Michael Doherty

The election of John DiMaio to represent the 23rd district in the State Assembly will require Warren County Republicans to hold another special election convention - their third this year - to fill DiMaio's seat on the Board of Freeholders.  The clock will start when DiMaio gets sworn in as an Assemblyman sometime next month; GOP County Chairman Douglas Steinhardt has 7 to 35 days to call the vote.

One potential candidate, former Warren County GOP Chairman Walter Orcutt, says he will not be a candidate for DiMaio's Freeholder seat.

Northwestern New Jersey Republican sources say that possible candidates include Oxford Mayor Angelo Accetturo, former Frelinghuysen Mayor Thomas Charles, Washington Township Mayor Samir Elbassiouny, Blairstown Mayor Richard Mach, Allamuchy Councilwoman Betty Schultheis, Belvidere Councilman Morris Scott,  Washington Mayor Marianne Van Deursen, and Phillipsburg Mayor Harry Wyant.

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If Michael Doherty figures out that he could be without a public office in January - that would mean losing the Senate primary to Marcia Karrow, since the train has already left the station on his District 23 Assembly seat, Doherty could head home to Warren County and run in a March special election convention for John DiMaio's seat on the Board of Freeholders.  Doherty would likely win that race, keeping him in the game for a little while longer - maybe long enough to challenge Surrogate Susan Dickey in 2010 or Karrow in 2011, or just wait and see if Warren County winds up in a more Doherty-friendly district after reapportionment.

Should Doherty run for Freeholder next month - don't hold your breath, this strategy is extraordinarily unlikely, he would have a chance to quickly emerge as the leader of the Warren GOP if he decided to also work to dump incumbent Everett Chamberlain in the June primary.  Chamberlain has struggled to win the approval of Warren Republicans, local insiders say.  That could give Doherty a 2-1 majority on the Freeholder Board.

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When John DiMaio takes his seat in the State Assembly sometime over the next few weeks, it will become the first time in history that two Warren County residents will be serving together in the lower house.  DiMaio, at least until January 2010, will serve with his onetime friend and political ally, four-term Assemblyman Michael Doherty.

The last time Warren had two legislators was in 1990, when eleven-term State Senator Wayne Dumont resigned for health reasons.  At the time, the district included parts of Warren and Sussex counties.  The Warren County legislator was Chuck Haytaian, then the Assembly Minority Leader.  Twelve-term Assemblyman Robert Littell moved up to the Senate, and he was replaced by another Sussex County Republican, Scott Garrett.

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The third-step in the four-part contest to nominate Republican legislative candidates in the 23rd  district will be a decision by Hunterdon County Republicans to pick a second Assembly candidate to run on their organization line in the June primary.  Their ticket already includes newly-elected State Sen. Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan) and Assemblyman-elect John DiMaio (R-Hackettstown).  The other Assembly candidate will be from Hunterdon.

The leading candidates for the one seat are the two Hunterdon Freeholders who lost to DiMaio in yesterday's special election convention: Erik Peterson and Matthew Holt.  On the first ballot, Peterson beat Holt 104-56.  These numbers might indicate an advantage for Peterson.

Hunterdon GOP Chairman Henry Kuhl and the Republican screening committee must pick a candidate to replace Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington), who says he's leaving the Assembly to challenge Karrow in the Republican State Senate primary.  Even if Doherty decides to drop his Senate bid, it appears that the door is closed to being included on the organization line for a fifth term in the State Assembly.

The main thing to watch over the next few weeks is to see if Doherty stays in the Senate race - an uphill fight, now that his friend and ally, DiMaio, has now endorsed Karrow and will run on her ticket, and that his friend and ally, Warren County GOP Chairman Douglas Steinhardt, has agreed to back the Kuhl slate.  If Doherty continues, he might recruit two Assembly candidates to run with him. Read More >

CLINTON TWP. – Undeterred by a hotel bar television set in the next room that jars the chandeliers with each apparent dramatic upswing, 50 people pack the chairs in the Holiday Inn ballroom here on the outskirts of downtown as three Republicans make their respective cases for why they should be the next assemblyman from the 23rd Legislative District.

It’s a comparatively quiet drama – quiet but intense.

Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt, Hunterdon County Freeholder Erik Peterson, and Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio have spent the last six weeks relentlessly crisscrossing the Warren-Hunterdon county line and engaging members of the GOP committees of these two rural and expansive west New Jersey counties.

They recognize faces in the crowd tonight, including that of Hunterdon County Republican Party Chairman Henry Kuhl, who impassively says to a visitor, “Welcome to God’s country,” to the question of who’s going to win the contest.

Sponsored by the Clinton Township Republican Club, this is the same brook and hamlet part of the state that launched the political career of U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-Clinton), a political moderate whose 7th Congressional District victory last year gave the GOP something to savor in an otherwise frigid political year for Republicans - but also left the harder right wing of the party agonizing about its future.

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WHITE - After approaching the Warren County Freeholders at their meeting last week, Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) plans to sit down with the freeholders this afternoon to try to convince them to pass a resolution banning borrowing at the county level without voter approval. 

It’s no declaration of political war, insists Doherty – simply a good government broadside and timely exclamation point on a crusade he launched a year ago.

“Voters approved the Lance Amendment (forbidding borrowing without voter approval at the state level), but there remains a huge loophole that needs to be closed for counties and municipalities,” said Doherty, a former freeholder who is pursuing an off-the-line run against state Sen. Marcia Karrow (R-Raritan Twp.) in the 23rd District.

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HACKETTSTOWN – Pro-life and pro-gun, Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio calls himself the most conservative candidate in the race for the vacant District 23 Assembly seat even though he started his political career in the opposing party. 

The president of A. DiMaio & Son, Inc., a general contracting company he co-founded in 1977, he came up the hard way, working in a family business that taught him early the value of a dollar and that honed his instincts for survival and self-sufficiency.

At 53 now, the Republican’s been around a little longer than his Hunterdon County competitors, Freeholder Matt Holt and Freeholder Erik Peterson, and he’s punched more time at the local level, having served 11 years on the Hackettstown council and then an additional nine years as mayor before winning a seat on the Warren County Freeholder Board.

He spent 14 of those years in Hackettstown as a Democrat, and not surprisingly in this increasingly competitive GOP terrain heading toward Saturday’s special convention, that’s the first fact about DiMaio’s background his opponents’ surrogates highlight in casual conversation.

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Here's an interesting scenario for Michael Doherty if he finds himself without a Senate or Assembly seat next January: run for Warren County Surrogate.  The incumbent, Susan Dickey, is up for re-election in 2010 and even though she has won five countywide races, she's never been hugely popular among Republicans in Warren County.  And Doherty might find the $102,500-a-year gig attractive.

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Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington Twp) prided himself on never schmoozing with the power elite in Warren County, but now that he’s been abruptly shut out of organizational channels in the aftermath of his loss last month in a special convention bid for state Senate, he’s going into full-gear, good-government outsider mode. 

“Part of what distinguishes me from Marcia Karrow is my position on debt and wanting voter approval,” said Doherty. “In this case, people need to come out of their ivory towers and see where the taxpayers are before they borrow money to build a library on the Delaware River. ...I have been working on this issue for over a year now.  What is precipitating my action now is the Freeholders’ announcement last week to move forward with their $26 million (library) building. ”

A prime Assembly sponsor of the Lance Amendment requiring voter approval for all state borrowing, Doherty plans to attend the Warren County Freeholders’ meeting on Wednesday evening armed with a similar resolution he wants the freeholders to adopt on the county level.

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