Thomas Kean

A Republican group calling itself "Building the New Majority" has formed with former Congressional candidate Bill Spadea serving as president and John Crowley serving as the organization's honorary chairman.

A Princeton businessman, Crowley was a dream U.S. Senate candidate for a small, dedicated group of Republicans who with Spadea’s help sought to recruit him as a replacement for crackup GOP Senate candidate Andy Unanue.

Crowley backed out of contention hours before the state deadline for primary candidates, citing concerns about how his small business could proceed were he to pursue a full-time Senate campaign.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT) stands on stage in the gym here in Pemberton and asks the standing crowd why they should trust a Democrat who backs their Republican candidate.

"Political parties are important in America but they’re not more important than the country," Lieberman says to applause.

Now former Gov. Thomas Kean takes the microphone from Lieberman and backs him up.

Assemblyman Jon Bramnick, Assemblyman Eric Munoz, Sen. Thomas Kean, and U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson soak in one of the speeches.

WESTFIELD - The word going into that first round of voting at the Union County Republican Convention on Saturday was that former Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield and Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks would require a second showdown.

"This is going to a runoff between the top two candidates," said John DeSimone, commissioner for the county Board of Elections as he waded into the crowd of delegates. And that’s exactly how it went down at Westfield High School, where Hatfield eventually prevailed over Marks with 60% of the vote in the Union County GOP’s pre-primary battle for the line in the 7th District Congressional race.

Six of the last eight Governors of New Jersey launched their political careers by serving in the New Jersey State Assembly: William Cahill, Thomas Kean, James Florio, Donald DiFrancesco, James E. McGreevey, and Richard Codey. With that kind of historical precedent, is it possible that one of the 25 freshmen entering the Assembly on Tuesday could wind up living at Drumthwacket someday?

The word came down from Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., on Tuesday.

Trying to change the look of the GOP Upper House team, the incoming Senate Minority Leader fired Rick England, a political operative who was director of constituent relations, in addition to several members of the minority office's support staff, Republican staff sources say.

While there is speculation that Director of Research John Hutchison is also slated to lose his job, he was absent from work on Tuesday and his status is unknown, according to sources.

Averting a firing, Communications Director Mike Jennings told PolitickerNj.com that he has accepted a communications job with PSE&G.

The Record's Herb Jackson has an interesting post on his blog: he notes that embattled U.S. Senator Larry Craig contributed $10,000 to Tom Kean, Jr.'s 2006 Senate campaign. Jackson notes that Kean, Jr. has $47,000 left in his federal campaign account -- enough to give Craig's money back. But then again, The Record endorsed Bob Menendez last year, and never pushed the Hudson County Democrat to return any campaign contributions he received from numerous tainted donors -- so maybe Kean shouldn't care what The Record says?

At best, Leonard Lance has six votes for re-election to a third term as Senate Minority Leader in November, according to a multitude of sources close to Republicans with a strong likelihood of serving in the upper house after the general election.  His likely challenger, Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kean, Jr., has at least eleven votes in the GOP caucus – if all incumbents are re-elected.

There are currently eighteen Republicans in the Senate.  That number could go as high as twenty -– which would give the GOP shared control of the State Senate.  But four Republican seats are in play, which could drop their number to fourteen.

Somerset County Republican Chairman Dale Florio, anxious to minimize the effect of the county parks scandal on the fall race for Freeholder, has asked former Governor Thomas Kean to serve as Chairman of the Somerset County Parks Commission.  Fred Quick, a former Hillsborough Republican leader, resigned as Chairman yesterday.  Kean, sources say, has not yet made a decision.

Anthony Imperiale

On August 14, 1968, one year after racial tensions ignited the Newark riot, a Special Election was held in thirteen Newark voting districts that each elected four people to a special Community Council to administer the Federal Model Cities Program. This was the second community council election; the first, held the previous April, was invalidated after charges of fraud. The program affected Newark's Central Ward, which had the largest Black population in city, as well as parts of the North and West Wards.

That election featured two well-known candidates who had emerged as civic leaders during Newark's post-riot era: Anthony Imperiale, who ran a group of vigilantes, and LeRoi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka), a poet and civil rights leader.