Richard Merkt

Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris Twp.) tonight in Mt. Arlington.

MT. ARLINGTON - Establishment buzz portends at last – and again! - the political demise of veteran Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris Twp.) in this cycle as he runs against the son of a Republican workhorse and a popular freeholder, and yet at this 25th Legislative District candidates’ forum tonight, it’s Carroll who injects theatrical pizzazz into a roomful of local GOP diehards, crumbling stiff upper lips into broad grins. 

Eschewing the microphone after back-to-back podium performances by Tony Bucco, Jr., and Freeholder Doug Cabana in front of the Mt. Arlington Republican Club, Carroll strides across the dance floor and drives his heels with dramatic impact - equal parts Patrick Henry, Cicero and flamenco - as he projects his voice from the far side of the banquet room.

“Most new ideas are bad ideas,” he announces, bearing down on Bucco, who has just promised the room he intends to take “fresh” ideas to Trenton. 

“We don’t have to look for new ideas we’ve had them from hundreds of years,” Carroll thunders. “We just have to go back to what works.”

Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham) today in Morris Township.

MORRIS TWP. - The pavement rose on Woodland Avenue on the last stretch of the campaign as Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Merkt trotted beneath the shadows of trees and made the transition from Morris Township to Morristown, completing the last two of the 566 towns he traversed on foot as part of a statewide campaign effort that landed him at 2% in this morning’s Quinnipiac University poll.

If he admitted he can’t win the race at this point, the 12-year retiring Assemblyman nonetheless made the confession with a smile on his face.

“It’s the first time it’s ever been done,” Merkt said of his running effort, showing no signs of being winded as he headed up the incline, still grinning as he added, “And probably the last time it will ever be done.”

Was it a strategic mistake, huffing through all of the state’s towns while obtaining little media coverage and failing to gain traction?

Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham)

Barred from the debate last night because he hasn’t raised the money to qualify under public financing rules, GOP gubernatorial candidate Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham) described his two rivals’ slugfest as mainly a futile exercise in one-upmanship on the issue of taxes, with each promising a more impossible largesse of relief than the other, in Merkt’s view.

The retiring 25th District assemblyman from the beginning of his campaign has argued that has primary opponents would not be able to effect the structural tax changes they champion because of the Democratic Party’s control of the legislature.

“I’ve been in the legislature for 12 years, and it’s like trying to herd cats to get 120 legislators in line,” Merkt said. “The only way to do it is to cut the Gordian knot, which is the State Supreme Court. Both of these gentlemen are astute enough to know ther tax promises can’t be accomplished without the legislature, and when they make their arguments, they are misleading the public."

From left; Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, state Sen. Joe Kyrillos (R-Middletown), and Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham)

MILLBURN – The Lonegan campaign thought they finally had their opponent where they wanted this afternoon: within striking distance in the polls and by turns sufficiently defensive, pugnacious and softened up for a take down in the plush surroundings of the Short Hills Hilton at a forum sponsored by the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women. 

But presumptive GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Chris Christie never showed, opting out of the forum to attend one of his children’s First Holy Communion, and leaving Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan and Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham) with the unhappy task of trying to beat up Christie’s surrogate, state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Middletown), who wore a friendly smile and came out of his chair with an even friendlier handshake.

Lonegan was the picture of mortification on one side of Kyrillos, as Merkt on the other side tried to keep his own irritation in check in front of the most sedate of sedate audiences anchored by Federation President Gailanne Barth.

FRANKLIN TWP. – Mayor Brian D. Levine today formally ended his race for the Republican nomination for governor, bemoaning rival candidate Steve Lonegan's retreat from what Levine called the "battle of ideas."

Levine last night received a fax from Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells informing him of her decision to accept the recommendation of an administrative law judge, which showed Levine under the threshold of 1,000 signatures he needed to remain on the ballot.

“I will take a day or two to think about endorsing a candidate for governor,” said the 50-year old Levine, who has two years remaining in his current term as mayor. “I have to decide where I will go with it, but I would like to be involved in some way.”

Levine admitted it was hard to drop out of a contest where he had tried to compete in all 21 counties yet failed to gain traction, both with county committees and in the polls. 

Assemblyman Rick Merkt (R-Mendham) wants six debates with the two other Republican gubernatorial primary candidates – one for every week left of the primary.  

The other candidates, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie and former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, both receive matching funds from the state, which requires them to participate in two televised debates sponsored by the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC).  Merkt, who did not raise the $340,000 necessary to qualify for the funds, can not participate in the ELEC debates.

Merkt said that the state’s voters should have more than two chances to evaluate the candidates.  

“This is no time for a ‘beauty contest’ primary in which a candidate’s wealth or celebrity decides the nomination,” he said.  “The stakes are way too high for New Jersey to put up with an inexperienced Governor for the next four years.”

At the end of this GOP convention cycle - a process that has been mostly public agony for those gubernatorial candidates not named Chris Christie - the Somerset County Republican Committee will back the former U.S. Attorney.

Former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan showed he has some legs left here as the candidates head beyond the county committee processes (with the sole convention of Hunterdon remaining next Tuesday) on their way to connect with voters prior to the June Primary. 

But Christie still dusted him.

At the organization's convention in Bridgewater tonight, Christie received 204 votes, former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan received 56 votes, Assemblyman Richard Merkt got 28, Franklin Mayor Brian D. Levine 10, and inventor David Brown 1.

In a contested freeholder race, the committee will go to a second ballot vote to decide between Bernards Committeeman John Carpenter and Bridgewater Council President Pat Scaglione.

Either Carpenter or Scaglione will run with incumbent Freeholder Jack Ciattarelli. 

Former prosecutor Thomas Roughneen is out.

BRIDGEWATER – Here are the GOP gubernatorial candidates and a murmur running through the crowd already sounds like a coordinated build up to what will result in a sustained cheer for a winner as these formalities are meanwhile settled with two-minute apiece pitches.

Former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan walks to the front of the room at the Elks Club. 

It’s not his crowd. He starts off on a high plain, going to currency issues in a speech he caps with a diss of President Barack Obama that rings in the room like a sure applause line at this Somerset County Republican Convention.

FORDS –  Former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie won his 14th Republican organization endorsement for governor today, winning the line in heavily Democratic Middlesex County.  

“We’re going to work very hard here not only in the governor’s race, but every race here up and down the ticket, because it is time to bring back Republican values to Middlesex County,” said Chrsitie.  

Christie got 462 votes to former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan’s 122, Assemblyman Rick Merkt’s (R-Mendham) six, inventor David Brown’s four and Franklin Township Mayor Brian Levine’s one.  

The convention took place at The Royal Albert’s Palace, a cavernous Indian-theme hall  where the two ornately decorated elephants above the podium weren’t originally intended to evoke the GOP, but served that purpose anyway.    

Unlike other county conventions, this one was open, with any registered Republican from Middlesex County – not just committeemen and women –able to pay a $10 fee and cast a vote.  Campaigns could even pay for their own delegates.  That gave Christie rival Steve Lonegan, whose campaign has often complained of a biased convention process, an opportunity to turn out his supporters en masse.  But Lonegan campaign officials said they didn't campaign much harder here than anywhere else.

From left to right: Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham), former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, and inventor David Brown

NORTH PLAINFIELD – The Republican candidates for governor not named Chris Christie or Brian D. Levine stood in front of a small crowd of North Plainfield Republicans Tuesday night and took two questions from the audience at the direction of municipal GOP chair Richard Blundin.

Campaign literature bearing the face of a grizzly bear and paying homage to Sarah Palin meant that South Brunswick inventor David Brown could not have been far to have distributed those materials, and there he was alongside former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan and Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham).

Lonegan and Merkt each emphasized what they see as the problem of illegal immigration in New Jersey, and Brown liked what he heard from both of them.