Rob Andrews

FLEMINGTON – In less than a week, Dick Zimmer has gone from being a mere bystander in the race for United States Senator to being the front runner for the Republican nomination.

“This is a pivotal point in history. We have incredible economic challenges here at home, national and domestic security challenges,” said the former three-term Congressman, who lost a tough race for U.S. Senate to Bob Torricelli in 1996. “It’s a great opportunity to be able to have a chance to join the U.S. Senate and shape the course of history when there are such major debates any way.”

Zimmer said he received a call for a GOP County Chairman last Monday -- the day after biotech millionaire John Crowley said he would not run – and asked him to consider getting into the race if Goya Foods heir Andy Unanue dropped out of the race.

“I was an observer just like you. I had no expectation of being a candidate and I made no effort to become one,” he told PolitickerNJ.com. “I just wrote an email to everybody in my office in Washington saying that if this is a surprise to you, I assure you it’s a surprise to me.”

Council President John SowellIRVINGTON - A political pragmatist who insists his insider knowledge of how government works does not diminish his closeness to the community, Council President John Sowell says an aggressive opponent in the West Ward doesn’t know enough about the process to serve.

An executive with the sheet metal workers union, Sowell originally thought he was only going to be running against 21-year old Keith White, political acolyte of North Ward Councilman David Lyons.

Now he’s also trying to stare down an old contemporary.

It’s a three-way race in Irvington’s West Ward with Sowell intending to fend off not just National Guardsman White but one-time ally turned vocal detractor, security guard Cedric Hunter.

Challenger Cedric HunterHunter and Sowell fell out after Hunter, a leader of the Irvington Alliance, failed to spirit the council president away from Team Irvington, a group founded and run by At-Large Councilman (and Freeholder) Bilal Beasley, who was wounded in an unsuccessful challenge last year of Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex).

"Bilal Beasley’s run of victories at the county level are over and soon the people who so openly supported him will besiege him to rid themselves of his disgrace," Hunter wrote to Sowell soon after Beasley’s loss. "As one of his most obedient cohorts, your name is closely aligned with his. Hopefully, you will see that the handwriting is on the wall and Bilal Beasley’s career in politics will (not) last for too much longer."

LONG BRANCH - U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg today accused Democratic primary opponent U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) of flip-flopping on the Iraq War.

Andrews helped craft the 2002 House resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq. He later voted 16 times for troop withdrawal, and Lautenberg suggests he did so because the war became unpopular.

"You can't have it both ways," Lautenberg said at Seven President's Park.

LONG BRANCH - U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6), a supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton for president, says her 2002 war authorization vote was not the same as Andrews's. Pallone himself voted against the resolution to go to war.

U.S. Sen. Frank LautenbergLONG BRANCH - U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg today said he would debate U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) if the pair could reach agreeable terms, and in the meantime excoriated his opponent’s vigorous early support for the War in Iraq.

"He was a cheerleader for this thing. He stood with President Bush when he signed the resolution that Andrews helped create," Lautenberg said of the congressman’s role in helping to craft the 2002 war authorization resolution.

Lautenberg argued that his own early declaration of support for the resolution - made while he was retired from the U.S. Senate and before he replaced U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli - is hardly comparable to Andrews’s, and said he might have voted against it had he been privy to government intel.

"If I was in the Senate at the time I might have had the chance to have briefings, as the congressman did," Lautenberg said.

The senator hinted that he would probably not participate in as many debate encounters with the south Jersey congressman as Andrews’s suggested seven but said he foresees a face-off.

The New Jersey UAW CAP Council has endorsed Rob Andrews for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. 

“Although the UAW has worked closely with both Senator Frank Lautenberg and Congressman Andrews, our membership has overwhelmingly voted to support Robert Andrews in his efforts to serve as a United States Senator,” AAW Region 9 Director Joseph Ashton said in a statement. “This decision was made after reviewing both candidates on not only their voting records but also their abilities to deal with the difficult times we in the labor movement will be facing in the years ahead. 

PolitickerNJ.com is returning to our traditional weekly Winners & Losers format that our readers enjoyed between 2000 and 2007. Wally Edge will again develop the list, which will appear every Friday morning.

North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato, left, welcomes U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews to Newark. 

NEWARK - U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) today said he has so far heard no response from the campaign of Sen. Frank Lautenberg in response to his seven-debate challenge.

"I don’t think he has an obligation to me," said Andrews. "I think he has an obligation to the people of the state to do that, so we can have a real test of ideas and so we can see what people want to do."

NEWARK - Prior to delivering the keynote address at the 31st Annual Luncheon of Aspira, Inc. of New Jersey, Democratic Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) again called on U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg to debate him, and defended his stand on the Iraq War.

One of Camille Andrews’s first district congressional primary challengers issued a press release today saying that he plans on being a “serious challenger.”

Bishop David G. Evans, Pastor of the Bethany Baptist Church in Lindenwold, praised Andrews’s husband, who’s dropping out of the congressional race to challenge incumbent Frank Lautenberg in the senate primary.