Herbert Hoover

The outcome of the 2009 campaign for Governor of New Jersey is not historically significant to Barack Obama's presidency. It is almost twice as likely that New Jerseyans elect a governor who is not a member of the president's party.  Indeed, the party of the incumbent president is 15-26 in New Jersey gubernatorial races since a Democrat won in Abraham Lincoln's mid-term election.

The last five gubernatorial elections went that way: Republicans lost in 1989 (George H.W. Bush), 2001 and 2005 (George W. Bush), and Democrats lost in 1993 and 1997 (Bill Clinton). But in the seven contests before that, the party of the sitting president went 6-1: Republicans won in 1969 (Richard Nixon), 1981, and 1985 (Ronald Reagan), and Democrats won in 1961 (John Kennedy), 1965 (Lyndon Johnson), and 1977 (Jimmy Carter); Republicans lost in 1973, after the incumbent was defeated in the primary and in an election that was held under the backdrop of the Watergate scandal.

None those twelve campaigns influenced the outcomes of the next presidential campaign, either nationally or in pursuit of New Jersey's electoral votes - although the 1973 results were a harbinger of the 1974 Democratic landslide.  By 1976, New Jersey was supporting a Republican presidential candidate.

Democrats won both gubernatorial elections held during Dwight Eisenhower's presidency, and Republicans won both governors' races held while Harry Truman was president.  During the four campaigns for governor that occurred during Franklin Roosevelt's tenure in the White House, Democrats won two (1937 and 1940) and lost two (1934 and 1943).  Eisenhower carried New Jersey twice, and Roosevelt won the state four times.

Last week the New Jersey State Legislature passed a $29 billion budget for fiscal 2010 which begins on July 1, 2009.  Governor Corzine's budget raises taxes on virtually all New Jerseyans during a period of rising unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies.  There is one word to describe this policy: dumb. 

Corzine is also continuing the practice of using one shot revenues to balance the books, a policy he has harshly-and rightly--condemned throughout his term. 

Herbert Hoover – Greatest President Ever

With many economists saying that the financial crisis America faces now is the worst since the Great Depression, a lot of comparisons are being made between Barack Obama and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Before Bill Bradley, there was Harry C. Harper.

Widely known as "Hackensack Harry," Harper spent ten seasons as a major league baseball pitcher with the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and Brooklyn Dodgers, compiling a lifetime record of 59-77. The southpaw started the sixth game of the 1921 World Series for the Yankees against the New York Giants.

After his baseball career ended, the 32-year-old Harper entered politics, winning election as the Bergen County Sheriff in 1927.

The stock market has crashed, the nation's major banks have imploded, the housing market is in a depression, foreclosures are accelerating, personal and business bankruptcies are rising, the real unemployment rate is in double digits, the federal budget deficit may top $2 trillion this year, the Federal Reserve is creating money at an unprecedented rate, and federal spending is skyrocketing to "stimulate" the economy.   In short, the economy is in the tank. 

Left wingers and other sorted big government advocates typically blame "greed,"  "deregulation," and "capitalism" for the financial meltdown and the deep recession we are in.  Not so fast, according to Thomas E. Woods, Jr., in Meltdown:  A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse.

Since 1824, when direct elections began, nine American Presidents never carried New Jersey: Martin Van Buren, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush.  Of the ten best Presidents ranked by historians in a 2009 C-Span poll, New Jersey cast a majority of its electoral votes for all but Lincoln and Truman, and voted to support six of the worst: James Buchanan, William Henry Harrison, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Pierce, and Hayes.

One of the ten best Presidents was a New Jerseyan, Woodrow Wilson, who served as Governor from 1911 to 1913.  Wilson carried New Jersey in his first campaign, but lost it when he ran for re-election in 1916.  Before the direct election of Presidents, New Jersey supported James Madison for President in 1808, but not when Madison ran for a second term in 1812.

Actor Dick Foran, the son of Senate President Arthur Foran and the brother of veteran legislator Moose Foran, in The Sisters with Bette Davis.

Arthur Foran was elected Mayor of Flemington in 1916 and during the campaign became friends with the Republican candidate for Governor, Walter Edge.  After Edge won, Foran went with him to Trenton as his aide.  He left to become a Colonel in the U.S. Army during World War I and was the military aide to the Governor of New Jersey.  He served as Controller of the Port of New York under Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. 

In 1930, the Anti-Saloon League opposed his renomination, saying that he had looked the other way when alcohol shipments came into the port.  Political opponents, including a candidate for Republican State Committeeman in Hunterdon and a disgruntled former customs agent, organized a dry raid on Foran's Hunterdon County hunting lodge, which had a bar and a slot machine.   The controversy went on for several months, but with the support of New Jersey's two U.S. Senators, Edge and Hamilton Kean, the grandfather of the future Governor, Foran won Senate approval.

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.

If not for Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression, Hamilton Fish Kean would have won re-election to the United States Senate in 1934.