Franklin Roosevelt

Despite major endorsements from prominent Democrats like former New Jersey Secretary of State Joan Haberle and her daughter, Dawn, and support from Alfredo Gutierrez, the owner of Xtra Supermarket in Newark, John McCain has fallen far behind Barack Obama in the race for New Jersey's fifteen electoral votes.  A Quinnipiac University poll released this morning has Obama with a 23-point lead, 59%-36%, while a new Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll shows similar numbers: Obama 55%, McCain 38%.

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So much for the legacy of Herbert Lehman, one of the first Wall Street millionaires to run for public office and the son of the man who founded the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers. Lehman served as Finance Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and was elected Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1928 running on a ticket with gubernatorial candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt.

When Roosevelt ran for President in 1932, Lehman ran for Governor and beat U.S. Attorney Wild Bill Donovan, who would later become the top American spymaster during World War II, by a 57%-39% margin. Lehman was re-elected in 1934, defeating New York City master builder Robert Moses (58%-37%), and again in 1936 and 1938. In his last run for Governor, he narrowly won re-election, 50%-49%, over U.S. Attorney Thomas Dewey. Read More >

If Barack Obama wins New Jersey in November, he will become the first candidate to lose the state's presidential primary and still win electoral votes in the general since 1932.  Obama lost the February 5 New Jersey primary to Hillary Clinton by a 54%-44% margin.

In 1932, Alfred E. Smith won the New Jersey Democratic presidential preference primary by a 62%-38% margin over the Governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Smith, the former Governor of New York, had been the Democratic nominee for President in 1928.  In the general, Roosevelt narrowly won New Jersey, 50%-48%, against incumbent Herbert Hoover.

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Judge Steven Perskie, who wrote the legislation that brought casino gambling to Atlantic City in the 1970’s and perhaps one of the smartest people to serve in the New Jersey Legislature, turns 63 today. He was elected to the State Assembly in 1971, at age 26 – part of a Democratic team that toppled the powerful Atlantic County Republican machine. In that race, Joseph McGahn, a physician and the first Democrat to serve as Mayor of Absecon, defeated the legendary Frank “Hap”Farley, the Atlantic GOP boss and a 41-year veteran of the Senate, by nearly 12,000 votes. Perkie and his running mate, 27-year-old attorney James Colasurdo, defeated Republican incumbent Samuel Curcio (the father of Atlantic County Freeholder James Curcio), and Howard Haneman, who was seeking an open seat created by the retirement of Albert Smith, a former Assembly Speaker.

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