John Matheussen

Lawrence, left, and DiCicco at Monday's event in Pitman

When Republican National Chairman Michael Steele and Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie came to their district on Monday, fourth district GOP Assembly candidates Dominick DiCicco and Eugene E. T. Lawrence were far from the center of attention.  But they were happy to see the state party at least paying some attention to their region.

"It opens the door for South Jersey. We don't get a lot of attention down here, and we don't really have a lot of intense representation that really goes to bat for issues the way that we should," said Lawrence.

When Republicans announced Lawrence's candidacy in the spring, they hailed it as a "game changer" in this suburban Philadelphia district with a nearly two-to-one Democratic registration advantage.  Lawrence, an African-American former councilman from Gloucester Township, switched from Democrat to Republican to join the ticket.  He was soon joined by DiCicco, who is the chief counsel for Zurich's North America Commercial division.

They're running against two-term incumbent Paul Moriarty (D-Washington Township), and Bill Collins, a former Gloucester Township school board president and track coach who is replacing outgoing Assemblywoman Sandra Love (D-Gloucester Twp) on the ballot.

Gloucester County Republicans are facing a contested race for the leadership of a party that has not won a countywide election in twelve years, just as gubernatorial and legislative races present a possible opportunity for victory.  In last week's GOP primary, Freeholder and State Committee candidates running with gubernatorial candidate Steven Lonegan beat slates supported by Republican County Chair Loran Oglesby and her opponent in tomorrow's County Chair election, Bill Fey.  Oglesby finished sixth in a field of six Freeholder candidates.

If Republicans are to win the race for Governor, they'll need to compete in places like Gloucester, which have voted consistently for Democratic statewide candidates in recent years.  But while Democrats win Gloucester, their margins of victory may not be insurmountable.

Democrats have an edge in voter registration, but 42% of the voters are not affiliated with either party.  Those are similar numbers to Atlantic (45%) and Burlington (41%) counties, where Republicans control the Freeholder boards.   The last Republicans to win a Freeholder races in Gloucester County were Mary Virginia Weber in 1995, and Daniel Mangini and Stephen Atkinson in 1994.

The last Republican victories in Gloucester were in 1997, when Chuck Gill was re-elected Sheriff and James Hogan was elected County Clerk.  Gill did not seek re-election in 2000, and Hogan switched parties before running for re-election in 2002.

The surprise retirement of freshman Assemblywoman Sandra Love (D-Gloucester Township) means that the fourth district, which had a Republican Senator and a Republican Assemblyman as recently as 2003, will get its fourth new legislator in four consecutive cycles. 

Traditionally, one Assembly seat goes to Washington Township (population 51,827) and the other to Gloucester Township (pop. 65,687) in this Gloucester-Camden district.  Paul Moriarty, a former Washington Township Mayor, won the other seat in 2005.

Love, who was Mayor of Gloucester Township for twelve years, was the top vote-getter in her 2007 race, edging out Moriarty by 62 votes.  She outpolled Republican Patricia Fratticcioli by nearly 4,000 votes.

The district was solidly Democratic until the Republican landslide of 1991, when Republican John Matheussen beat Democratic Assemblyman Anthony Marsella for an open Senate seat, and Republicans George Geist and Mary Virginia Weber won the two Assembly seats. 

If Joe Pennacchio wins his race for the United States Senate, he would become the first sitting State Senator to go directly to the U.S. Senate since William Smathers ousted Hamilton Kean in 1936.  Smathers was elected to the State Senate from Atlantic County in 1935 and went on to unseat the one-term incumbent, whose great-grandson, Thomas Kean, Jr., is now the State Senate Minority Leader.

The last incumbent State Senator to win a statewide U.S. Senate primary was Kean, Jr. in 2006, and before that, William Ely, a Bergen County Democrat who lost an open U.S. Senate race in 1938.  The rest, including Alexander Menza (1978), Dick LaRossa (1996), Bill Gormley (2000), Diane Allen and John Matheussen (2002).

On the other side of the Hudson River, where Republicans have a 34-28 majority in the State Senate, Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer has appointed a GOP State Senator to head New York's Homeland Security office. Spitzer will call a special election within 30-40 days of taking office to fill Michael Balboni's seat in a Nassau County district where Democrats have an edge in voter registration. The Senate Majority Leader, Joseph Bruno, acknowledged in December that his private consulting business is the target of a federal probe.

New Jersey Democrats picked up a Senate seat in 2003 by moving a popular Republican State Senator from a Democrat-leaning district to state job. John Matheussen, a four-term incumbent who finished third in the 2002 GOP U.S. Senate primary, resigned from the Senate in 2003 to become the Executive Director of the Delaware River Port Authority with a $175,000 annual salary. With Matheussen out of the way, South Jersey Democrats were able to spend $4 million (the most expensive legislative race in state history) to swing a 63-vote win for Democrat Frederick Madden over George Geist, who had been appointed to fill the unexpired Senate seat.

Geist's loss in the fouth disrict and the defeat of Co-Senate President John Bennett in a race that became a referendum on Bennett's business ethics, gave Democrats majority control of the New Jersey Senate for the first time in a dozen years.

Almost four years later, there is speculation among Democrats that Matheussen is not completely secure in his position. The DRPA has been in trouble for more than a year over a feud between New Jersey and Pennsylvania over a proposal to spend $300 million to deepen the channel on the Delaware River between Camden and Cape May by five feet. Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell, who also serves as DRPA Chairman, has canceled every monthly meeting since November 2005 in an effort to get New Jersey's eight Commissioners to support the channel widening plan.

By tradition, Pennsylvania gets the DRPA Chairmanship and New Jersey gets the Executive Director. (In North Jersey, it is the opposite: a New Jerseyan serves as Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, while a New Yorker is the Executive Director.) Republican State Senator Nicholas Asselta has denied reports that he is under consideration for Matheussen's job.

For extreme political junkies: Rendell and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine could wind up on short lists for the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination, leading some insiders to wonder how the bi-state feud might play out in a contest for electoral college votes.