Doug Cabana

Morris County Freeholder James Murray remains undecided on running for Governor.

MOUNTAIN LAKES – He appeared at Tony Bucco, Jr.’s pasta dinner at the Zeris Inn last night, and was the first to RSVP Doug Cabana’s campaign, saying he planned to attend the candidate’s Friday night fish fry next week, but Morris County Freeholder Jim Murray hasn’t decided whether he intends to run for governor.

“I’m still mulling it over,” he told PolitickerNJ. “We need to shake things up in Trenton.”

Murray’s out-of-nowhere 2007 dethroning of Freeholder John Inglesino shot the low-key retired municipal engineer into county campaign folklore. 

But to date he remains an organization outsider and his public soul-searching now over whether he will force a long-shot clash with former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie in the Republican primary for governor circulates among Morris County party members as a going topic of bewilderment.

Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana and County Clerk Joan Bramhall, who's also supporting Tony Bucco in the 25th District race.

MOUNTAIN LAKES – Kicking off his 25th District Assembly campaign at the centrally situated and styling Zeris Inn on the side of Highway 46, Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana summoned the forces of government to stand with him at the front of the big, packed room. 

It was a potent demonstration of political heft as Republican freeholders Jack Schrier, John Murphy, William Chegwidden, Gene Feyl, former freeholders William Druetzler and John Inglesino and others crowded in behind Cabana, facing a room that contained no fewer than 10 Morris County mayors not to mention deputy mayors and their dates and/or wives and council people and their significant others and attendant staff, political operatives, a sheriff’s surrogate, other former freeholders and elected officials and County Clerk Joan Bramhall. 

All arrayed against bloated government. 

“I stand with you tonight with the leadership of our county,” said Cabana, a municipal prosecutor and elected official going back 20 years to when he first served on the committee of Boonton Township, a northern Morris County mountain town.

Gary Algeier, a former two-term Randolph Township Mayor and 12-year veteran of Council, today formally announced his candidacy for State Assembly in the 25th Legislative District.

“Service in the State Legislature will continue a long tradition of community service,” said Algeier campaign manager Allen Napoliello. “Under Gary’s leadership, Randolph created Randolph’s award winning Freedom Park, preserved over 1000 acres of Open Space and Farmland, and has been a leader in shared services. Mr. Algeier is well known for his leadership in opposing the unreasonable quotas imposed by the Council on Affordable Housing."

Veteran Randolph Township Councilman Gary Algeier today will officially enter the Republican primary for the Assembly in the 25th Legislative District, according to sources.

 Mulling the possibility of a run for some time now, Algeier informally announced his intentions to members of the Randolph Republican Club on Wednesday night. A Morristown attorney, the long-serving councilman is in a four-way contest for two assembly seats with Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris Twp.), attorney Tony Bucco (son of veteran state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris) and Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana.

Morris County political insiders say the race for the vacated assembly seat in District 25 will come down to Tony Bucco and Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana, both of Boonton Township. 

Bucco, son of state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris), officially entered the race late last year, and his brother-in-law, Cabana, is set to kick-off his own campaign on Jan. 13th. 

But Randolph Councilman Gary Algeier, who three years ago pursued an unsucessful run for freeholder, says don’t count him out of the assembly contest. 

“A lot of people have asked me but I haven’t made a decision yet,” he told PolitickerNJ.com. “At the moment, I’m keeping my options open. With Rick Merkt stepping down, it opens a lot of possibilities.”

District 25 Assembly candidate Tony Bucco, Jr., right, and his father, state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris).

BOONTON – In an Elks Club room jammed with elected officials wearing goodwill game faces for their high country candidate, municipal attorney Tony Bucco, Jr. of Boonton Township this evening formally kicked off his run for an Assembly seat in the 25th Legislative District.

Calling his foray into politics an “obvious next step,” the 46-year old son of state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris) highlighted his work and public service record, including 28 years on the Boonton Volunteer Fire Department, where he has risen to the rank of captain.

“I want to continue to serve my neighbors,” said Bucco, surrounded by his wife and family at a podium heaped with canned and boxed goods he collected from friends and supporters to distribute to local food pantries during the holiday season.

“New Jersey has been living beyond its means for too long and we’re now $31 billion in debt,” Bucco told the crowd. “We have the worst business tax climate in the country. Gov. Corzine and the Democratic administration have failed all of us by simply being reactive to the fiscal crisis.”

He vowed to fight for Morris County values and conservative Republican principles, to cut taxes, eliminate waste, protect private property rights, support alternative energy and green technology and protect the unborn and 2nd Amendment rights.

He criticized a state schools funding formula that does not serve children, in his view, while saddling seniors and families with egregious property taxes.

Tony Bucco, Jr.

BOONTON - As muncipal attorney Tony Bucco, Jr., prepares to launch his District 25 Assembly bid from the Elks Lodge here in Boonton Town in northern Morris County this evening, the campaign allies of his chief rival fired off a release announcing their own candidate’s official start date next month.

Morris County Freeholder Douglas “Doug” Cabana will formally announce his candidacy on Tuesday, January 13, 2009, at the Zeris Inn in Mountain Lakes, according to Cabana campaign manager George Dredden.  

The pre-announcement announcement burnishes Cabana’s experience in the face of a competitor who has not held elected office.

Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris Twp.)

MORRIS TWP. – While his Democratic Party family forbearers probably found the nickname “Little Adlai” endearing, Michael Patrick Carroll hardly panned out as the ideological offspring of every  liberal’s favorite bumper sticker  - Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson - who was twice demolished by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Pro-life, pro-gun, pro-voucher,  and a proponent of scrapping Mount Laurel and Abbott who likens some of the Abbott Schools to “educational Taj Mahals,” veteran Assemblyman Carroll (R-Morris Twp.) remains one of the most outspoken conservative members of the New Jersey Legislature.

“I don’t generally do as well in my hometown of Morris Township as I do in western Morris County – places like Roxbury and Randolph,” Carroll said. “We’re like everywhere else in New Jersey – the farther east you go, the bluer it gets.”

Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana announced today that he has selected two veteran operatives to help run his District 25 Assembly campaign, both of whom worked earlier this year on state Sen. Joseph Pennacchio’s (R-Morris) unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign.

George Dredden of Parsippany will serve as Cabana’s campaign manager, and Dan Gallic will serve as political consultant. 

Dredden is the former executive director of the National Black Republican Council of NJ, and former vice-president of the Parsippany-Troy Hills Republican Club. 

Morris County Freeholder Doug Cabana

BOONTON - District 25 Assembly candidate Doug Cabana says the holidays shouldn’t be about politics so much as spending time with family.

But when Cabana last month sat down to Thanksgiving dinner across a table of family fellowship, the Morris County freeholder couldn’t avoid looking into the eyes of his chief political rival in District 25: Tony Bucco, Jr., husband to his only sister, Amy.

“I spent Thanksgiving at their house,” Cabana said.

"Doug and his parents have come to our house every year for Thanksgiving," said Bucco. "The way I see it, family is family and politics is politics. So when this Thanksgiving rolled around, it was no different. We had family and football."

There will likely be a few more weeks of these encounters, of tearing into gifts and food.

Then the campaigns of Bucco and Cabana will tear into each other, as most political insiders see the two men as chief combatants in the fight to succeed retiring Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham).