Anthony Bucco

Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr. must soon name a new ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee and has to pick between two candidates who are actively seeking the job: Anthony Bucco and Kevin O'Toole.  The 70-year-old Bucco, who has been a Senator since 1997, has seniority on his side, while O'Toole, 44, has political clout - he's the Essex County GOP Chairman and the Chairman of the Republican County Chairman's group - and the support of many of the younger Senators that entered the upper house with him one year ago.

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Mike DuHaime, who managed Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign, has joined Mercury Public Affairs as a managing director.

New Jersey Republican strategist Mike DuHaime, who is expected to be named the general consultant for Christopher Christie's gubernatorial campaign, has joined Mercury Public Affairs as a managing director.  DuHaime managed Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid and served as political director for the McCain-Palin campaign.  He is a former Republican National Committee political director, served as regional political director of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, and was the Executive Director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee.

Referred to by the National Journal's Hotline as a "rising star and political natural," DuHaime was ranked #22 on the PolitickerNJ.com 2008 Power List.

Mercury Public Affairs is a full-service public affairs consultancy that counsels leading global Fortune 500 corporations, non-profit organizations, and trade and advocacy coalitions, offering a sophisticated suite of services that includes campaign management, strategic communications, grassroots outreach, litigation and crisis communications, advocacy advertising, and state and federal government affairs.  Earlier this week, Mercury announced it would be forming LFM Campaigns, a ballot proposition firm

Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana and County Clerk Joan Bramhall, who's also supporting Tony Bucco in the 25th District race.

MOUNTAIN LAKES – Kicking off his 25th District Assembly campaign at the centrally situated and styling Zeris Inn on the side of Highway 46, Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana summoned the forces of government to stand with him at the front of the big, packed room. 

It was a potent demonstration of political heft as Republican freeholders Jack Schrier, John Murphy, William Chegwidden, Gene Feyl, former freeholders William Druetzler and John Inglesino and others crowded in behind Cabana, facing a room that contained no fewer than 10 Morris County mayors not to mention deputy mayors and their dates and/or wives and council people and their significant others and attendant staff, political operatives, a sheriff’s surrogate, other former freeholders and elected officials and County Clerk Joan Bramhall. 

All arrayed against bloated government. 

“I stand with you tonight with the leadership of our county,” said Cabana, a municipal prosecutor and elected official going back 20 years to when he first served on the committee of Boonton Township, a northern Morris County mountain town.

Veteran Randolph Township Councilman Gary Algeier today will officially enter the Republican primary for the Assembly in the 25th Legislative District, according to sources.

 Mulling the possibility of a run for some time now, Algeier informally announced his intentions to members of the Randolph Republican Club on Wednesday night. A Morristown attorney, the long-serving councilman is in a four-way contest for two assembly seats with Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris Twp.), attorney Tony Bucco (son of veteran state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris) and Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana.

Morris County political insiders say the race for the vacated assembly seat in District 25 will come down to Tony Bucco and Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana, both of Boonton Township. 

Bucco, son of state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris), officially entered the race late last year, and his brother-in-law, Cabana, is set to kick-off his own campaign on Jan. 13th. 

But Randolph Councilman Gary Algeier, who three years ago pursued an unsucessful run for freeholder, says don’t count him out of the assembly contest. 

“A lot of people have asked me but I haven’t made a decision yet,” he told PolitickerNJ.com. “At the moment, I’m keeping my options open. With Rick Merkt stepping down, it opens a lot of possibilities.”

Chris Christie, who began his political career running for Morris County Freeholder in 1994, is expected to seek the GOP nomination for Governor in 2009.

His 1995 swearing-in ceremony marked an auspicious beginning for Freeholder Christopher J. Christie, who raised his right hand to take the oath of office at the prompting of former Gov. Thomas Kean.*

If Christie was still relatively unknown in Morris County Republican politics, the considerable presence of Kean at the reorganization meeting six months after the young comer ousted incumbent Cecilia Laureys in the GOP primary turned some heads.

Soon more people would know the freshman freeholder, although to hear observers tell the story – thirteen years removed from the initial pomp of the Kean triumphal – Christie didn’t exactly overwhelm the Morris County Republican organization. It wasn’t that he didn’t get government or arrived at freeholder meetings unprepared

That wasn’t it at all.

He just appeared unusually ambitious, particularly when, just two months into his first term as a freeholder, he announced his intentions to run for the State Assembly.  He said he’d accomplished all he needed to at the county level and that it was time to move on to Trenton.

His colleagues saw that as a particularly audacious move.

Corzine Continues to Stonewall and Hide Public Documents About Budget Deficit
 
Following the continued failure of Governor Jon S. Corzine to respond as required by law to a December 2, 2008 request for public records made pursuant to New Jersey's Open Public Records Act, Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean and Republican members of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee have announced their intention to file a lawsuit against the Governor to force the immediate release of requested documents.

State Sen. Kevin O'Toole, the Essex County GOP Chairman, could be the next ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

When Leonard Lance resigns his State Senate seat sometime over the next three weeks to take his seat in Congress, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr. will need to designate a new ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.  Republicans close to Kean suggest that he will pick Kevin O’Toole to succeed Lance. 

The other Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee are: Anthony Bucco, who served as Majority Leader in 2002 and 2003; and Steven Oroho and Philip Haines, who are both completing their first year in the Legislature.

State Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris)

BOONTON – State Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris) said he has not yet committed to a gubernatorial candidate to challenge Gov. .Jon Corzine, but said he thinks whoever runs has a good chance of beating the incumbent Democrat – particularly if that person runs on an aggressive smaller government message. 

“I like Christie,” Bucco said of former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who hasn’t yet entered the Republican Primary, but whom many establishment Republicans favor as the best choice to square off against Corzine. 

“But I haven’t committed to anyone,” added the veteran senator, who attended his son’s formal campaign kickoff for the Assembly in District 25.

District 25 Assembly candidate Tony Bucco, Jr., right, and his father, state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris).

BOONTON – In an Elks Club room jammed with elected officials wearing goodwill game faces for their high country candidate, municipal attorney Tony Bucco, Jr. of Boonton Township this evening formally kicked off his run for an Assembly seat in the 25th Legislative District.

Calling his foray into politics an “obvious next step,” the 46-year old son of state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris) highlighted his work and public service record, including 28 years on the Boonton Volunteer Fire Department, where he has risen to the rank of captain.

“I want to continue to serve my neighbors,” said Bucco, surrounded by his wife and family at a podium heaped with canned and boxed goods he collected from friends and supporters to distribute to local food pantries during the holiday season.

“New Jersey has been living beyond its means for too long and we’re now $31 billion in debt,” Bucco told the crowd. “We have the worst business tax climate in the country. Gov. Corzine and the Democratic administration have failed all of us by simply being reactive to the fiscal crisis.”

He vowed to fight for Morris County values and conservative Republican principles, to cut taxes, eliminate waste, protect private property rights, support alternative energy and green technology and protect the unborn and 2nd Amendment rights.

He criticized a state schools funding formula that does not serve children, in his view, while saddling seniors and families with egregious property taxes.