Michael Ferguson

The best race in New Jersey this year turned out to be in the seventh congressional district, where the same national issues that helped Democrats capture control of the U.S. House of Representatives nearly ended Republican Michael Ferguson's political career. Ferguson defeated Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Stender by a narrow 49%-48% margin, winning a fourth term by just 3,259 votes out of 193,272 cast. Two Indepedent candidates combined for 5,053 votes.

Ferguson carried Hunterdon County by 5,710 votes (56%-40%) and Somerset County by just 3,232 votes (52%-46%), while Stender carried Union County by a 717 vote margin (50%-49%) and Middlesex County by 4,966 votes (56%-41%).

Ferguson was one of the Republicans in Congress who recognized the potential for a tough race early enough to avoid being taken by surprise, and Democrats never really added Stender to their list seats they seriously though they could win. Stender could run again in 2008, but unless the political environment stays the same or gets worse over the next two years, Ferguson is not likely to have future electoral problems under the current map. (In the very Republican year of 1980, Marie Muhler won 49% of the vote against seven-term Democratic Congressman James Howard, but as the climate shifted away from the GOP, she won just 36% in her 1982 rematch.)

One Democratic leader wondered, albeit prematurely, whether Stender's strong showing and the upset defeat of Linden Mayor John Gregorio could create an opportunity for Stender to replace Nicholas Scutari as the State Senator in the 22nd district next year. Stender wanted that seat in 2003 when Joseph Suliga ended his re-election campaign, but Gregorio insisted on Scutari instead.

Just when you thought the US Senate campaign in New Jersey couldn't get any uglier or degrading, it exceeds our expectations.

When I first saw the TV ad with the cheesy looking guy in a fake alley-way in a leather jacket muttering, "We gotta problem . . . Bada bing, we're in it -- but deep." I was thinking it was some sort of cheap commercial for a product I was sure I didn't want to buy. But the 30-second spot, which is a bad "Sopranos" take off, was actually put out by a conservative political action committee taking a shot at incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), and apparently trying to help Republican state Senator Tom Kean Jr..

The goof ball spot has the fake mobster crying the blues about how the mob's friend Menendez is the subject of a federal investigation. As the bad actor paces the alley-way he says, "And worse, this guy Tom Kean wants to clean things up, even cut taxes. Hey, where's our take in that? We need to get the bosses to fix this."

Bob Torricelli's name is thrown in there, as a friend of the fake mobster who is clearly intended to be some sort of Italian-American who is "connected." To make matters worse, this idiot doesn't even sound remotely like the mob guys or "wanna-bes" I grew up around in Newark. I'm betting he's not even Italian. Of course, the ad finished with a professional announcer saying, "Tell Bob Menendez his high tax record is a crime."

The spot is disgusting, degrading, and disrespectful to Italian-Americans, to New Jerseyans and to the entire political process. I find it impossible to imagine people actually sitting in a room conjuring it up and then paying $200,000 to get it on the air!

That's exactly what happened with this spot in a state that has been maligned across the country as a haven for corruption and with an established history of organized crime, which thankfully isn't what it used to be. The ad was put out by a group called "The Free Enterprise Fund Committee." I'm hoping the Kean Campaign knew nothing about it before it hit the airwaves. Unfortunately, all Tom Kean Jr. would say is that he has problems with the ad but refused to do anything to try to stop it. When pressed about going directly to "The Free Enterprise Fund Committee" to demand they stop running the ad, Kean's official spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker, said, "We have no control over what these groups do. We put out a statement. I'm sure they saw that."

That won't get it done. Not even close. Obviously the ad takes an ugly shot at the Italian-American community, an unbelievably dumb move given what a huge voting block they are. Further, there's no way such a spot would ever have been aired if it were a parody of someone who is Black, Jewish or Asian, etc.

Look, I'm not a big Italian-American "anti defamation guy." I love The Sopranos and The Godfather (except Godfather 3). But this is different. This is a campaign for the US Senate and Tom Kean Jr. should know better.

The Kean campaign says it has no influence over this group, which is why they won't press them to pull it. That may be true, but Kean also has no direct influence over whether Donald Rumsfeld stays as Defense Secretary, but that hasn't stopped him from boldly calling for his resignation. Tom Kean Jr. has no direct influence over House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), but he has said Hastert should immediately step down over the Mark Foley-Congressional Page e-mail scandal.

The Kean campaign wants its cake and wants to stuff its face, too. Kean wants to come across as clean-cut, above the fray; a fresh face who isn't ethically challenged, like his opponent. That's exactly the way I saw him when this race began. But he continually proves he is willing to do anything to destroy Bob Menendez, the Democratic incumbent who clearly has problems.

Ironically, before this ad hit, my sense was that Menendez had issues in the Italian-American community because of his opposition to Sam Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. Menendez voted against 'Alito's confirmation because of the abortion issue. (Alito is pro-life.) I thought it was a bad vote, because Sam Alito is eminently qualified to serve on the high court, regardless of his stance on abortion. Sam Alito is the finest the state has to offer and someone who makes many Italian-Americans proud – including me.

But the Italian-American voting dynamic has changed because in the past few days virtually everyone I know whose name ends in a vowel and has seen the fake Sopranos TV spot is appalled. This visceral reaction is much more powerful than any anti-Menendez sentiment brought on by the Sam Alito vote.

It may not have been a Tom Kean ad, but he surely mishandled its aftermath. He too has insulted many Italian-Americans by refusing to demand that this off-the-wall, conservative political action committee pull the spot now and apologize immediately.

Somehow, my gut tells me Tom Kean Sr. would have known how to handle this, but this latest episode makes it clearer than ever Junior is not Senior. You blew it Tom Jr. I only hope you realize it and apologize immediately. My instinct is you won't. Maybe you just don't get it.

Hotline has expanded their list of top fifty House races to sixty -- still without any of the thirteen races in New Jersey. That bodes well for GOP Congressman Michael Ferguson; despite considerable buzz here in New Jersey about the prospects of Linda Stender pulling off an upset, there is still no indication that National Democrats -- whose financial support is absolutely crucial to success in the seventh district -- sense that Ferguson is one of the many House Republicans they expect to defeat next month.

Democratic congressional candidate Linda Stender's new direct mail piece addresses a 2003 incident involving Republican Michael Ferguson and his congressional pin in a Georgetown bar. Stender, who is touting an internal poll that shows her trailing the three-term incumbent by just seven points, seems to think that this issue will hurt Ferguson in the wake of the sex scandal involving former Florida GOP Congressman Mark Foley.

Hotline editor Chuck Todd has dropped New Jersey's seventh district congressional race from his list of the top fifty House races in the nation. The contest between Republican Congressman Michael Ferguson and Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Stender had previously been listed at #47.

Democratic congressional candidate Linda Stender has changed campaign managers: Ed Oatman, who works in Stender's Assembly district office and is a veteran of several campaigns over the last decade, will replace Mike Premo. Stender is challenging three-term Republican Michael Ferguson in the seventh district.

The chance the Linda Stender could win election to the U.S. House of Representatives this year has led to some limited discussions among Democratic insiders about a possible replacement for her 22nd district Assemblys seat. Some short-list candidates include: longtime Democratic National Committeewoman June Fischer, Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr, Union County Freeholder Rick Proctor, North Plainfield Council President Nathan Rudy, and Rahway Council President Jennifer Wenson-Maier.

One name not being discussed as a potential Assembly candidate is former Governor James E. McGreevey, whose standing among voters might improve after his national book tour in September, which will include an interview with Oprah Winfrey. McGreevey, a former Woodbridge Mayor and State Senator, has been living in Rahway since he left Drumthwacket in November 2004 and has reportedly been shopping for a home in Plainfield with his partner, investment banker Mark O'Donnell.

If Stender upsets Michael Ferguson in November, New Jersey's seventh congressional district would likely become a top target of House Republicans in 2008. One Union County GOP insider, asked about a hypothetical '08 race, said he would expect Stender to face a rematch with Ferguson. The Republican also said that there is no guarantee that Ferguson would have a clear path to the nomination if State Senator Thomas Kean also loses this year and decides to run for the House. Other possible candidates might include: Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, Republican State Chairman Thomas Wilson, Assemblymen Jon Bramnick, Eric Munoz and Christopher Bateman, and former State Senator Richard Bagger. Conservative Assemblyman Michael Doherty, who represents most of Hunterdon County, could also move into the district to run.

The race for Congress in New Jersey's seventh district is increasingly being viewed as competitive. Charles Cook, an independent analyst who watched U.S. Senate and House races, has upgraded the contest between three-term GOP Congressman Michael Ferguson and Assemblywoman Linda Stender from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.

by David P. Rebovich

The evidence is mounting. President George W. Bush's approval ratings have declined and are now in the mid to low 30's. Even fewer Americans believe the nation is headed in the right direction. And now several members of the GOP's rank and file are finding fault with the President and his fellow Republicans in Washington, D.C. All of this is so disturbing that some Republican political consultants are already conceding the House of Representatives to the Democrats, who need to pick up fifteen seats to become the majority party in that chamber. For folks in New Jersey, the question is whether this anti-Bush, anti-Republican sentiment will affect the reelection prospects of any of the state's six Republican congressmen.

Six months before Election Day, there is no specific evidence that suggests that any congressman, Republican or Democrat, is in danger of losing this fall. While New Jersey is generally a "blue" state, congressional districts here, as in most states, are drawn to be safe for incumbents. Incumbency is also an advantage because it provides good name recognition, which is hard to achieve here given the state's fragmented media and citizens' reliance on New York and Philadelphia television for political news. Incumbents also have the ability to raise money, an important consideration in a state where media-based campaigns are extremely expensive. And current congressmen have a record to run on and typically can point to how they have helped their district and its constituents with their votes in Congress. No incumbent congressman in New Jersey won by less than 15 percent in 2004, including those Republicans, even though President Bush lost the state to John Kerry by seven points

But, as Laura Mansnerus, the respected State House reporter for The New York Times, wrote in her column on April 28th, redistricting practices have resulted in some districts having Republican congressmen who are more conservative than most of their constituents. This point is made by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson in their well-researched book, OFF CENTER. Now the traditional advantages of incumbency will make it difficult, claim Hacker and Pierson, for the Democrats to dislodge the Republicans from the House, even staunch conservatives who are out of sync with their more moderate districts. When Ms. Mansnerus explained this thesis to me, I noted that a similar point has been made about some ultra-liberal Democrats in Congress.

But the topic here is Republicans, and Hacker and Pierson identify Scott Garrett of New Jersey's 5th congressional district as an example of the "too conservative for his district" phenomenon they described. Michael Ferguson of the 7th district is another Republican who falls into this category. Both incumbents represent sprawling districts with a mix of rural and urban areas and growing suburbs. Those suburbs have become more populated by college-educated professionals who may be fiscal conservatives but may also see themselves as social moderates.

Nonetheless, as Ms. Mansnerus adds, Garrett and Ferguson received only a 5 out of 100 rating from the liberal group, Americans for Democratic Action, which analyzes congressmen's votes on a number of issues. While such conservatism has not been a barrier to election in the past, will it be so this year? Well, this is a difficult question. Garrett and Ferguson have not made it a practice to run away from their records. And in 2004, President Bush did carry Garrett's district by 13 percent and Ferguson's by 7 percent, causing one to question how moderate voters there can be.

But in a national political environment that is not favorable for Republicans, in a state where President Bush has only a 30 percent approval rating, and in districts where many, perhaps even most, voters are not as conservative as their congressmen, are Garrett and Ferguson in danger? There are two matters that Republican congressmen in any potentially competitive district should be concerned about this year. One has to do with the President's and Congress's lower approval ratings among not just voters in general but among Republicans, and conservative ones at that, who may not show up at the polls in numbers that GOP congressmen need. The other is the possibility that Democrats may be able to expand the electorate, normally an extremely difficult task in a midterm.

The possibility of a shrinking Republican turnout and a larger Democratic is of course due to the public's perception that the President and Congress have performed poorly on issues like the war in Iraq, immigration, energy and gas costs, and the budget deficit. A recent AP-Ipsos Poll shows that 45 percent of self-described conservatives disapprove of the President's performance, 65 percent disapprove of Congress's, and 60 percent believe that nation is headed in the wrong direction. Democrats hope such discontent keeps some Republicans home on Election Day.

For their part, Democratic congressional candidates, including Paul Aronsohn and Linda Stender who will likely challenge Garrett and Ferguson respectively, will attempt to do two things. They will try to make this election a referendum on President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress. And, they will endeavor to show how Garrett and Ferguson, through their specific votes and public pronouncements, have supported the President's policies and programs that most Americans and New Jerseyans do not believe have succeeded. In the process, they hope to reinforce the negative opinions already held by much of the electorate and to attract to the polls people who can be convinced that they have a significant interest in checking the Bush-led Republicans in Washington. The latter include young people, unaffiliated women, Reagan Democrats, and middle class moderates.

What should Garrett and Ferguson do? A standard practice for incumbents seeking office when their party is under the gun is to focus on one's own personal and political attributes and district issues. Also expect Garrett and Ferguson to explain their own nuanced positions on complex policy issues and how these represent improvements over what has come out of the White House and Congress. In this sense, they can perhaps retain credibility with conservatives in the party base who have become disillusioned with the President because of his big spending and their concerns about his competence on some key policy issues. And maybe they can demonstrate to moderates who have supported them in the past that their own competence on issues negates the criticisms of their Democratic opponents. But this means working hard to keep their campaigns about themselves and not about the President and Congress as a whole. Unless the President's and Congress's performance and approval ratings improve, this will not be easy.

David P. Rebovich, Ph.D., is Managing Director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics (www.rider.edu/institute). He also writes a weekly column, "On Politics," for NEW EJRSEY LAWYER and monthly reports on New Jersey for CAMPAIGNS AND ELECTIONS Magazine and is a member of CQPolitics.com's Board of Advisors that offers weekly commentary on national political developments.

Assemblywoman Linda Stender filed with the Federal Election Commission yesterday as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the seventh district. Stender and former Hillsborough Mayor Joseph Tricarico are vying for the chance to take on three-term Republican Congressman Michael Ferguson.