Clifford Case

If John Adler and Linda Stender win their races for Congress, they'll accomplish a feat that rarely occurs in New Jersey -- winning the seat of a retiring Congressman from the other party in a contest unrelated to the drawing of new districts. The last time this happened was in 1994, when Republican Frank LoBiondo won after Democrat William Hughes retired.

The last time the GOP failed to hold the seats of retiring incumbents was in 1964, when Democrat James Howard succeeded Republican James Auchincloss, and Democrat Paul Krebs followed Republican George Wallhauser.

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.

Republicans have held the 7th district House seat since 1956, when Florence Dwyer, an Assemblywoman from Elizabeth, unseated two-term Democrat Harrison Williams.  Matthew Rinaldo, who passed away on Monday at age 77, occupied the seat for twenty years.  Now, with the retirement of Michael Ferguson, Democrats are slightly favored to win the seat in a contest between Assemblywoman Linda Stender and her GOP rival, State Sen. Leonard Lance.

Rinaldo began his political career in 1962 when he won a seat on the Union County Board of Freeholders.  When he ran for re-election to a second term in 1965, he lost narrowly (the initial tally, before the recount, said just one vote) to Arthur Fried, a Democratic Councilman from Westfield.  He came back two years later, defeating State Sen. Mildred Barry Hughes, the first woman to serve in the New Jersey State Senate, by 10,657 votes -- a 57%-43% margin.  When he ran for re-election in 1971, Rinaldo ran more than 16,000 votes ahead of his running mate, Frank McDermott, and more than 25,000 votes ahead of his nearest Democratic rival.

Would Ronald Reagan, the former movie actor who had been Governor of California for just two years, have beaten Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election – if Republicans had nominated him?   The Reagan of the late 1960’s was perceived differently than he was when he was elected President in 1980 – he was viewed as Barry Goldwater’s guy, a conservative that was not necessarily in line with the Clifford Case wing of the New Jersey GOP.  In 1969, Reagan came to Millburn to headline a fundraiser for GOP gubernatorial candidate William Cahill on the same day the campaign announced key Democratic endorsements in Hudson County.  Cahill made only a brief appearance at the Reagan event, and headed instead for Democrats for Cahill events in North Bergen and Jersey.  The endorsements overshadowed Reagan’s visit.

U.S. Senate candidate Dick Zimmer walked into the convention hall today and found something unusual: delegates were sitting relatively quietly.

“I’ve been to a lot of conventions, but this one is unlike any of the others. For one thing, we don’t know what’s going to happen day to day, and we’ve gotten a reality check,” said Zimmer. “There’s a world of politics, and there’s a world of real Americans who all of us are thinking of first right now.”

It was also the first time Zimmer encountered such a subdued mood the many conventions he’s attended. His first was in 1968 when Zimmer, then a law student who managed to get on the floor, watched as Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan jostled for the nomination. During that convention, some lesser-known candidates put their names in as well – including New Jersey Sen. Clifford P. Case.

“Here is something Wally Edge might know,” said Zimmer. “You know who made the nominating speech for Case? It was C. Douglas Dillon, who was in Kennedy’s cabinet.”

Here’s what New York Times reporter Ronald Sullivan wrote on the search to find a candidate to challenge U.S. Senator Clifford Case in 1966 after several other prospective Democratic candidates dropped out of the race: “(The U.S. Senate candidate) will bear the onus of running as the party’s obvious second choice and a candidate who is given little chance of winning.” (New York Times, 06/15/66)

Republicans have not won a United States Senate seat in New Jersey since 1972, when Clifford Case was re-elected to a fourth term over Paul Krebs, a former Congressman from Essex County.  Only West Virginia and Hawaii have gone longer than New Jersey without sending a Republican to the U.S. Senate; Massachusetts has also gone 36 years without a GOP Senate victory.

Frank Lautenberg’s 35-point lead over Rob Andrews in the race for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination is substantial, but that doesn’t mean the 84-year-old incumbent will coast to victory in the June 3 primary.  Back in 1978, the last time an incumbent Senator faced a serious primary challenge, an Eagleton/Rutgers poll conducted just two weeks before the Republican primary was good news for four-term Senator Clifford Case.  Only 3% of voters were able to identify his rival, Jeff Bell, and by a 43%-8% margin, felt that Case would make the better Senator.  Bell won by 3,473 votes – a 51%-49% margin.

The New York Times used their editorial page to call on New Jersey Republican to find a moderate to run against Frank Lautenberg for the United States Senate.

New Jersey Democrats have not lost a race for the United States Senate since 1972, when Clifford Case defeated Paul Krebs. Massachusetts also voted for their last GOP Senator that year.  Only two states have a better Democratic streak: Hawaii, which has not sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since Hiram Fong won re-election in 1970, and West Virginia, where William Chapman Revercomb won in 1952.

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.