Hamilton Kean

Former State Sen. Sonny McCullough (R-Egg Harbor Township), above, is the great-grandson of Anthony Ruffu, Jr., who was Mayor of Atlantic City from 1927 to 1930.

Atlantic City has a long history of colorful Mayors.

A fourteen-count indictment charged Atlantic City Mayor Anthony Ruffu, Jr. with awarding insurance and other city contracts to firms where he had a personal financial interest. He was acquitted of four counts in a June 1930 jury trial and was awaiting trial on the remaining ten counts when he was killed three weeks later.

The 54-year-old Ruffu and three other family members were returning from a short vacation so they could attend the high school graduation of the Mayor's youngest son. Ruffu's Cadillac was hit by an oncoming train about a quarter mile north of the Absecon station. The four bodies in the car -- all badly mutilated -- were thrown about 200 feet, and wreckage from the vehicle was found 500 feet away.

The Associated Press had incorrectly reported that Assemblyman Anthony Siracusa, a former Speaker and Ruffu's nephew, was among the victims. Papers belonging to the legislator were found in the pocket of another uncle who was killed in the crash.

Siracusa, the Atlantic City Solicitor, was elected to the State Assembly in 1923, and became Speaker in 1927. At age 33, he was among the youngest men to serve as Assembly Speaker, and the first Italian-American to hold the post. During his eleven years in the Legislature, he was considered the leader of "wets" in their fight to repeal the "dry" laws of the Prohibition era. He was also the sponsor of legislation that legalized dog racing in New Jersey.

Not to be overlooked: 84-year-old Frank Lautenberg may be the oldest man to ever represent New Jersey in the United States Senate, but 64-year-old Dick Zimmer -- if he wins in November -- would become one of the oldest freshman Senators in state history.  Hamilton Kean was the oldest freshman Senator -- he was 66 when he ousted incumbent Edward Edwards in 1928.  Alexander Smith was 64 when he won in 1944, and Albert Hawkes was 64 when he won in 1942. 

In New Jersey, incumbent United States Senators have rarely faced competitive primary challenges, and the only incumbent Senator to lose a primary was Clifford Case, a four-term Republican who lost 50.7%-49.3% to conservative Jeffrey Bell, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign.  Case had faced primary challenges from the right before: Robert Morris, who had been Chief Counsel for Senate Internal Security Subcommittee headed by Joseph McCarthy, won 33% in 1960; and James Walter Ralph, a Bergen County physician, received 30% in 1972.

The race for Governor of New Jersey in 1919 centered around the national debate on prohibition, with Democrats running as the wet party and Republicans taking the dry position.  One week before the election, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, overriding Woodrow Wilson's veto.  

The winner was Democrat Edward Edwards, a 56-year-old former banker who had been elected to represent Hudson County in the State Senate two years earlier.  He defeated Republican State Chairman Newton Bugbee by a 49%-46% margin.  Edwards called himself "as wet as the Atlantic Ocean," while Bugbee said he was personally wet but politically dry.  (He even drank a beer at a public event in Clifton to demonstrate his point.

Atlantic City has a long history of colorful Mayors.

A fourteen-count indictment charged Atlantic City Mayor Anthony Ruffu, Jr. with awarding insurance and other city contracts to firms where he had a personal financial interest. He was acquitted of four counts in a June 1930 jury trial and was awaiting trial on the remaining ten counts when he was killed three weeks later.

The 54-year-old Ruffu and three other family members were returning from a short vacation so they could attend the high school graduation of the Mayor's youngest son. Ruffu's Cadillac was hit by an oncoming train about a quarter mile north of the Absecon station. The four bodies in the car -- all badly mutilated -- were thrown about 200 feet, and wreckage from the vehicle was found 500 feet away.

One of the most divisive primaries in New Jersey history came in 1928, when a Kean and a Frelinghuysen faced off in a U.S. Senate contest where harsh personal attacks and rumors crippled the campaign of the first woman to ever run statewide.

Lillian Ford Feickert was a suffragette and prohibitionist who helped usher women through the newly opened door to politics in the 1920’s, but managed to get only 5% of the vote in a primary where five candidates fought for the chance to take on Edward I. Edwards, a one-term Democratic U.S. Senator and former Governor.

The irrefutable underdog, Feickert was the only candidate never to have held elected office. In addition to her relatively unpopular stance on Prohibition, she was also forced to contend with the war chests of deep-pocketed candidates like Hamilton Fish Kean and former U.S. Senator Joseph S. Frelinghuysen, as well former Governor Edward Stokes and former two-term Congressman Edward Gray.

With suffrage off the political agenda, prohibition became the decisive issue of the times. Running as a “bone-dry” candidate, Feickert faced rivals supporting more popular variations of “wet”.

The crippling blow however came in the final week before the May 15th primary when reports that Feickert had drunken wine while on a trip to Europe “came to the ears of Women’s Temperance Union Leaders” before reaching headlines.

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.

John Murphy, whose third place finish in last year's gubernatorial primary earned him a spot on the short list of Republican candidates for Governor in 2009, must decide in the coming weeks whether he will seek re-election to a fourth term on the Morris County Board of Freeholders. Murphy's own advisors are split on what he should do: some are telling him to run again, that being an incumbent officeholder gives him added status in a statewide campaign (especially when the highest office he has won is a countywide post); others on the Murphy team tell him he is already a statewide candidate and not running again will allow him to focus his time on fundraising and making contacts across New Jersey. The last sitting GOP elected official to win election as Governor was William Cahill, who was in the middle of his sixth term in Congress when he won in 1969; the last Republican elected officeholder to win a U.S. Senate seat was in 1918, when Governor Walter Edge won.

State Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. appears to be the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate this year; he will become the second Kean family member to win a statewide primary as a sitting officeholder: his grandfather, Robert Kean, was a ten-term Congressman when he ran for the Senate in 1958; his father, Thomas Kean, had been out of the State Assembly for four years when he won the 1981 gubernatorial primary, and his great-grandfather, Hamilton Kean, had never held public office before winning a U.S. Senate seat in 1928. His great-great-uncle, John Kean, eleven years after losing a bid for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Footnote: Most Keans lose a statewide contest before they win: Kean Sr. lost the 1977 primary, Hamilton Kean lost a 1924 primary, and John Kean lost a race for Governor in 1892.

Besides Kean Sr., Douglas Forrester in 2005, Christine Todd Whitman in 1993, James Mitchell in 1961, Malcolm Forbes in 1957, Paul Troast in 1953, and Alfred Driscoll in 1946 were not serving in public office at the time they won Republican gubernatorial primaries: Forrester had not served in public office since he left the West Windsor Council in the early 1980's; Whitman had left the Somerset County Board of Freeholders to join Governor Kean's cabinet; Mitchell and Troast had never held elected office (though Mitchell was U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Dwight Eisenhower) before they ran for Governor; Forbes resigned his State Senate seat to run for Governor full time; and Driscoll left the State Senate five years before he ran for Governor. Bret Schunder was the Mayor of Jersey City when he won the 2001 GOP gubernatorial nomination, James Courter (1989) and Charles Sandman (1973) were Congressmen, and Raymond Bateman (1977) and Wayne Dumont (1965).

Democrats are different: their last six candidates for Governor were holding elected office at the time of their nomination and election. The last time Democrats nominated an outsider for Governor was in 1973, when Brendan Byrne resigned as a Superior Court Judge to mount his first campaign for office.

The last time a Kean won a statewide election on the first try? Never. Thomas Kean, the father of '06 U.S. Senate candidate Tom Kean, Jr., lost the 1977 GOP gubernatorial primary before winning election in 1981. Hamilton Kean, great-grandfather of Kean Jr., lost a 1924 Republican primary for U.S. Senate (to incumbent Walter Edge) and then won a U.S. Senate seat in 1928. Hamilton Kean's brother, John Kean, was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Governor in 1892 and then won a U.S. Senate seat in 1899. Kean Jr.'s grandfather, Robert Kean, lost the 1958 U.S. Senate race to Democrat Harrison Williams and did not seek public office again.