Mitt Romney

Congratulations to Mitt Romney, who became the first presidential candidate from Massachusetts to ever lose the New Hampshire primary in a year when an incumbent was not running. Romney breaks the undefeated streak started by Calvin Coolidge in 1924 and continued by John F. Kennedy in 1960, Henry Cabot Lodge in 1964 (as a write-in candidate against Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller), Michael Dukakis in 1988, Paul Tsongas in 1992, and John Kerry in 2004.  The first Bay Stater to lose New Hampshire was Ted Kennedy, who lost 52%-48% to Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Sen. Joe KyrillosPinned to the Iowa flatlands by bass playing southern evangelist Mike Huckabee in last week’s caucus despite outspending his rival 9-1, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney hopes to do better in New Hampshire on Tuesday, and helping him in that effort is state Sen. Joe Kyrillos.

The N.J. state chair of Romney’s campaign, Kyrillos led a 15-person GOTV delegation to the Granite State this weekend to try to forge a Romney victory, solemnly aware of Iowa but not hamstrung by it, the senator insists.

"First of all, half of the Republican delegates in Iowa are evangelicals," said Kyrillos. "Ronald Reagan didn’t win Iowa. Neither did George Bush and Bill Clinton."

When Joseph Kyrillos won an open Assembly seat in 1987 at age 27, and then beat a Democratic State Senator four years later, Republican insiders quickly labeled him as one of their rising stars.  But twenty years later, Kyrillos remains in the Legislature.  He lost a bid for Congress in 1992 against Frank Pallone, and despite a three-year stint as GOP State Chairman, he passed on a chance to become the Senate Republican leader, and never took his shot at statewide office.

Republicans not endorsing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani fretted yesterday that the GOP’s balloting procedure would unfairly impact their own presidential candidates, and fought an email war with the state party chairmen to try to get him to intervene.

What made the matter worse for some proud party members was having to watch the Democratic State Committee relinquish its prior commitment to giving establishment candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton the line A position virtually statewide.

They argued that while Republicans were essentially handing the ballot pole position to Giuliani, the Clinton-centric Democratic leadership was mercifully loosening its stranglehold on the process to allow rival campaigns to get an equal shot at the line.

"Why is it that the New Jersey GOP isn't following the Democratic State Committee’s lead in holding an open draw for presidential candidates?" Republican counsel Brian Nelson asked State Committee Chairman Tom Wilson. "Why are the Republicans still following the process the Democrats are abandoning?"

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.

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.

Monday, December 10th is the state Division of Elections' deadline for petition signatures required to get the names of presidential candidates on the New Jersey primary ballot on Feb. 5th.

Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich may be a non-entity in the official polls in New Jersey, but his supporters made certain their candidate was the first Democrat assured of getting on the ballot. According to the Division of Elections, Kucinich, and Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain all have the requisite signatures to be on the primary ballot.

William Gerhard Mennen IV, known as Will, is a Republican Tewksbury Township Committeeman and a Hunterdon County Freeholder-elect.  He is the heir to the Mennen deodorant and over the counter pharmaceutical fortune. 

His great-grandfather, the son of Mennen founder Gerhard Mennen, was the brother of Elma Mennen Williams, the mother of Mennen Gerhard Williams, known as Soapy, the Democratic Governor of Michigan from 1949 to 1961.

The wife of Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce has joined the Mitt Romney for President camp, according to State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, the state's New Jersey chairman for Romney's campaign.

BettyLou DeCroce's politically prominent husband supports former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for president.