Barbara Buono will become the first woman to run on a Democratic ticket for statewide office since Thelma Parkinson sought a United States Senate seat in 1930, if Jon Corzine picks her to run for Lt. Governor.

The Senator from New Jersey was Walter Edge, who resigned in November 1929 to become the U.S. Ambassador to France.  The Governor, Morgan Larson, appointed David Baird, a Camden County businessman, to serve as a caretaker Senator. 

Edge's resignation triggered two separate races in November 1930: a special election to fill the remaining two months of Edge's term; and a contest for a full six-year Senate term.

Republicans nominated the same candidate for both campaigns: Englewood industrialist Dwight Morrow, who was serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. Morrow won 71% of the vote in a three-way primary with three-term U.S. Rep. Franklin Fort (21%) and former U.S. Senator Joseph Frelinghuysen (8%). President Herbert Hoover backed Morrow.

Democrats picked Alexander Simpson, a four-term State Senator from Hudson County and an ally of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, to run for the full term.  But instead of nominating Simpson to face off against Morrow in the special, Democrats chose to court the relatively new woman's vote by running Thelma Parkinson, a 32-year-old Democratic State Committeewoman from Vineland and a protégé of U.S. Rep. Mary Norton (D-Jersey City).

Morrow won both races, beating Parkinson and Simpson by 59%-39% margins.

If Gov. Jon Corzine picks TV reality star Randal Pinkett as the Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor, Pinkett will become the first African American to run statewide as a major party candidate in New Jersey.  Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson sought the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1981 and 1985 without success.

The first Latino to run statewide was Robert Menendez, who was elected to the United States Senate in 2006.  Corzine would get credit for advancing the candidacies of two minority candidates; he appointed Menendez to his Senate seat after his election as Governor in 2005.

But the selection of Dr. Pinkett would mean the rejection of two women reportedly on the short list for LG: State Senators Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) and Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck).  New Jersey Democrats have not nominated a woman for statewide office since they picked 32-year-old Thelma Parkinson to run for a two-month unexpired term in the U.S. Senate in 1930.  She lost to Republican Dwight Morrow (Charles Lindbergh's father-in-law) by a 59%-39% margin.

Almost 78 years ago, Peter Angelo Cavicchia, an immigrant from the Campobasso Province of Italy, ran in a Republican primary on a slate with Joseph Frelinghuysen, a former U.S. Senator and scion of one of New Jersey's oldest and most powerful political families. Now, Peter Cavicchia's grandson is thinking about challenging Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen in the 2008 Republican primary.

New Jersey has thirteen appointed United States Senators -- four of those appointed Senators were elected in their own right, seven did not run, one ran and lost, and one had already been elected.

Franklin Davenport, a Revolutionary War soldier who became Gloucester County Surrogate and a State Assemblyman was appointed in December 1798 to fill the vacancy caused by John Rutherfurd's resignation. He was not a candidate for another term, but later served two years in the House.

John Condit, a former Assemblyman from Essex County, was appointed to the Senate in September 1803 after the Legislature failed to properly elect a Senator. Condit eventually won election to the Senate, where he served for six years. He was appointed again to the Senate eighteen days after the expiration of his first term, after Aaron Kitchell resigned to take a seat in the New Jersey State Assembly.

A former Assemblyman from Hunterdon County and Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Samuel Southard was appointed to the Senate after John Wilson resigned after losing his 1820 re-election bid. He won election after his appointment, but left the Senate after two years when President James Monroe named him Secretary of the Navy. Southard later served as Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of War; he returned to New Jersey to become state Attorney General and was elected Governor in 1832. He resigned a year later when the Legislature sent him back to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his death nine years later.

Following Southard's death, William Dayton, then an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, was appointed to the Senate. Dayton won his own term in the Senate in 1844 but lost re-election in 1850. The newly-formed Republican Party nominated Dayton to run for Vice Presidnet in 1856 on a ticket with John Fremont -- they lost to Democrats James Buchanan and John Breckenridge. Dayton later held what appears to be a more powerful post -- he was state Attorney General for four years -- and then became Abraham Lincoln's Ambassador to France.

Former state Attorney General Richard Stockton Field, a member of a prominent New Jersey family, was appointed to the Senate following the death of John Thomson in 1862. He did not seek election in his own right; Lincoln later appointed him to serve as a federal judge.

Frederick Frelinghuysen, a former Attorney General and Newark City Councilman, was appointed to the Senate in 1866 after William Wright died in office. He ran for the Senate seat in 1868, came back and won in 1870, and lost in 1876. He later served as Chester Arthur's Secretary of State.

79-year-old David Baird went to the Senate in 1918 after the death of William Hughes. The former Camden County Freeholder and Sheriff, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1910, did not run again; the caretaker was instead succeeded by the Governor who apppointed him, Walter Edge.

The next caretaker Senator was David Baird, Jr., a Camden County Republican leader and son of the former caretaker Senator, who was appointed in 1929, when Edge resigned to become U.S. Ambassador to France. Baird did not run in 1930, and instead lost a race for Governor to A. Harry Moore in 1931.

Baird's successor was Dwight Morrow, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico and the father-in-law of aviator Charles Lindbergh. Morrow died in office after serving just ten months. W. Warren Barbour, a former boxer and Mayor of Rumson, who was appointed to fill his seat, and won a 1932 special election to fill the remainder of Morrow's term. Barbour lost re-election in 1936, but returned to the Senate in a 1938 Special Election to fill the unexpired term of Moore, who was again elected Governor. Moore's seat was filled briefly by a caretaker, John Milton, a political ally of Moore and Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague. Milton did not stand for election.

Barbour won a six-year term in 1940, but passed away in 1943. Governor Charles Edison appointed a caretaker, Arthur Walsh, who had worked for the Governor's father, Thomas Edison. Walsh did not run in a 1944 special election.

New Jersey did not have a Senate vacancy again until 1982, when Harrison Williams resigned after his conviction in the ABSCAM scandal. Governor Thomas Kean appointed a caretaker, Nicholas Brady, a Wall Street investment banker. Brady did not run in 1982 (he later became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) and the seat was won by Frank Lautenberg, whom Kean appointed one week early, in December 1982.

If Richard Codey runs for U.S. Senate next year, he won't be the first interim statewide officeholder to pass on a bid make his temp job permanent and then turn around and run for another statewide office a year later.

David Baird, Jr., a lumber company owner and Camden County Republican leader, was appointed to the United States Senate in November 1929, after Walter Edge resigned to become the Ambassador to France. He declined to run for the seat in 1930 after GOP party leaders settled on millionaire businessman Dwight Morrow, the Ambassador to Mexico (and the father-in-law of aviator Charles Lindbergh) as their candidate. Baird spent thirteen months as a Senator and became popular enough among Republicans to become their gubernatorial candidate in 1931. Baird, whose father had also been an interim Senator, lost to former Governor A. Harry Moore by 230,053 votes -- 58%-40%.

Footnote: The 58-year-old Morrow's career as a U.S. Senator was cut short when he died just ten months after taking office.