Jay Webber

The press conference yesterday headlined by Assembly members Allison Littell McHose  (R-Franklin) and Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) that attacked the Clean Elections program produced several reverberations today. 

McHose (R-Franklin) took a comment by a staffer of the Assembly Democrats yesterday in response to the press conference as a promise that Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden) would work to rid the state of pay-to-play contributions.

A report in the Asbury Park Press said that Assembly Democratic spokesman Derek Roseman told the paper that Roberts “plans to reform pay-to-play in the fall.”

McHose took that sentence to mean a ban on the practice, and went on to call for more stringent measures.

As he stood with futility against a bill he believes would ravage his 39th GOP Assemblyman Vince PolistinaLegislative District, Assemblyman John Rooney took little joy in noting a personal milestone.

For while 2008 marks the Bergen County Republican’s 25th anniversary as an assemblyman, it is also the low point of his legislative career.

"My towns got destroyed last night," said Rooney, a day after the majority Democrats passed a $32.9 billion budget, which includes 25% cuts in aid to all of the 28 municipalities in Rooney’s district, and eliminations of property tax rebates for residents in the $150,000 to $250,000 income range.

Monday also brought the Democrats’ successful if ignominious - by Rooney’s reckoning - passage of a bill requiring the construction of affordable housing in affluent towns.

Absorbing some former backers of Fred Thompson and at least one defector from the camp of Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, state chairman of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, today assembled an official, updated team of Romney backers at a breakfast in Parsippany.

New Jersey Republicans who had signed on with Mitt Romney looked as though they were heading straight for the triage unit going into Michigan on Tuesday when their presidential candidate came alive and beat the surging Sen. John McCain.

"It was the first state in the mix that looks like America, and he won it by ten points," state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, Romney’s state chairman in New Jersey, said of Romney’s performance in the ethnically diverse mid-western state.

The wife of Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce has joined the Mitt Romney for President camp, according to State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, the state's New Jersey chairman for Romney's campaign.

BettyLou DeCroce's politically prominent husband supports former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for president.

GOP presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have both won races where Democrats dominate: Getty Images Photo
There may have been a time when Mitt Romney would have appealed to New Jersey voters, even potentially carrying the state against a Democrat in the presidential election.

Not any more, says a group of academics who monitor New Jersey campaigns.

While the pundits say Rudy Giuliani has a good chance to carry New Jersey – two independent polls have him leading all of the Democratic contenders -- they say that Romney can't win a state that has gone Democratic in the last four presidential elections.

Stack wins, Cunningham wins, Booker’s slate wins five out of six, Hudson County Civil War will continue, Webber wins, O’Toole wins

Just three days out from the 26th district Republican primary between Jay Webber and Larry Casha, many Republicans say the race is too close to call. 

The two candidates are enmeshed in a heated battle for one of two one open assembly seat in the 26th District, trying to outdo each others’ conservative credentials.

Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce is up for reelection for the other seat, but he is considered the favorite and both other candidates claim to support him.  

Under a barrage of campaign literature from opponent Jay Webber, District 26 Assembly candidate Larry Casha planned to hold a press conference this morning announcing his intentions, if elected, to write a bill entitled, "Truth in Campaign Advertising."

Stack gets personal loans, architectural firm gets returns for political contributions, Casha and Webber compete to be more conservative, LoBiondo’s Coast Guard failure, State Government will create new agency to fight obesity.