James Walter Ralph

In an attempt to send a message, nearly one out of four Democrats who voted in Tuesday's Democratic primary (23%) did not vote for the incumbent Governor, Jon Corzine.  None of Corzine's three primary opponents, former Glen Ridge Mayor Carl Bergmanson (9%), 9/11 conspiracy theorist Jeff Boss (8%) and factory worker Roger Bacon (6%) spent more than couple of thousand dollars and had no organizational or interest group endorsements. 

Among the most significant political stories of the day was a Star-Ledger report that the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the state's largest public employee union, threatened to picket Corzine's campaign kickoff rally tonight - a move that might have led to Vice President Joseph Biden cancelling his appearance.  In order to avoid the controversy, Corzine agreed to a deal with the union on furloughs, according to the published report.

Gov. Jon Corzine faces just token opposition in the Democratic primary, although some pundits are watching to see if a significant number of Democrats - perhaps more than twenty percent of them - vote against him anyway.  In what is more of a race for second place, three other Democrats are running for Governor: Carl Bergmanson, a former Mayor of Glen Ridge; Roger Bacon, a factory worker who runs a customized ceramic mug business; and Jeff Boss, who claims to have witnessed the U.S. government planning the 9/11 terrorist attack. 

There are reports that some public employee unions are, very quietly, suggesting that their members vote for Bergmanson.  Their hope is that the vote totals of today's primary could influence Corzine over the next 28 days. 

State Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. heads into next Tuesday as the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination for United States Senator over John Ginty, a banker from Ridgewood and retired U.S. Navy officer. Ginty entered the race late and has only about $20,000. His only exposure has been through true grass-roots contact with conservative activists, endorsements from pro-life groups, and the the relatively little small attention he's received from some daily newspapers.

Conservative challenges in New Jersey GOP primaries have often been more symbolic than anything else, although there have been some huge successes: conservatives upset a moderate-to-liberal Republican Governor in 1973 and U.S. Senator in 1978, and won the 2001 gubernatorial primary. There is some empirical evidence suggesting that the most conservative faction of the conservative wing of the New Jersey Republicans represents about 18% of the vote: in 1996, months after Bob Dole (not exactly a moderate) had already clinched the GOP presidential nomination, 18% of New Jersey's GOP primary voters cast their ballots for either Pat Buchanan or Alan Keyes. Two years earlier, Brian Kennedy, a former State Senator from Monmouth County, ran to the right of pro-life Assembly Speaker Garabed "Chuck" Haytaian in the GOP U.S. Senate primary; with no money or organization support, he captured 33% of the vote. In 1984, conservative Robert Morris, who had sought to expose communists in the federal government as a McCarthy-era Senate staffer, on 40% of the vote in the GOP Senate primary against the establishment candidate, former Montclair Mayor Mary Mochary. (Morris had the organization line in only his home county, Ocean.)

Way back in 1972, six years before Jeff Bell defeated Senator Clifford Case in the primary, James Walter Ralph, an unknown Bergen County physician, again with no money or organization support, captured 25% of the vote against Case.

The question for Kean is not if he will win, but whether he will be embarassed by his margin of victory. He must deal with Republican primary voters who either don't like him or did not like his father -- although their is no guarantee that those voters will be suffiently motivated to show up at the polls. Several Republican strategists say that for Ginty's symbolic campaign to be viewed as successful, he must get at least the 25% that Ralph did 34 years ago. But if Ginty can get to a third of the vote, as Kennedy in '94, the results may be interpreted as a severe weakness for Kean among the traditional Republican base vote he'll need to win a general election.