Robert Smith

Good thing I’m not a betting person.

If you’ve been reading the Gannett dailies over the last couple months, the odds-on favorites would be this year’s legislative challengers.

That’s what we’ve been led to believe by the investigative reports exposing incumbents, headlines calling for reform, and the editorials lamenting the need for new faces. Read More >

In politics, timing is everything, and few politicians had the timing and perennially tough campaigns of Democrat William Halstead Sutphin. Republicans had been trying to unseat Sutphin for twelve years -- often coming close but never able to win. Sutphin had been elected Mayor of Matawan in 1914 at age 27 and quit after less than two years to serve in the military during World War I. He returned to politics in 1926 as a candidate for Mayor and in 1930 ran for the open House seat vacated when two-term Republican Harold Hoffman (who was elected Governor in 1934) gave up his seat to become state Motor Vehicles Commissioner. Back then, the old third congressional district included all of Monmouth and Ocean counties and part of Middlesex County. This was the mid-term election of Republican President Herbert Hoover and in the midst of the Great Depression, the 43-year-old Sutphin defeated Republican Thomas Gopsill, a 35-year-old four-term Assemblyman and Red Bank Commissioner (and the grandson of former Jersey City Mayor James Gopsill) by a 51%-49% margin. Read More >

Paul (Daniels) Danielczyk lost to five-term Rep. Bernard Dwyer by just 5,598 votes, 51%-46%.Few pundits give Republican Paul (Daniels) Danielczyk much of a chance in his campaign for a State Assembly seat in the heavily Democratic 19th district against incumbents John Wisniewski and Joseph Vas. That must be frustrating for Danielczyk, who would have been a Congressman if his own party had given him even a tiny bit of support.

Back in 1990, newly-elected Governor Jim Florio raised taxes by $2.8 billion, and neither party anticipated that voters would take out their frustration with Florio on Democratic candidates for Congress. Bill Bradley, the popular two-term Democratic U.S. Senator, almost lost his seat to former Public Utilities Commission President Christine Todd Whitman -- the 50%-47% margin was almost entirely a backlash against Florio.

That year, the 37-year-old Danielczyk nearly upset five-term Democratic Congressman Bernard Dwyer. He lost by only 5,598 votes (51%-46%), and spent just $8,887 on his campaign

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A bid to return to public office did not go well for octogenerian former Assemblywoman Angela Perun: she won just 19% of the vote in a bid for a return to the Plainfield City Council earlier this month. Perun had served as a Councilwoman from 1978 to 1981 and as an Assemblywoman from 1981 to 1985. In 1985, Democrats denied her party support for a third term (they backed Piscataway Mayor -- now State Senator -- Robert Smith instead). After switching parties, she just narrowly lost her re-election bid as a Republican.

Still, her 19% is more than double the 8% former four-term State Senator Joseph Bubba received in his 2004 bid for a seat on the Pompano Beach, Florida City Commission.

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There is considerable speculation among Democrats that State Senator Frederick Madden will not seek re-election to a second term in 2007 and that Assemblyman Paul Moriarty will run for the fourth district Senate seat.

Madden, a former Acting State Police Superintendent, entered politics in 2003 when he defeated GOP incumbent George Geist by just 63 votes out of more than 41,000 cast in one of the most expensive legislative campaigns in state history.

Some insiders believe that Geist, now a state Administrative Law Judge, is actively mulling a possible bid for his old seat. Sources say that Geist, who served in the Legislature from 1992 to 2004, could be the beneficiary of a coalition of labor unions and North Jersey Democrats who are offering to raise money for a Geist campaign.

Moriarty, a former consumer affairs reporter for a Philadelphia network television station, entered politics in 2004 when he upset incumbent Washington Township Mayor Randee Davidson in the Democratic primary. He won an Assembly seat in 2005 when incumbent Robert Smith declined to seek re-election.

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Daniel Hutchison, the Republican candidate for Congress against Rob Andrews in 2004, has switched parties and may be running as a Democrat for Gloucester Township Council. Hutchison sealed the deal at a breakfast with Camden County Democratic Co-Chairman James Beach and Donald Norcross , and Democratic strategist Steve Ayscue on Tuesday in Blackwood. Republicans failed in their bid to recruit Hutchison, has been actively courted by Camden County Democratic leaders, to run for the State Assembly in the fourth district earlier this year.

Hutchison was the winner of a very close primary: he defeated John Cusack by just twelve votes in June 2004. Gloucester County Republicans withdrew their endorsement after finding out the Hutchison had contributed $250 to Democratic Assemblyman Robert Smith after he had already won their organization line.

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