Bill Bradley

Before Bill Bradley, there was Harry C. Harper.

Widely known as "Hackensack Harry," Harper spent ten seasons as a major league baseball pitcher with the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and Brooklyn Dodgers, compiling a lifetime record of 59-77. The southpaw started the sixth game of the 1921 World Series for the Yankees against the New York Giants.

After his baseball career ended, the 32-year-old Harper entered politics, winning election as the Bergen County Sheriff in 1927.

Frank Lautenberg becomes the first U.S. Senator from New Jersey to win a fifth term, but didn't set any records for winning percentages.  His 56% against former U.S. Rep. Richard Zimmer was his career best, but he didn't approach the 60% mark that Bill Bradley, Clifford Case and Harrison Williams had achieved back in a time when the state was more politically competitive.  Still, the 84-year-old Democrat is secure for the next six years, and did not have to sweat much after pushing back a primary challenge from U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews.

With a 22-point lead in his bid for re-election, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning, Frank Lautenberg is likely to break two new records -- he'll become the first five-term United States Senator in New Jersey history, and he'll break his own record as the oldest person to ever win a statewide election in this state.  But there is one more record that Lautenberg could break -- the biggest winning percentage in a U.S. Senate race. That record belongs to Bill Bradley, who won 64.2% against Mary Mochary in 1984.  

Lautenberg could become the fifth Senator in state history to win more than 60% of the vote; if this is the last campaign for the 84-year-old Democrat, it's not a bad way to go out -- especially since Lautenberg has never passed the 54% mark before.  He won 50.9% against Millicent Fenwick in 1982, 53.5% against Peter Dawkins in 1988, 50.3% against Chuck Haytaian in 1994, and 53.9% against Douglas Forrester in 2002.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will be the sixth woman to appear on a statewide ballot as a major party candidate in New Jersey.  The first was Thelma Sharp, a 32-year-old Democratic State Committeewoman from Vineland who was nominated to run for a two-month unexpired term in the United States Senate in 1930.  Millicent Fenwick, a four-term Congresswoman, ran for the Senate in 1982 (she lost to Frank Lautenberg), and Montclair Mayor Mary Mochary unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Senator Bill Bradley in 1984.  Christine Todd Whitman narrowly lost a bid for U.S. Senate in 1990 (to Bradley), and was elected Governor in 1993 and 1997.  In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro lost New Jersey as the Democratic candidate for Vice President.

DENVER - Everyone has a favorite Democratic National Convention, and for former State Democratic Party Chairman Ray Durkin and party executive director Emma Byrne, the year was 1988, when Democrats left Atlanta, Georgia with a 17-18 point lead in the polls and fully confident they would buck the GOP.

"The high we got from the convention was huge, and everyone was absolutely convinced we couldn’t lose," recalled Byrne.

"That would change, of course," said Durkin. "That was before we learned that Mike Dukakis was a nice man. He was afraid to attack, and he took a beating."

The year was important for Durkin, the Vailsburg, Newark product who lived in the same neighborhood as other Irish-American party bulwarks: the late John Cryan (father of state chairman, Joe) and Assemblyman (And former State Party Chair) Tom Giblin (D-Montclair).

Linden Mayor Richard Gerbounka has endorsed John McCain for President, but declined to say who he would support for Congress in the hotly contested seventh district race between Democrat Linda Stender and Republican Leonard Lance.  Part of Linden is in the seventh.  Gerbounka was a Democratic Councilman until launching an Independent bid to unseat longtime Mayor John Gregorio in 2006.

Back in 1984, another Democratic Mayor from Union County endorsed a GOP presidential candidate.  In a much heralded announcement, Ronald Reagan won the backing of Thomas Dunn, who spent 28 years as the Mayor of Elizabeth.  That year, Reagan beat Walter Mondale in Elizabeth by nearly 4,000 votes, 56%-44%.  Reagan carried Linden by slightly less than 2,000 votes, also 56%-44%.  In other Democratic Union County strongholds, Reagan won Rahway by almost 2,000 votes (58%-42%), but lost Plainfield by almost 7,000 votes, 72%-28%.  But Reagan had no coattails: Democrat Bill Bradley, seeking a second term in the United States Senate, carried Elizabeth, Linden, Rahway and Plainfield by wide margins.

Frank Lautenberg has hit the magic number: he’s at 51% in a new Rasmussen Reports poll released on Wednesday. That’s the first time in Lautenberg’s 26-year political career that he has hit the fifty percent mark before Labor Day. He leads Republican Dick Zimmer 51%-33%.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, backing up Senate President Richard Codey's endorsement of Obama.

Obama Campaign State Director Mark Alexander knew it would be hard to pry Sen. Hillary Clinton’s supporters loose in New Jersey after her victory in New Hampshire.

This was a fight now, and Clinton’s people were solid.

"We have an opportunity here in Hudson - Hudson, Hispanics, Hillary and history," Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) cried to a North Bergen audience of mostly Latinos with Clinton on stage.

The response was near to deafening with Clinton standing on stage with Menendez, U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-13) and state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex).

But that didn’t mean there weren’t other opportunities for Obama; in fact, one big opportunity, in the form of Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex), who was at the moment glumly serving as state director for the foundering campaign of John Edwards.

Alexander knew Codey. He also knew Codey was close to former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ), who had come onto the Obama campaign as an advisor.

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) would love Barack Obama to pick Codey’s old pal, former Sen. Bill Bradley, as his running mate.

He recognizes, however, that a Northeastern, blue state vice presidential candidate on the Democrats’ ticket probably wouldn’t be in Obama's best political interest.

PARAMUS - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) seems to like the idea of former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley (D-Montclair) as Barack Obama's running mate - in a very non-committal sort of way.

"I think Bill Bradley was an outstanding member of the U.S. Senate, I think he's a very decent, value-centered individual. Obviously a very distinguished scholar in his own right," said Hoyer during a campaign appearance for 5th district congressional candidate Dennis Shulman.  "There's no doubt he could be president and many supported him fro president when he ran, so I think that would be a choice the American public would certainly respond favorably to."