Loretta Weinberg

If you are a New Jersey State Senator, you are more likely to die in office than to win higher elective office. Under the current State Constitution, 49 sitting State Senators have asked voters to promote them to a new office, but only eleven have won.  

That might be bad news for Loretta Weinberg, the Democratic nominee for Lt. Governor, and the 50th State Senator to run for another office.

Nearly half of the State Senators seeking higher office have run for Governor and all 21 have lost: Malcolm Forbes (1957), Wayne Dumont (1965), Raymond Bateman (1977) and James E. McGreevey (1997) won major party nominations but lost the general election -- each time to an incumbent; William Schluter ran as an Independent in 2001; and Walter Jones (1961), Charles Sandman (1965), William Kelly (1969), Frank McDermott (1969), William Ozzard (1969), Harry Sears (1969), Ralph DeRose (1973), Raymond Garramone (1977), Frank Dodd (1981), William Hamilton (1981), Joseph Merlino (1981), James Wallwork (1981), Bill Gormley (1989) and Gerald Cardinale (1989).

Edward Crabiel gave up his Senate seat to run in 1973 but withdrew when some party leaders decided to back Brendan Byrne. In 2001, Donald DiFrancesco dropped his bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

All seven State Senators who have run for the United States Senate have lost: Frank Guarini, in 1970 Democratic primary against Harrison Williams; Richard LaRossa (1996), Bill Gormley (2000), Diane Allen (2002), John Matheussen (2002), Thomas Kean, Jr. (2006) and Joseph Pennacchio (2008).  Only Kean won a primary.  (The last time a sitting State Senator went to the U.S. Senate was in 1934, when William Smathers beat Kean's great-grandfather.)

Eleven of the fourteen sitting State Senators who have run for Congress have won: John Hunt (1966), Edwin Forsythe (1970), Joseph Maraziti (1972), Matthew Rinaldo (1992), Bernard Dwyer (1980), James Saxton (1984), Frank Pallone (1988), Richard Zimmer (1990), Robert Menendez (1992), John Adler (2008) and Leonard Lance (2008).  Five have lost House bids: Richard Stout (1968), Joseph Kyrillos (1992), Gormley (1994), John Bennett (1996), and Cardinale (2002).

More than half of the New Jerseyans likely to vote in the 2009 general election have not heard that state will be electing a Lt. Governor, according to a new Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll released today.  Just 9% have heard a lot about it, and 40% have heard a little about it.  It probably doesn't matter, since most likely voters have no clue who the candidates are: 82% don't know State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), 90% aren't aware of Monmouth County Sheriff Kimberly Guadagno, and 92% are not familiar with former Kean College professor Frank Esposito, who is running as an independent.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) said she doesn’t need Republicans to tell her to donate the $1,000 she received in campaign contributions from Dennis Oury, the former Bergen County Democratic counsel who pleaded guilty to corruption charges today.

“I’ve instructed my campaign to donate that money to the Jill Fader Breast Cancer Endeavor at Englewood Hospital which helps to pay for mammograms for uninsured women,” said Weinberg, the Democratic lieutenant governor candidate.

The decision has political bite, since Weinberg today took the lead in hammering Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie for supporting mandate free insurance that would allow health insurance companies to offer plans that do not cover mammograms, among other tests and procedures. 

Weinberg, a critic of Oury and Ferriero when they were in power, said she did not know why Oury made the two $500 donations to her campaign, which date back to 2004 and 2005. 

Republicans want State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), the Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor, to return $1,000 in campaign contributions she took from Dennis Oury, a party leader who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges today.

"Today's guilty plea by Oury, the former counsel and right hand man of disgraced former Bergen County Democratic Party Joseph Ferriero, underscores the corruption problems in the Bergen Democratic machine under Ferriero and Oury," said Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for the New Jersey Republican State Committee.  "It also raises the question as to why Weinberg, who prides herself on her supposed distance from the Bergen machine, accepted these contributions, and why she would deign to be the running mate and unquestioning supporter of someone who enabled that machine with hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions - Governor Jon Corzine."

Corzine, right, and Gore.

ATLANTIC CITY - Identifying the touchstone values of their party, Democrats bucked one another up here at the Trump Plaza Casino, trying to build feeling for what amounts now to the last 38 days of their campaign effort to maintain control of Drumthwacket and deliver another four years to Gov. Jon Corzine.

"I love you all," Corzine told his supporters in a room packed with party insiders, stirring into his speech humanizing buzz notes - farm boy, soccer coach, parent teacher conference attendee - to offset the image of an aloof leader who landed in Trenton three and a half years ago with comparatively little time honed at the street level of New Jersey politics.  

Corzine noted his commitment to the vulnerable and poor - his move to enact the country's first economic recovery plan, broaden early childhood education and healthcare, and build new schools.

Echoing Bill Clinton with former Vice President Al Gore in the room, "I still believe in the family values my family taught me back on the family farm," said Corzine, who told the crowd that in his battle with GOP candidate Chris Christie "every value we hold dear is at stake." 

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE ENERGIZES CORZINE CAMPAIGN
& NEW JERSEY DEMS AT ANNUAL STATE CONFERENCE

Former Vice President Gore Headlines
New Jersey Democrats’ 2009 Convention

(ATLANTIC CITY) – Governor Jon S. Corzine and New Jersey Democratic State Committee (DSC) Chairman Joseph P. Cryan this evening hailed Vice President Al Gore’s visit to New Jersey as a significant force in energizing New Jersey Democrats.  Gore gave the keynote address at this evening’s dinner hosted by Congressman Frank Pallone to honor Governor Jon S. Corzine at the 2009 New Jersey Democratic State Conference.

WHERE IS GOVERNOR CORZINE, SENATOR WEINBERG, DISTRICT 37 ASSEMBLY MEMBERS JOHNSON AND HUTTLE ON MTA (TUNNEL AND BRIDGE) INCREASES?

WHERE IS GOVERNOR CORZINE, SENATOR WEINBERG, DISTRICT 37 ASSEMBLY MEMBERS JOHNSON AND HUTTLE ON MTA (TUNNEL AND BRIDGE) INCREASES?

WHERE IS GOVERNOR CORZINE, SENATOR WEINBERG, DISTRICT 37 ASSEMBLY MEMBERS JOHNSON AND HUTTLE ON MTA (TUNNEL AND BRIDGE) INCREASES?

The proposed light rail is not direct point-to-point transportation into New York, and never will be. Instead, it is primarily intended to benefit Wall Street back-office workers in Hoboken and Jersey City as well as other travelers between Hudson and Bergen County towns. But even including possible Wall St. com­muters, how large are the num­bers? There have been no hard answers provided.