Mike Ferguson

Bedminster Township Committeeman Finn Caspersen, Jr. said today that he will not run to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson.

“I talked it over with my family, and the best thing for me and my family at this juncture is not to pursue the seat,” said Caspersen, who was mulling a bid last week.

The latest potential candidate for Mike Ferguson’s seventh district congressional seat is Dr. Matt Smith, the president of the medical staff at JFK Medical Center in Edison. The 55-year-old Scotch Plains physician may enter the GOP race, according to a representative of his campaign committee.

Hunterdon County Freeholder Matthew Holt says Leonard Lance should run for Congress, and that if the Senate Minority Leader ultimately declines to run, he would consider seeking the GOP nomination.

Holt is the grandson of former U.S. Sen. Clifford Case, who served as Congressman in the 7th district from 1945 to 1953 before moving to the Senate in 1955.

Lance has expressed interest in entering the seat that became available on Monday when Mike Ferguson announced he would not seek re-election.

There is some speculation among Republicans that former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler is thinking about a bid for Congress in the seventh district.  Schundler grew up in Westfield and several family members still live there.   Schundler did  not return e-mails seeking comment on his potential candidacy for Mike Ferguson’s seat.

Kate Whitman, the daughter of former Governor Christine Todd Whitman, is giving serious consideration to a bid for Congress and is speaking with Republican leaders and fundraisers about seeking the open seventh district seat of retiring GOP Rep. Mike Ferguson. GOP insiders say that Whitman could emerge as a formidable candidate for the seat – especially in a crowded primary field.

Who is the Matthew Rinaldo of the new generation – Michael Doherty or Jon Bramnick?

Rinaldo, the pro-labor Republican who always carried Elizabeth during his ten terms in Congress, spent two decades on short lists for statewide office – Governor in 1977, 1981, 1989 and 1993, and U.S. Senate in 1982 and 1988 – but was never able to pull the trigger; among political insiders, that became part of his legacy.

The same thing seems to be happening with Doherty, who publicly flirted with bids for Congress in 2002, Governor in 2005, U.S. Senate in 2006, State Senate in 2007 (against Leonard Lance in the GOP primary), and U.S. Senate in 2008.  How long will it take for his name to stop appearing on short lists?

Clifford Case represented the 7th district from 1945 to 1953Born in Rahway in his grandfather's house when the 7th Congressional district included that tough prison town, Matt Holt remembers U.S. Sen. Clifford Case as a public servant who put the common good ahead of partisan politics.

Case's career included four terms in the House representing the 7th district and four terms in the Senate, and now 25 years after his death, grandson Holt is considering a run for Congress.

"The single biggest challenge is to return to the art of negotiation," says Holt, 49, a Hunterdon County freeholder from Clinton, who served as the town's mayor for two years.

If Leonard Lance decides to run for Congress, perhaps he's bought himself a little bit of cover from the conservatives: he endorsed Mitt Romney for President, and when Assemblyman Michael Doherty mulled a bid for the U.S. Senate last summer, Lance signed on as Co-Chairman of the exploratory committee. 

Doherty, one of the most conservative members of the Legislature, is a huge stakeholder in a Lance for Congress campaign.  If Lance wins Michael Ferguson's seventh district seat, Doherty would be the odds-on favorite to move up to the State Senate.