Paul Duggan

votecalabrese.com

Former and future freeholder candidate Chris Calabrese

After a relatively narrow defeat this year, former Bergen County Republican freeholder candidate Chris Calabrese plans to run again next year.

“I will be running next year,” said Calabrese, 33. “I’ve taken a little time in the last month or so just to collect my thoughts for the next election.”

Calabrese, who lives in Upper Saddle River and owns a real estate business in Rutherford, was the top Republican vote getter in an election year when the GOP capitalized on Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero’s legal troubles to come closer to winning a seat on the all-Democratic board than in the last several election cycles. Despite having Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, Calabrese only came 8,423 votes short of incumbent Democrat David Ganz – a difference of about two percentage points.

In North Arlington (pop. 15,181), a blue collar town in Southern Bergen County that went for John Kerry in 2004 by just six votes, John McCain beat Barack Obama by 46 votes, 49.7%-48.9%.

In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Frank Lautenberg beat Dick Zimmer 55%-45%, with a margin of 542 votes. U.S. Rep. Steven Rothman had a 945 vote plurality (58%-42%) over Republican Vincent Micco.

Republican County Clerk Kathleen Donovan won 53%-47% (302 votes) over Democrat Diane Testa, but in the race for Freeholdder, North Arlington voters backed the Democratic incumbents, Bernadette McPherson (2,950) and David Ganz (2,785) over GOP challengers Christopher Calabrese (2,675) and Jeffrey Heller (2,567). In the race for a two-year unexpired term, Rev. Vernon Walton, the Democratic incumbent, carried North Arlington by 187 votes over Republican Paul Duggan (52%-48%).

In the race for Borough Council, Democrats held the 4-2 majority on the Borough Council. Councilman Steven Tanelli (3,513) was re-elected, along with fellow Democrat Mark Yampaglia (3,198).  They defeated Republicans James Herrmann (2,801) and James Bocchino (2,746).

With two prominent Democratic leaders indicted, a subpoena dropped on the clerk of the Democratic controlled freeholder board shortly before the election, and running against three incumbents who all had been voted out of municipal offices in their hometowns over the last couple years, Bergen County Republicans still could not pick up a single freeholder seat.

“Those guys did an outstanding job, to be honest. We were in this thing right until the end. So from that perspective, I thought it was a huge improvement – especially over four years ago,” said Republican consultant Thom Ammirato, who ran the campaign.

It’s not as if the Republicans had everything working for them. Ammirato argued that, despite the corruption issue, Democrats had a myriad of advantages, most of all having Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, not to mention the power of incumbency. Presidential years in Bergen County are generally the strongest ones for Democrats. It’s the off years that Republicans tend to come closer.

In a strongly worded editorial, The (Bergen) Record endorsed blind Rabbi Dennis Shulman in his bid to unseat three-term GOP U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett.

"Scott Garrett is afraid. And he wants voters to be afraid. But the only thing voters should fear is Garrett's reelection to the House of Representatives," the editorial said. "The race in the 5th District is less about who is challenging Garrett and more about what Garrett is challenging. He is challenging the basic tenets of common decency. The high-minded, fiscal conservative has resorted to the lowest form of campaigning. In a post-Sept. 11 world, Garrett is shouting 'terrorist' in a crowded room. The congressman has been running television ads, in addition to sending out a direct-mail campaign piece, that link Shulman to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Garrett wants voters to believe that Shulman, a rabbi, would sell out Israel. It is beyond the pale."

Democrat Frank Lautenberg also won The Record's endorsement in his bid for a fifth term in the U.S. Senate. This is a pickup for Lautenberg: in 2002, The Record endorsed Ted Glick, the Green Party candidate. "Six years ago, we wrote that Frank Lautenberg did not 'have his good stuff' when he reentered politics to run for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate. Six years later, a clearly energized Lautenberg has the right stuff to serve six more years."

Greetings from Bergen Community College in scenic Paramus, where the audience is just starting to roll in for a freeholder debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters at 3:15 this afternoon.

Incumbent Democrats Bernadette McPherson, David Ganz and Vernon Walton will defend their seats – and likely their reputations -- against Republicans Chris Calabrese, Jeff Heller and Paul Duggan.

It could get ugly.

Republicans have been in the political wilderness in Bergen County for some time, though they still had a Republican Freeholder – Lisa Randall – until 2006. But with the Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero, recently indicted on eight felony corruption counts, Republicans see an opportunity, even if they’re still massively out-funded by the dominant party.

Only in New Jersey: Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin goes moose hunting in Hackensack, only to learn a Bergen County Republican freeholder candidate was once a socialist.

The humorous radio ad, produced by the Bergen County Democratic freeholder and county clerk slate, has drawn outrage from the Bergen County Republicans, who called part of it an attack on Freeholder candidate Paul Duggan’s Irish heritage.

The ad, which is interspersed with moose calls, begins with an unidentified male voice asking a Palin impersonator what she’s doing in Hackensack.

“Me and my maverick friends hear that there’s some darn good moose hunting here,” she says, before adding that she’s heard that “the Republican candidates are some pretty serious reformers.”

In Bergen County, the Republican freeholder candidates’ opposition researchers have been in overdrive, accusing the Bergen County Improvement Authority of being a mere patronage arm of the Bergen County Democratic Organization, and blaming the incumbent freeholders of doing nothing to stop it.

The head of the BCIA, in turn, said that the Republicans are playing fast and loose with the facts by implying that the self-funding organization receives taxpayer money, and that grantees – not the authority – chooses bonding professionals. 

The Bergen County Republicans promised to raise the specter of indicted Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero a campaign issue, and they’ve done so, tying alleged corruption within the party to higher taxes in a new campaign commercial called “Corruption Tax.”

The advertisement, which was produced by the Bergen County Republican Organization, shows someone wearing an FBI jacket in front of a giant Bergen Record headline about Ferriero’s indictment on eight corruption counts last month.

In front of a pile of cash are pictures of Democratic incumbents Bernadette McPherson, David Ganz and Vernon Walton.

“Party boss Joe Ferriero gave them millions. They did what he told them. The Democrats raised spending $133 million,” says the narrator. “Waste. Abuse. Patronage. Now Ferriero is indicted for corruption. Higher taxes plus corrupt government equals corruption taxes. You pay.”

ROCHELLE PARK -- In this one square mile town of 5,000, two Republican freeholder candidates, several local elected officials and one conservative activist held a press conference today to rail Bergen County's Democratic government and what they characterized as its assault on home rule.

It's the latest campaign theme of Republicans Chris Calabrese, Paul Duggan and Jeff Heller, who are running for freeholder in what has the potential to be a competitive race against Democratic incumbents David Ganz, Bernadette McPherson and Vernon Walton.

The Republicans call it a "campaign to save small towns" - or, to be exact, the 35 small Bergen County municipalities that County Executive Dennis McNerney hopes will at least consider consolidation.

Bergen County is made up of 70 municipalities, and is often cited as the prime example of the "boroughitis" that prevailed in the late 19th century, when small boroughs split off from larger townships.  The Republicans present raised the specter of a large, multi-town government being run similarly to what they said were less transparent governments in big cities like Newark and Paterson.

Bergen County Republican Chairman Bob Yudin was so incensed by Freeholder David Ganz’s defense of indicted Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero that he called on the freeholder himself to resign this morning.

Yudin said that, while Ferriero remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, an indictment is cause enough to remove him from his chairmanship of the Democratic organization.

“This is a person running a political organization, and an indictment is damning enough that he should resign,’ he said. “If there is a prima facie case as there is here, it is outrageous that an elected official like Ganz says he should not resign. Not only is it outrageous, but if that’s his position, then he honestly doesn’t understand what being an elected official means. He’s betraying the voters’ trust.”