Mike Huckabee

A poll released today by Rasmussen Reports confirms what a Monmouth University/Gannett poll showed earlier this week: that John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are in a dead heat in New Jersey.

Huckabee spokesman Peter KaneComing off a primary victory in Iowa, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's New Jersey representatives are gearing up to play a bigger role in driving their candidate toward the White House.

"In the face of overwhelming resources and negative campaign advertisements, the Republican voters of this country will show that they are thirsting for sincerity and honesty in a presidential candidate," said campaign spokesman Peter Kane of Summit. "New Jersey Republicans will rally to this cause on February 5th. Mike Huckabee represents a clear, clarion call to changing this country in 2008." His chief organizer on the ground here who has so far held diner meet-ups with core supporters and coordinated a successful ballot signature drive, Kane said Iowa voters rewarded Huckabee for running a substantive campaign that avoided personal attacks.

After winning the Iowa Caucus, Mike Huckabee is a very real contender for the Republican nomination for President – but in New Jersey, where the GOP primary is less than five weeks away, he has no formal campaign organization – unofficially, his race is being run by Peter Kane, a Summit Republican who worked on campaigns in the 1970’s. His top endorsements come from Leigh-Ann Bellew, who ran against Congressman Frank Pallone in 2006, and Tod Theise, who ran against Mims Hackett for Assembly in 2003.  But Huckabee does have a presence in the New Jersey blogosphere, and enough volunteers to have collected 2,300 signatures on his nominating petitions.

Republican presidential hopeful and New Jersey frontrunner Rudy Giuliani couldn’t catch a break today in Monmouth County.

First, the former New York mayor had to personally withdraw from a fund-raiser in Colts Neck because of flu-like symptoms that put him in the hospital.

The he came in at the bottom of the heap in Clerk Claire French’s ballot drawing ths afternoon for placement on the Feb. 5th primary ballot.

Peter Kane, the NJ for Huckabee leader, presides over the group's second meet-up WednesdaySeated at two tables pushed together in a diner in Scotch Plains, the core of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's New Jersey supporters plan their next move.

"We've got to be relentlessly positive," says Huckabee for President 2008 lead organizer Peter Kane of Summit. It's a message to which the group immediately responds because most of them say they like Huckabee because he hasn't gone negative in Iowa, and because he just generally projects likeability.

Some of these people gathered signatures for Huckabee, helping to submit 2,300 here in New Jersey or 1,300 more than what the state requires, and now they're ready for the next challenges: busing up to New Hampshire to volunteer for the campaign, writing letters to the editor, or convincing friends and relatives to back their man.

"Very few of New Jersey's Republican Congressional delegation have declared their support for a presidential candidate, and we're reaching out to them," says Kane, a senior vice president at CitiGroup who worked for the Dole campaign in Iowa in the 1996 election, and spent three days with Huckabee in the summer before committing to the former governor of Arkansas.

Fortified by political events in the heartland, Mike Huckabee spear carriers have been slowly but determinedly appearing on the Republican primary battlements in New Jersey.

They know they’re not mobilizing major operations on the East Coast. To get a sense of how Huckabee’s been doing here, in Quinnipiac University’s late September poll, the candidate was two points ahead of Sen. Sam Brownback - who was no longer in the race.

It used to be that some had aspirations that a 24-7 media would lead to a general uplift in the culture, arts, and political understandings of the people. Such a promise seemed to fulfill Thomas Jefferson’s admonition that a people could not be both ignorant and free.  But what is happening is disappointing.  First, the major non-cable networks have moved their resources out of nightly news.  If one examines, for example, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric one will see a 30-minute show that gives us 22 minutes of news, but a good part is soft news which is entertainment not enlightenment.  Then CBS and the other two networks wonder why the number of people watching their news has significantly dropped over the years.