James E. McGreevey

Rep. Rob Andrews is making his second bid for statewide office, challenging Frank Lautenberg in the Democratic Senate primary

As he launches a primary campaign for Sen. Frank Lautenberg's seat, Rep. Rob Andrews says he’s less prickly than he was 11 years ago when his failed campaign for governor left him holding grudges and questioning the value of a man's word.

The congressman from Camden was bothered by then-Essex County Chairman Thomas Giblin’s 1997 decision to withdraw his support for Andrews to instead back north Jersey product James E. McGreevey for Governor.

“I took it personally and that was my mistake,” said Andrews, 50, who felt vindicated but no less intensely frustrated after McGreevey’s spectacular fall.

“Someone who might have backed McGreevey and not me was not a bad person,” Andrews said.

“He is a foolish person,” the congressman added, “but not a bad person.”

U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews’ campaign manager from his 1997 run for governor today said if Andrews were to challenge U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg he would need the line in two northern counties.

“In the gubernatorial campaign, we had the line in seven southern counties and Hudson, and it was just not quite enough,” said Pat Politano, reflecting on Andrews’s loss to Jim McGreevey.

At the request of a group of South Jersey Republicans, former Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) Executive Director Curtis Bashaw gave some consideration to a bid for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate this week, but has decided not to run. Bashaw, a Cape May County businessman and a Republican, was a political ally of ex-Gov. James E. McGreevey, who named him to the CRDA post.

Former First Lady Dina Matos McGreevey has denied former gubernatorial aide Theodore Pedersen’s claim that she engaged in a threesome with him and her estranged husband, ex-Gov. James E. McGreevey, according to an ABC News report. Matos McGreevey says Pedersen’s claims “are completely false and prompted by Jim McGreevey.”

"This all has to do with the publicity I have received since Governor Spitzer resigned,” Matos McGreevey told ABC News. “Jim has enlisted one of his cronies in trying to distinguish that situation from his own, and to discredit me in the media. He cannot stand it when I am receiving attention in the media rather than him.”

Teddy Pedersen, a former aide to Gov. James E. McGreevey, says he engaged in a threesome with the former Governor and his estranged wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, according to stories posted this evening in the New York Post and The Star-Ledger.

The Star-Ledger won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for its coverage of the resignation of New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey. That puts some pressure on The New York Times to win a Pulitzer for their rather oustanding coverage of the events that led to the end of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's political career.

State Sens. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) and Kevin O’Toole (R-Essex) said that Democrats on the Senate State Government Committee turned down their request to force Attorney General Anne Milgram to testify before the State Government Committee to answer questions about her investigation into deleted e-mails during Gov. James E. McGreevey’s administration.

When it comes to covering a political sex scandal, it’s important to have someone from New Jersey on your team. Maybe that’s why The New York Times brought in New Jersey reporter David Chen as part of the team that began working the Eliot Spitzer prostitution story since yesterday afternoon. And Steve Kornacki, who covered the withdrawal of U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli in 2002 and the resignation of Gov. James E. McGreevey in 2004, is the point man for the New York Observer's coverage of the Spitzer scandal.

When Governor James E. McGreevey resigned in August, 2004, there was some talk of a November, 2004 Special Election to fill the remaining fourteen months of his term. McGreevey waited three months to actually leave office, eliminating the chances of an election; that allowed Richard Codey to complete his term. The New York Constitution is different: if a Governor resigns, the elected Lieutenant Governor becomes Governor for the remainder of the term. If Eliot Spitzer were to resign, Lt. Gov. David Paterson would become Governor and serve until January 2011.