Paul Aronsohn

A reluctant Paul Aronsohn announced in an email yesterday that he will not seek a rematch against Scott Garrett in 2008.

Citing financial obstacles and time constraints, Aronsohn said that, while he would love to run again, he does not have the time or money to wage an aggressive campaign against Garrett.

“Simply stated, I want to run again. I feel that I should run again. But, unfortunately, I cannot afford to run again.”

Paul Stuart Aronsohn, the Rotarian-American who ran for Congress against Scott Garrett in 2006, was married to New Jersey Network reporter Marie D'Noia last week in Cape May. Aronsohn, who is exploring a rematch with Garrett next year after winning 40% of the vote, was sure to send out his wedding picture to his e-mail list.

David DeGerolamo will not seek re-election as Warren County Democratic Chairman, but says he will consider running against Congressman Scott Garrett in 2008, according to an Express-Times report. DeGerolamo, the Phillipsburg Council President, said he would run for Congress only if Paul Aronsohn does not run.

Democrat Camille Abate will announce next month that she will enter the race to challenge GOP Rep. Scott Garrett in 2008.  The Glen Rock attorney ran for Congress last year, and won 34% in her primary challenge to the organization candidate, Paul Stuart Aronsohn – despite her late entrance and being significantly outspent.

Analysis of the fifth district House race from Stuart Rothenberg:

This year, with a Democratic wave brewing, the handicapping problem is particularly acute. Given that waves are inherently unpredictable and likely to sweep in at least one or two candidates who should have no chance of winning -- look no further than Republican Steve Stockman, who toppled House Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks (D-Texas) in 1994 -- I'm tempted to add anyone who could possibly ride a wave to victory. It's the easy way out, and I've always taken that route in the past.

But I've decided that I won't do it this year -- at least not yet. I won't add Reps. Scott Garrett (R) in New Jersey's 5th district, Mark Souder (R) in Indiana's 3rd, Jim Ryun (R) in Kansas' 2nd, Cathy McMorris (R) in Washington's 5th or other potentially threatened Republicans just because their Democratic opponents have an allegedly encouraging poll or are up with TV ads. While I can't completely rule out the possibility that some or all of them could drown in a Democratic tsunami, I believe the chances are so small that I can't bring myself to put them on a list of endangered incumbents. As I said, at least not yet.

Take Garrett. His opponent, Paul Aronsohn, distributed a polling memo, based on an initial March survey and a late-September poll, that alleged his race against Garrett was "tightening up" and that a Democratic victory was "very possible."

But New Jersey's 5th district, represented by Garrett, is a Republican-leaning district that gave President Bush 57 percent of the vote in 2004. In 2002, Garrett drew almost 60 percent in an open-seat victory against a credible Democrat who outspent him, and two years later he won re-election with almost 59 percent.

Aronsohn's own polling shows the Republican generic vote advantage has been cut in half, but it still stands at 7 points -- a significant edge. Then there is the trial heat, which shows Garrett's 25-point advantage in March having closed to 16 points in late September. But those surveys also show that Garrett's share of the ballot test has remained unchanged at 49 percent of the vote.

Even though the Republican "generic" number has slipped, and even though the "wrong track" number and President Bush's job approval rating have eroded, Garrett's trial heat number has remained the same, just a whisker under the 50 percent mark.

Sure, the ballot test in the poll has tightened, but only because some of the undecided voters went over to Aronsohn, whose share of the vote went from an anemic 24 percent in March to an only somewhat less anemic 33 percent at the end of September.

I can't say with absolute certainty that Aronsohn can't, or won't, beat Garrett next month, only that the chances seem so small that rating the race as competitive seems misleading. If, barring other evidence of an Aronsohn surge before Election Day, the Democrat does win, it will be a jaw-dropping upset, and I won't mind missing it.

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean is coming to New Jersey on Friday to campaign for Paul Aronsohn, who is challenging GOP Congressman Scott Garrett in the fifth district. Dean may feel a bit queasy when he comes to the Garden State: when he visited in December 2003, he was the front runner for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He came to accept the endorsement of Governor James E. McGreevey and much of the state's Democratic establishment. But within a few weeks, his bid for the White House had come to a crashing halt. But Dean may have an affinity for Aronsohn, who was McGreevey's press secretary -- he once proclaimed January 27, 1997 as "Rotary Founder's Day" when he was the Governor of Vermont.

Steve Rothman narrowly defeated Joe Ferriero in Bergen County yesterday -- sort of. Rothman's congressional office softball team edged out the Bergen County Democratic Organization team 8-7. Ferriero played on the BCDO team, while Rotarian-American congressional candidate Paul Aronsohn played for Rothman.

Paul Aronsohn, a Rotarian-American who served as a top aide to Governor James E. McGreevey, captured the Democratic nomination for Congress in the 5th district and will face two-term Congressman Ernest Scott Garrett in November. But his victory over attorney Camille Abate, a political newcomer who ran to Aronsohn's left, was a less-than-impressive 66.5%. Aronsohn had the support of Democratic organizations in Bergen, Passaic, Sussex and Warren counties, and had raised $249,000, while Abate spent just $33,000. Abate held Aronsohn to just 58% in Passaic County and 59% in Sussex.

An Open Letter to Paul Aronsohn from Camille Abate

Former McGreevey press secretary Paul Aronsohn says he has raised about $200,000 (with about $130,000 cash-on-hand) for his campaign against Republican Congressman Scott Garrett -- which puts him a long way off of his goal to spend $2 million. Aronsohn has spent most of the last year raising money (he has had several high profile fundaisers headlined by Demcorats like former Clinton Press Secretary Mike McCurry, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Ambassador Richard Holbrooke) and is still not on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's target list; the DCCC Chairman, Rahm Emanual, came to New Jersey last week to help Linda Stender, who is running in the seventh district against Michael Ferguson, not for Aronsohn.

One of the legendary scams in Bergen County politics came in 1984, when Republicans were considering candidates to take on newly-elected Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli. Torricelli had won the seat two years earlier, when he ousted three-term GOP incumbent Harold Hollenbeck by a 53%-46% margin. The political climate in 1982 (and congressional redistricting in the 9th) favored Democrats and Torricelli leveraged the national contacts he made working for Vice President Walter Mondale and running Jimmy Carter's 1980 re-election campaign in Illinois to help him raise $266,000 -- about $70,000 more than Hollenbeck had.

Ronald Reagan's popularity heading into the 1984 election, and a new congressional map (the '82 redistricting plan was tossed by federal judges), gave Republicans reason to believe Torricelli could be beaten. The 9th district went strongly for Reagan, giving him a 59%-41% win over Mondale -- a plurality of almost 47,000 votes.

Party leaders had several attractive candidates, including newly-elected Assemblyman William "Pat" Schuber and Bergen County Sheriff William McDowell, but decided to go with a unknown insider, Neil Romano, who had served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee in the late 1970's. Romano appeared before the Bergen GOP screening committee and sold them on his ability to raise money -- saying that wealthy family members and politically connected friends would provide him with a hefty campaign warchest -- the type of money a challenger would need to take on Torricelli.

The problem for the Bergen GOP is that they were scammed. Romano had practically no capacity to raise money and the personal wealth he pledged just wasn't there. The lethargic Romano raised just $89,166 -- giving Torricelli an almost 6-1 edge in fundraising. Torricelli won a second term with 63% of the vote, with Romano running more than 60,000 votes behind the top of the ticket.