Richard Nixon

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President Bush now has lower approval ratings in New Jersey than Richard Nixon did in May 1974, three months before he resigned the presidency

George W. Bush’s job approval ratings among New Jersey voters is at the lowest point in his presidency.  A new Quinnipiac University poll has Bush at an upside-down 18%-78%, worse than his 22%-75% numbers in a June poll.  Bush is now upside-down among Republicans, 45%-48%.  And in heavily Republican northwestern New Jersey, which includes Morris, Hunterdon, Somerset, Sussex and Warren counties, the 43rd president is at an upside-down 24%-71%.  Among African Americans, Bush's positive job approval does not register; his negative is at 95%.

In New Jersey, Bush is now less popular than Richard Nixon was three months before his 1974 resignation.  An Eagleton-Rutgers poll had Nixon’s job approval at 19%-76%.

A quick look at several old New Jersey presidential polls taken (mostly) in September:

Frank Lautenberg made the White House Enemies List when he backed George McGovern for President in 1972
DENVER - A glance at the 1972 Democratic National Convention might put things in perspective for those Democrats who think the party is irreconcilably divided between Camp Hillary and Obamaland.

After liberal Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota won his party’s nomination for president that year, primary loser Alabama Gov. George Wallace refused to support him, taking southern segregationists on an embittered exodus out of the party.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) remembers that convention, and he recalls firmly backing McGovern.

"My support for McGovern earned me a spot on Richard Nixon’s enemies list," Lautenberg told PolitickerNJ.com.

A new Quinnipiac University poll gives President George W. Bush has an upside-down 26%-70% disapproval rating among New Jersey voters, who say (62%-34%) that going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do.

Back in 1972, when legislators still drew congressional districts with the consent of the Governor -- and when the GOP controlled state government -- court mandated redistricting led to the creation of a new Republican district in northwestern New Jersey at the expense of a Democratic district in Hudson County. 

The political career of Harold Pareti, a very good natured and popular Bergen County Republican who died on Monday at the age of 85, was ended by the Watergate scandal. Pareti, the longtime Mayor of Carlstadt, was elected to the State Assembly in 1971. He lost his bid for a second term by a wide margin in a Democratic landslide that cost the GOP fourteen Senate seats and 25 Assembly seats in an election that came less than two weeks after the Saturday Night Massacre -- President Richard Nixon's firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. He was unseated by Democrat Robert Hollenbeck, the cousin of the Harold Hollenbeck, the Republican State Senator from that district.

International name ID isn’t always a benefit to a candidate. In June 1971, Republican primary voters rejected the candidacy of Robert F. Marasco, a 29-year-old retired Green Beret who was seeking a seat on the Bloomfield Township Council.

 Richard Nixon Library PhotoAccording to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, President George W. Bush has an upside-down approval rating among New Jersey voters: 21% approve of the job he's doing, and 74% disapprove.  That's almost identical to Richard Nixon's approvals in a May 1974 Eagleton/Rutgers poll: 18%-77%. 

The last time a New Jerseyan was within three heartbeats of the Presidency was from August 9 to December 19, 1974, when William E. Simon was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. When Richard Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford became President, next in line were Carl Albert, the Speaker of the House, and Senate President Pro-Tempore James Eastland. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was not in the line of succession since he was a naturalized citizen. That put the Paterson-born Simon, who ran a Wall Street investment banking firm before joining the Nixon administration, third in the line for the Presidency.

PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLAR'S STATEMENT ON GERALD FORD

Presidential Scholar Michael P. Riccards, Executive Director of the Hall Institute of Public Policy - New Jersey, issued the following statement today regarding the passing of former President Gerald Ford:

"Gerald Ford was the right president at the right time; a decent man who was respected by both parties and a good choice to suceed Nixon after the nightmare of Watergate."