Mike Ferguson

 FLEMINGTON – The Stender supporters started lining up on the sidewalk in front of the old Hunterdon County Courthouse moments before state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) arrived with a contingent of women for Lance, including state Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington), and his wife.

Some bitter back and forth ensued between the Stender and Lance women on the state senator’s home turf of this 7th Congressional District, where Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood) and Lance are in a toss-up battle to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-New Providence).

For a few minutes it looked as though the women here thought they could settle things on their own, in Flemington’s version of “Street Fight.”

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Democrats will pick up congressional seats of retiring Reps. Jim Saxton and Mike Ferguson as part of a national trend that will net them seven U.S. Senate seats and sixteen House seats national, according to James Pindell, the editor of Politicker.com's Pindell Report, which provides independent analysis of federal and state races.

Pindell says that Democrat Frank Lautenberg will win re-election to the U.S. Senate and that Barack Obama will carry New Jersey and win its fifteen electoral votes.

"In two Republican-leaning districts, Democrats John Adler and Linda Stender are going to Congress," said Pindell. "Democrats have momentum and they're winning just about all of the marginal races."

The Pindell Report has the Senate at 58-41, and the House at 252-180.  The Senate races in Alaska, and House races in Florida, New Mexico and Kansas, remain toss-ups.

"The economy, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush combine to push Senate and House races that were toss-ups last week into the Democratic column," said Pindell.   "While the Democrats will control the White House and both houses of Congress, they won't get the 60 Senate seats they need for a filibuster-proof majority." Read More >

Matthew John Rinaldo (1931-2008)
Friends and rivals remember Matthew J. Rinaldo, a former Republican Congressman who died yesterday after a long bout with Parkinson's disease at age 77, for his bipartisan style and top notch constituent services.

For Rinaldo, a Republican, that bipartisanship was partly out of necessity. For the entirety of his 20 years in the House, he was a member of the minority party.

"There is no Republican now serving in the House of Representatives who has ever chaired a committee, gaveled a hearing to order, or scheduled a bill for debate on the House floor," he said in a statement announcing his retirement. "Unfortunately, I do not foresee any prospect of that changing in the near term."

Rinaldo served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as the House Select Committee on Aging, and those who knew him say he was frustrated that he never got a chairmanship.

Two years later, the Republicans swept into power. But many of the newcomers of the "Republican Revolution," led by the new House Speaker Newt Gingrich, were not Rinaldo's ilk. They were rock-ribbed conservatives, while he was a moderate with strong labor ties and strong alliances with key Democrats.

He developed a political alliance with Elizabeth Mayor Thomas Dunn - a Democrat who endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 - and carried that heavily Democratic city during most, if not all, of his campaigns.

"They both worked across the aisle. That's why both of them were so successful. The key in new jersey has been, and still is, people who can appeal to both parties," said former Gov. Tom Kean. "I did the same thing."

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Republicans have held the 7th district House seat since 1956, when Florence Dwyer, an Assemblywoman from Elizabeth, unseated two-term Democrat Harrison Williams.  Matthew Rinaldo, who passed away on Monday at age 77, occupied the seat for twenty years.  Now, with the retirement of Michael Ferguson, Democrats are slightly favored to win the seat in a contest between Assemblywoman Linda Stender and her GOP rival, State Sen. Leonard Lance.

Rinaldo began his political career in 1962 when he won a seat on the Union County Board of Freeholders.  When he ran for re-election to a second term in 1965, he lost narrowly (the initial tally, before the recount, said just one vote) to Arthur Fried, a Democratic Councilman from Westfield.  He came back two years later, defeating State Sen. Mildred Barry Hughes, the first woman to serve in the New Jersey State Senate, by 10,657 votes -- a 57%-43% margin.  When he ran for re-election in 1971, Rinaldo ran more than 16,000 votes ahead of his running mate, Frank McDermott, and more than 25,000 votes ahead of his nearest Democratic rival.

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The New Jersey delegation's vote on the bailout bill was close, and did not occur along party lines.

But while there were some odd vote combinations, with liberal Congressmen like U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn) voting the same way as his conservative neighbor, Scott Garrett (R-Wantage), they tended to cite different reasons.

Ultimately, New Jersey Congressmen voted against the bill by a 7-6 margin. None, however, enthusiastically supported it. Nor did any of its detractors express glee at its downfall, and some expressed more openness to voting for a new compromise package than others.

By far the most vociferous opponent of the bailout was Garrett, who yesterday took to the floor and excoriated his colleagues who supported it.

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Linda Stender leads Leonard Lance by three percentage points, 36%-33%, in the race for Congress from New Jersey’s seventh district, according to an Anzalone/Liszt Research poll conducted for the Stender campaign.

Bridgewater Councilman Michael Hsing, a Republican running as an Independent, is polling 9%.  Tom Abrams, a retired marketing executive running as an anti-war candidate, is receiving 2% of the vote.

The poll shows presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama in a statistical dead heat in the district: McCain 45%, Obama 43%.  President Bush has an upside-down favorable rating of 30%-64%.

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Former 7th District Republican Congressional candidate P. Kelly Hatfield said that State Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Flemington) understands that if he wants to beat Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood), he can’t ignore Union County.

Stender, a microbiologist and former Summit Council president, said she’s seen Lance a lot in her home county, and that he’s studied how Stender managed to get so close to winning in her 2006 campaign.

“He has to win Union County. A lot of the Republican towns went for Linda Stender in 2006, and Leonard knows this. He knows he has to win Summit, Clark and Westfield,” she said.

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U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson: Politicker file photo 

MINNEAPOLIS - In a charge-the-barricade speech at his last convention as congressman, U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson’s (R-New Providence) worked hard at the podium to draw a contrast between Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) And Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who’s scheduled to address the Republican National Convention tonight.

"Some of those glory days are ahead of us as long as we stand for what we believe in," said Ferguson, who promised to work behind the scenes in the coming months. "I’m looking forward to being part of those efforts in the future."

He savaged the media’s depiction - vociferously reinforced by Democrats, he said - of Palin.

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Fresh from vacation with his family and sporting a new goatee, retiring U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson said State Sen. Leonard Lance is doing a “super” job trying to succeed him.

“He’s got a tremendous track record, legislative and politically. He’s a very strong campaigner, and he’s got a great record to talk about, particularly in contrast to someone we all know well has been raising taxes in our state for 15 or 20 years,” he said.

“When you look at the fiscal problems facing our state today, its’ because of people like Linda Stender who have been raising our taxes, increasing borrowing, increasing spending.  That’s a really positive contrast for him, and I think as the campaign plays out over the next couple months the voters are going to learn that.”

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New Jersey Republican Chairman Tom Wilson released a statement Monday blasting Assemblywoman and Democratic congressional candidate Linda Stender (D-Union) on her own tax problems.

In the statement, Wilson said Stender's business accrued $90,000 in unpaid local, state and federal taxes over the last three years, paying only when faced with liens on her business.

Wilson said Stender has consistently voted to raise taxes in the state Assembly while neglecting to pay her own business taxes.

"Stender's raised taxes 64 times as a legislator, but when it comes to paying her own taxes, she routinely takes a pass," Wilson said in the statement. "The last thing Congress needs is another tax and spend liberal all too eager to raise everyone else's taxes because she doesn't want to pay hers."

Stender is facing off against state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District. She failed in a 2006 bid to take the seat from incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-Ridgewood), who is not seeking reelection.

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