Bob Franks

Welcome to September, when polls start showing New Jersey in play.  A new Fairleigh Dickinson University survey shows Barack Obama with a six point lead, 47%-41% -- down from the double-digit lead he enjoyed this summer over John McCain.  This is almost a New Jersey tradition: polls show Republican statewide candidates to be competitive in September and part of October, only to lose the state in November.

A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Republican Dick Zimmer within seven points of the four-term incumbent, Democrat Frank Lautenberg (48%-41%), but it seems that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has already written off the former three-term Congressman. In an interview with Dow Jones Newswire, Rebecca Fisher, a spokeswoman for the NRSC, said that Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu is their priority and “admitted the party had no other hopes of unseating an incumbent Democrat."

Is Jon Corzine following the Barack Obama model and auditioning candidates for Lieutenant Governor by taking a road trip?  The Governor, who says he’ll seek re-election next year, is leaving today for Fort Bliss in Texas, where he’ll lead a bi-partisan delegation to visit with New Jersey National Guard troops.  Four of the five Democrats joining him have been mentioned as possible candidates for Lt. Governor: Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney, Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman, and State Sen. Teresa Ruiz.   

There’s even a Chuck Hagel-type on the trip: former Republican Congressman Bob Franks, who nearly beat Corzine in the 2000 U.S. Senate race but has now become a close friend and sometime policy advisor.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg leads Republican challenger Dick Zimmer by thirteen percentage points, 49%-36%, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released today. A July 17, 2006 Quinnipiac poll had Republican Tom Kean, Jr. and incumbent Bob Menendez in a statistical dead heat: Kean 40%, Menendez 38%. A June 19, 2002 Quinnipiac poll had incumbent Bob Torricelli leading his GOP challenger, Douglas Forrester, 44%-36% And a July 27, 2000 Quinnipiac poll had Democrat Jon Corzine running twenty points ahead of Republican Bob Franks, 50%-30%. By Election Day, only the Corzine/Franks race was close.

Mike DuHaime is now running John McCain's political operation
New Jerseyan Mike DuHaime is the new political director for John McCain’s presidential campaign, according to published reports this morning.  DuHaime, the former Executive Director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee, will assume the management of McCain’s political operation following a management shakeup earlier this week. 

He had been campaign manager of Rudy Giuliani’s bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

The defeat of Carmen Orechio for re-election to the Nutley Township Commission seat he has held since 1968 is indeed the end of an era in a town where the Orechio family has dominated local politics for nearly fifty years.  A former State Senate President, the 81-year-old Orechio was defeated tonight by Joseph Scarpelli, a former Essex County Freeholder and the son of Peter Scarpelli, who is stepping down as a Commissioner in July.

In 1958, Democrat Alexander Feinberg and former GOP Assemblyman William Cahill faced off in the old first district for the seat of Republican Charles Wolverton, who was retiring after 32 years in Congress. A Democratic year nationally, Cahill held on for a 1,829 vote victory, 50%-49%. Had Cahill lost his congressional race, he probably would not have won election as Governor in 1969.  (Feinberg, a Cherry Hill Democrat, became friends with the Senate candidate that year, Harrison Williams.  More than two decades later, when Williams was indicted in the Abscam scandal, Feinberg was a co-defendant.)

The other race was a 1953 Special Election for the seat of Republican Clifford Case, who had resigned during his ninth year in office to become the president of The Fund for the Republic. (Case returned to politics one year later to win the U.S. Senate seat of retiring freshman GOP Senator Robert Hendrickson). Most observers at the time expected the Republican, Plainfield Mayor George Hetfield, to easily win Case's congressional seat. His Democratic opponent was a 33-year-old lawyer and World War II veteran who had already lost races for State Assembly in 1951 and Plainfield City Councilman in 1952, Harrison Williams.

Over the last fifty years, Linda Stender was one of just seven challengers – and one of only two Democrats – to come within two percentage points of unseat an incumbent Congressman when she held Michael Ferguson to a 49%-48% win in 2006. If she wins her second bid in 2008 for the seat Ferguson has decided to vacate, Stender would become the first member of the “I almost won” group to actually serve in Congress.

Gov. Jon Corzine has named former GOP Rep. Bob Franks, his opponent in the 2000 U.S. Senate race, to serve as Chairman of a grass roots effort to build voter support for his Financial Restructuring and Debt Reduction Plan outlined in yesterday’s State of the State address.

"A little over seven years ago Congressman Franks was my opponent in the race for U.S. Senate and today he joins us in what could prove to be our most important fight," Corzine said.   "Bob's extraordinary leadership skills in this endeavor to help right New Jersey's financial ship is a shining example of the fact that our financial challenges do not know party lines and that our solutions shouldn't either."

Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey since 1972, and of the eleven candidates nominated since then, only six had previous experience as a general election candidate.  And only two, Robert Franks and Richard Zimmer, had won general election contests that were even slightly competitive.