Jen Beck

Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno

In recent years, a few inter-party contests stand out as wars, and as George W. Bush's numbers threatened to flat-line in New Jersey, Democrats felt a surge of confidence in Monmouth County, where they ramrodded GOP excess and Bush backlash into annual wins on the freeholder board and a Senate victory by Ellen Karcher for territory that could be described as leaning in their favor but finally uneasy.

2007 proved the Democrats' penultimate chance to squeeze as much citizen angst as possible out of the GOP's control of Monmouth and Bush's perceived deepsixing of his own party, and nowhere was the countervailing intensity better demonstrated than Jennifer Beck's challenge of Karcher in the 12th District and, in less publicized if no less intense fashion, Kim Guadagno's battle with Belmar Police Chief Jack Hill for a vacancy at county sheriff.  

Both women won - Guadagno narrowly - and in the process earned reputations as tough, well-prepared campaigners.

Consequently, at various stages of Chris Christie's journey as a Republican gubernatorial candidate, Beck and Guadagno have been mentioned in GOP circles as potential candidates for lieutenant governor, with the former's name surfacing as early as last summer while Christie was still U.S. Attorney, then fading for the most part; and Guadagno's coming louder late in the process here.

Gov. Jon Corzine and Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Plainsboro)

Amid fullblown intrigue elsewhere, Nutley businessman Carmen Pio Costa and Carlstadt School Board member Don Diorio will formally announce their Republican candidacies in Rutherford Thursday evening, and few doubt the battleground, gauntlet-down implications of their challenge to Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic) and Assemblyman Fred Scalera (D-Nutley).

But if the 36th Legislative District remains a decided field of contention this cycle (as is the 1st District in New Jersey’s deep south), two other districts – the 2nd and the 14th – early identified by operatives in both parties as potential battlegrounds in their own right,  at least for the moment do not appear to be marquee headline races.

Certainly that opens up the possibility for North Country Democrats and Republicans to expend more resources in the 36th, where Democrats enjoy a 2-1 edge but where the Dems must run with an unpopular leading man in Gov. Jon Corzine. 

Yet it could also open up other regions, other terrain, formerly classified as green zones. Arguably chief among these, particularly given its bordering proximity to the 14th, is the 12th District, where Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Little Silver) and Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (R-Colts Neck) seek reelection, and last night double-teamed at a town hall meeting in Manalapan.

Marlboro Councilman Jeff Cantor

MARLBORO – The Iraq War vet who once exhorted a crowd of Monmouth Republicans to "cowboy-up" in the cause of his campaign, has donned the dreaded black hat of the opposition.  

Councilman Jeff Cantor, a 2007 Republican candidate for Monmouth County Freeholder who nearly won, has changed parties and become a Democrat, according to a press release issued by the Marlboro Democratic Party.

Once seen as a rising GOP star, Cantor came within a heartbreaking handful of votes of winning his bid for freeholder against John D’Amico. 

Locally, he appeared to be the best-positioned Marlboro Republican to take on new Mayor Jonathan Hornik, a Democrat who in 2007 defeated Robert Kleinberg. 

But he’s happy with Hornik’s work, he said, and noted that “the Democrats are making the needed changes to move our community forward.”

In Monmouth County, every town comes intriguingly into play on some level, several more critically than others.

Republicans have owned the Freeholder Board for over 20 years, but in the last two elections Democrats picked up two seats to bring them to within one of county control.

A profusion of newly registered Democratic voters have boosted the party’s confidence heading into Nov. 4th, and now Democrats Amy Mallet and Glenn Mason are ready for that 11th hour jolt of cash from the Democratic State Committee.

State Party Chairman Joseph Cryan wants to win here.

He wants it more than he would like to pick up additional warm bodies in the Assembly next year, where his party’s already built a comfortable majority.

A victory by either Mallet or Mason would make a Democratic Party statement.  But neither is a name candidate running against incumbent Freeholder Director Lillian Burry and auto dealer vice president John Curley, an intensely focused campaigner who served as a Red Bank Councilman and has close political connections to state Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth).

Governor Corzine is talking about the right moves when it comes to ethics reform. Republicans who have been advocating these reforms for the past three years welcome his decision to join the fight, and hope he can sway the members of his party who have blocked reform.

Senate President Dick Codey is New Jersey's most popular politician, according to an FDU poll released today
New Jersey voters’ feelings about Gov. Jon Corzine remain tepid, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University Public Mind poll released today. 

Survey respondents are split on whether they approve of Governor Corzine’s performance, with 41% approving and 43% disapproving.  16% had mixed feelings or didn’t know. 

31% of New Jersey voters think Gov. Corzine is doing an “excellent” or “good job,” while 41% rate his performance as “only fair.”  25% think that he’s done a “poor” job in office.  Those numbers are basically the same as they were in an FDU poll conducted in June.

State Sen. Kevin O'Toole (R-Essex) on Wednesday stepped out in frontChris Christie of the back-static regarding a pairing of U.S. Attorney Jen BeckChris Christie with state Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) for GOP governor/lt. governor in 2009.

"I think it's a dream ticket," said O'Toole. "If Chris Christie decides to run, I expect Jen Beck to be considered in what would be an ideal combination of law enforcement, ethics and government transparency."

O'Toole recalled as "gutsy" Beck's drubbing out of of office of state Sen. Ellen Karcher last year.

Rudderless BPU Hurts Consumers

Senator Jennifer Beck, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Governor Jon Corzine today asking him to withdraw his re-appointment of Jeanne Fox to the Board of Public Utilities (BPU). The BPU is the regulatory agency that sets the rates consumers pay for electricity, natural gas, water, telecommunications and cable television. The letter is attached.

Corzine Must Provide Complete Information To The Public

Senators Jennifer Beck, (R-12), and Sean Kean, (R-11), called on Governor Corzine today to release all of the information collected over the past two years related to the monetization of New Jersey’s highways.  To date, the only information that the Corzine Administration has released is contained in a power point presentation, the Governor’s “State of the State” message and a heavily edited and sanitized version of the Steer, Davies and Gleave transportation study.  The Senators also announced that they will file an appeal of Judge Feinberg’s decision to allow data and information to be withheld from the public in Appellate court today.

Trenton, NJ – Assemblyman Bill Baroni (R-Mercer/Middlesex) and Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth, Mercer) today called for passage of legislation that would suspend from office any indicted elected official.