Francis Bodine

Former Evesham Deputy Mayor Ken D’Andrea joins team

Wounded last week by unfavorable news coverage highlighting his employment record, Assemblyman Francis Bodine went on the attack today in what his opponent in the District 8 State Senate race characterized as the actions of a desperate man.

"We feel good about it. This indicates they’re in trouble," Burlington County Clerk Phil Haines said in response to an ethics complaint Bodine filed against him in two separate public forums.

At a press conference today, Bodine, a Democrat, presented letters he had written: one to Freeholder Director James Wujick and the other to the District Court Ethics Committee of the state Supreme Court, in which he charged Haines with moonlighting as a real estate attorney while collecting a six-figure salary as county clerk.

Shouldn't $100,000 Taxpayer Salary Be Enough For Clerk Haines?

The Vice Chairman of the one of Burlington County's strongest Republican municipal organizations has endorsed Democrat Francis Bodine for State Senate.  “I am doing this because I want to stand up for an injustice that has occurred and support the person I believe is the best candidate to represent all the residents of the 8th district," said Robert O'Connor. "That person is clearly Fran Bodine."  Bodine, an Assemblyman since 1994, switched parties earlier this year after Republicans declined to support him for re-election.  He faces Phil Haines, the County Clerk, in a race for an open Senat seat in the 8th district.

District 8 Senate candidate Phil Haines, a Republican, continues to assail his opponent over his professional record, while the Democratic Party undercard is fighting back by making Haines’ running mate, Dawn Marie Addiego, the issue.

Haines wants to know what Democratic Assemblyman Francis Bodine did as an employee with the South Jersey Port Corporation between 1989 and 1992, and why he collected $250,000 from the public entity and had a personal car.

"Fran needs to tell voters what he did there, since in response to our repeated requests the South Jersey Port claims they can produce very little proof that he did anything," said Haines.

As 8th District state Senate candidate Assemblyman Fran Bodine and Assembly candidates Tracy Riley and Chris Fifis today called on U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton to protest his support for President George W. Bush’s veto of SCHIP legislation, Burlington County GOP spokesman Chris Russell reissued a press release on behalf of his 8th District Legislative team.

Russell wanted it known that his Senate candidate Phil Haines, and Assembly running mates Dawn Marie Addiego and Scott Rudder, had weeks ago called on Bush to reauthorize the children’s healthcare program.
Addiego rode point on the issue.

The GOP candidates in District 8 were all over Assemblyman Francis Bodine and his running mates on the heels of a Courier-Post news piece yesterday they said depicted Bodine as the ultimate insider and hardly reformer material.

Democrats responded with what they said was damning news about GOP Assembly candidates Dawn Addiego and Scott Rudder - and trotted out the "boss" tag in connection with the Republicans, noting that GOP strongman Glenn Paulsen had been observed "huddling" with Addiego and Rudder at party HQ in Mount Holly.

Each started out in the party of the other, and now 8th district State Senate candidates Fran Bodine and Phil Haines stare from their adopted battlements at the remnants of the parties they left behind - or that left them - or that really no longer exist.

The Burlington County Clerk, Haines, shakes his head in cheery bewilderment as he considers Bodine’s Benedict Arnold moment last spring, when the 14-year Assemblyman stood with U.S. Rep. Bob Andrews to announce his defection from the GOP ranks to run for state Senate as a Democrat.

Bodine likewise won’t accept an invitation to reflect on the Burlington County politicians’ mutual pasts without reminding the listener of Haines’ political beginnings. "I really got to know Phil back when he was a Democrat," muses Bodine.

One of the best candidate recruitments for Assembly Republicans was in the seventh district, where former Philadelphia Flyers All-Star Brian Propp is challenging incumbents Herbert Conaway and Jack Conners. The Burlington-Camden district leans strongly to the Democratic side, but another celebrity candidate, former TV news anchorwoman Diane Allen, has won four elections there as a Republican by relatively comfortable margins. Republicans believed that Allen's coattails -- a spring GOP poll had her re-elect at a solid 55% -- could help Propp win.

But Propp may be the victim of limited GOP resources. One year after Democrats won the Burlington County Surrogate race, the Republicans are on the defensive: their main goal is hold their two Freeholder seats and re-elect Sheriff Jean Stanfield. And a party switch has made the normally Republican eighth district a little more competitive -- Assemblyman Francis Bodine, a Republican elected official for the last thirty years, switched parties earlier this year (after the GOP dumped him) and is now running for an open State Senate seat against County Clerk Phil Haines. That has also put the two open Assembly seats in play.