Charles Edison

In January, Jon Corzine will become New Jersey's sixth living former elected Governor.  That's the most since Robert Meyner became Governor in January 1954, with former Governors Walter Edge, James Fielder, Morgan Larson, Harold Hoffman, Charles Edison, and Alfred Driscoll still alive. 

New Jersey has elected different governors in each of the last four elections, and six different governors over the last seven elections.  New Jersey Democrats have not re-elected a governor since 1977, and the only Democrats to win re-election since then were Bill Bradley (in 1984 and 1990), and Frank Lautenberg (in 1988, 1994 and 2008). 

In addition to Brendan Byrne, Thomas Kean, James Florio, Christine Todd Whitman, and James E. McGreevey, there are two unelected former governors still living: Donald DiFrancesco and Richard Codey.

PolitickerNJ.com's Matt Friedman had an interesting observation during his coverage of the Republican gubernatorial debate.  He notes that Christopher Christie, "in recounting the damage he says has been done by seven years of Democratic governors," skips Richard Codey - he goes from James E. McGreevey straight to Jon Corzine. 

Conservative GOP statewide candidates, left to right: Albert Hawkes, Charles Sandman, Jeff Bell and Bret Schundler

If Steve Lonegan wins election as Governor, he might be the first conservative Republican to win a statewide election in New Jersey since Albert Hawkes ousted incumbent William Smathers in the 1942 U.S. Senate race. Hawkes served as President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce before running for the Senate - his first bid for public office.

Since then, Republican statewide winners have been considered moderates: Governors Alfred Driscoll, William Cahill, Thomas Kean and Christine Todd Whitman; and U.S. Senators Robert Hendrickson, Alexander Smith, and Clifford Case.  Other Republicans widely viewed as conservatives, including Charles Sandman, Jeffrey Bell, and Bret Schundler, were unsuccessful general election candidates.

Seventeen New Jerseyans have served in the President's cabinet since James Monroe named Samuel Southard as his Secretary of the Navy in 1823.

John Elber Bebout was the Executive Secretary (Chief of Staff) to Governor Charles Edison from 1941 to 1943 and the Staff Director of the New Jersey Constitutional Convention in 1947.  He was arguably among the most powerful political insiders in New Jersey during the 1940's, but when he passed away at his home on Cape Cod in 2002, at age 98, not a single New Jersey newspaper ran his obituary.  It took the New York Times sixteen days to report his death.  When PoliticsNJ.com did a story on him later that year, one veteran reporter who had covered state politics in the 1950's, said he remembered Bebout well, but had "no idea he had lived so long."

In the last ten gubernatorial elections where no incumbent was a candidate, the party who controls the White House lost six times. Three of the four victories came under first term Presidents. The last time the party of a President in his second term won the New Jersey governorship was in 1940, when Democrat Charles Edison won; the son of the famous inventor ran on a ticket with Franklin Roosevelt, who carried New Jersey that year in his bid for a third term.