Christine Todd Whitman

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.

Stephen Sasala died of cancer on Friday. He was 59.

Former Whitman administration official Stephen Sasala passed away on Friday after a battle with cancer.  He was 59.  Sasala served as Deputy Commissioner of Corrections from 1994 to 1996, as Deputy Commissioner of Banking and Insurance from 1996 to 1999, and as Acting Director of Local Government Services for the Department of Community Affairs in 1999.  He served as CEO of Prosperity New Jersey, a private/public partnership Gov. Christine Todd Whitman created by Executive Order.   Sasala held that post from 1999 to 2003, when he moved to Connecticut to run a regional chamber of commerce.

In the three close New Jersey gubernatorial elections over the past three decades - 1981, 1993, and 1997, the Jewish vote has been a key factor. In the 2009 election, ironically due to the outcome of the Israeli election, the Jewish vote could be a decisive factor - in favor of Chris Christie, as far fetched as this may sound.

It appears likely that Likud leader Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu will serve as the next Prime Minister of Israel. A clash between him and President Obama over numerous issues, including Iran, Syria, borders, and the status of the Palestinians, is inevitable, regardless of recent protestations to the contrary on the part of key associates of both men. This would doubtless lead to a backlash against Obama in America's Orthodox Jewish community, ultimately negatively impacting Jon Corzine's vote totals from this segment of the Jewish electorate.

I emphasize the Orthodox Jews, because Israel is much more a factor in the voting decisions of Orthodox voters than among other elements of the Jewish community. This is not to disparage the strong support that Israel has among all sectors of American Jewry. By and large, however, studies have shown that the key determinants of the decisions of the non-Orthodox voters in all elections, federal and state, have been the various tenets of the liberal agenda, including social welfare spending, social justice for minorities, and, ironically enough, abortion - ironic, given the fact that Jewish law is far more pro-life than pro-choice : mandating abortion if necessary to save the life of the mother while viewing it as a serious breach of Jewish law in virtually every other case.

Independent candidates for Governor, left to right: Christopher Daggett (2009), Murray Sabrin (1997), Bill Schluter (2001), and Secaucus pig farmer Henry Krajewski (1953, 1957, 1961)

Dr. Christopher Daggett, the former Kean cabinet member who said today that he will run for Governor as an independent, will need to raise $340,000 in contributions of $3,400 or less in order to qualify for public financing and participate in the debate.  In New Jersey, independent statewide candidates traditionally do not fare well.

The only independent candidate to qualify for matching funds was Murray Sabrin, a Ramapo College Professor who ran as the Libertarian candidate for Governor in 1997.  Sabrin won 5% of the vote in his race against incumbent Christine Todd Whitman and her Democratic challenger, then-State Sen. James E. McGreevey.  A conservative, Richard Pezzullo, won 1% in the same race.

In 2001, Bill Schluter, an incumbent Republican State Senator from Mercer County, mounted an independent bid for Governor.  He used the same campaign team that had elected Jesse Ventura in Minnesota three years earlier, but won just 1% of the vote against McGreevey and Republican Bret Schunder, the former Mayor of Jersey City. 

Robert Meyner, campaigning for Governor in 1953, made seven original appointments to the New Jersey Supreme Court during his eight years in office.

Death and retirements gave Democratic Governor Robert Meyner the opportunity to make eight New Jersey Supreme Court appointments during his eight years as Governor - the most for any Governor under the current State Constitution, including Alfred Driscoll, who made seven appointments in December 1947.

But during the eight years that Meyner's successor, Democrat Richard Hughes, was Governor, he made no Supreme Court appointments.  But Hughes would himself serve as Chief Justice for nearly six years after leaving office.

Not including sitting Judges being renominated, Republicans William Cahill and Christine Todd Whitman nominated five Justices; Brendan Byrne picked four; James E. McGreevey and Jon Corzine named three; and Thomas Kean selected just two new Justices during his eight years as Governor.  James Florio made no Supreme Court appointments during his four years as Governor.

As a Republican and former New Jersey State Senator, I have been following the "anointing" of Chris Christie with a great deal of interest.  It has been over a decade since a Republican was elected state-wide and ironically the similarity is spooky.  That person's name was also Christie and as far as Republicans are concerned, her gubernatorial tenure left the Republican Party in New Jersey in disarray.

Given the complete control of the governor's office and both houses of the legislature, Christie Whitman had a golden opportunity to do a lot of party building.  Instead, it seemed and has been accepted in most political circles, that Christie Whitman's political activities were aimed at her own political agenda and rarely focused at party-building.  Given the name of her book, "It's My Party Too", there is a great deal of irony.

Now we see Chris Christie as the clear front runner for the Republican nomination due to an incredibly stellar job as US Attorney for the Southern District of New Jersey.  It would be foolhardy for anyone to question the job done, 132 convictions and 0 acquittals: masterful to say the least.

Lafayette College Special Collections & College Archives Photo

Robert Meyner was elected Governor in 1953, two years after he lost his State Senate seat to Wayne Dumont.

Of the seven Democrats and Republicans running for Governor, only two have never lost an election: Democrat Jon Corzine won a race for U.S. Senate in 2000 and was elected Governor in 2005; and Republican Brian Levine was elected to the Franklin Township Council in 1997 and 2001, and Mayor in 2003 and 2007.

On the Republican side, Christopher Christie was elected to the Morris County Board of Freeholders in 1994, and lost GOP primaries for State Assembly in 1995 and for Freeholder in 1997.  Steven Lonegan was elected Mayor of Bogota in 1995, 1999 and 2003, but lost races for State Senator (in 1997 to incumbent Byron Baer) Congress (in 1998 to incumbent Steve Rothman), Bergen County Executive (2002 convention) and Governor (2005 primary).  Rick Merkt lost a 1995 primary for State Assembly (he was Christie's running mate) before winning the first of six terms in 1997.  Jim Murray lost a 2006 primary for Morris County Freeholder and then won in 2007.

Corzine's Democratic primary opponent, Carl Bergmanson, was elected three times to the Glen Ridge Council before losing a 1999 bid for Mayor.  He was elected Mayor four years later.

Of New Jersey's ten elected Governors under the current State Constitution, six had lost previous elections: James E. McGreevey ran unsuccessfully for Governor in 1997; Christine Todd Whitman lost a 1990 bid for U.S. Senate; Jim Florio lost a race for Congress in 1972, a gubernatorial primary in 1977, and a race for Governor in 1981; Thomas Kean, Sr. lost Republican primaries for Congress (1974) and Governor (1977); Richard Hughes lost a race for Congress in 1938; and Robert Meyner was defeated in a re-election bid for State Senator two years before he was elected Governor in 1953. 

Left to right: Brendan Byrne, Raymond Bateman, Jim Florio, Christine Todd Whitman and Jon Corzine

Quinnipiac University pollster Clay Richards says that incumbent Jon Corzine has suddenly become the underdog in his bid for re-election to a second term, and that the "big question is whether Corzine will come back like Democratic Gov. Brendan Byrne did in 1977 or go down to defeat like Jim Florio in 1993?"

A February 1977 Eagleton-Rutgers poll showed Byrne trailing an unnamed Republican challenger by 26 points, 45%-19%.  He had an upside-down approval rating of 22%-71%.  In a July poll taken after Byrne won the Democratic primary with 30% of the vote against ten challengers, GOP State Sen. Raymond Bateman led by seven points, 46%-39%.  Byrne was re-elected by a 56%-42% margin.

More than half of the state's voters (51%) felt Florio didn't deserve a second term in a February 1993 Eagleton-Rutgers poll.  Florio had upside-down approvals of 36%-60%.  A post-primary poll taken in June showed Republican Christine Todd Whitman and Florio in a statistical dead heat, 44%-43%.  Whitman beat Florio by 26,093 votes, 49%-48%.

Republicans, who have not won a Freeholder race in Camden, Gloucester, Mercer, Middlesex and Union counties since the 1990's, missed an opportunity to change the playing field when they failed to act on a proposal to create district Freeholder seats in those five counties. 

In 2000, then-Assemblyman Richard Bagger (R-Westfield) introduced legislation that would require those Democratic-controlled counties to move from electing At-Large Freeholders to an all-district format beginning in 2001.  At the time, New Jersey had a GOP Governor and Republicans controlled both houses of the Legislature.

Bagger's bill was carefully crafted to include three restrictions: it applied only to the state's nine counties classified as second class, and to those that either had more than seven Freeholders or seven Freeholders and a geographical area of between 200 and 400 square miles. Union County was the only second-class county with nine Freeholders.  Republican-controlled Burlington County, with five Freeholders, was not included in the bill, nor was GOP-dominated Morris and Somerset. 

Passaic County, which is 192 square miles, was left off the Bagger bill at the urging of then-Republican County Chairman Peter Murphy, who opposed the District Freeholder Plan even though Republicans had lost Freeholder races in 1997, 1998 and 2000.  Any reasonable carving up of Passaic would have given Democrats three solid seats in Paterson and Passaic, and control of the Board of Freeholders might have rested with a Clifton-based seat.  Murphy, prior to his criminal conviction, believed he could put his winning machine back together and wasn't willing to look at a best case scenario of a 4-3 Republican majority.

John Azzarello is widely viewed as an extraordinary lawyer, the kind of guy who might wind up on a short list for U.S. Attorney or U.S. District Court Judge someday.  He's a partner at a politically influential law firm; his partners are Jack Arsenault, who was nearly James E. McGreevey's Attorney General, and John Farmer, Jr., who was Attorney General under Christine Todd Whitman and Donald DiFrancesco.  He's a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who was Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.  He went to Washington with Tom Kean as counsel to the 9/11 Commission.

On Friday, Azzarello did what other good white collar criminal defense attorneys do - he sought the mercy of a judge who was about to sentence his client - in this case a corrupt former public official, Mims Hackett.   And while he was ultimately successful - Hackett can serve his federal and state sentences concurrently and may only have to spend six months of his five year state sentence in prison - his argument wasn't exactly up there with Temple Houston.

Here's how the Star-Ledger reported it: