder last year and endorsed Duggan and Heller.

Democrats respond that the Republicans might as well just stop trying.

“Wishful thinking. We hear this rhetoric every year from the Republicans and every year they lose,” said BCDO Bill Maer. “We are going to run our usual, very well-organized campaign. Our three incumbents have great records, are proud of their records, and we are going to make sure that they are victorious in November.”