Tom Kean

From left: Roberts, Sweeney, Aron, Kean and DeCroce

ATLANTIC CITY - NJN Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron has a panel on a stage here in one of the break-out-rooms of the Atlantic City Convention Center.

It's a familar group of legislative leaders, but in place of Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland) sits Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford).

The Sweeney for Codey swap for this public television show taping anticipates Monday's senate Democratic caucus vore when Sweeney figures to defeat Codey.

So it's Sweeney and outgoing Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden) versus Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean (R-Westfield) and Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Parsippany) on an Aron-anchored On the Record episode to air this coming Sunday at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

It's just starting.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean (R-Westfield), left, and Sen. Robert Gordon (D-Paramus).

ATLANTIC CITY - The legislative leadership transmogrifications are evident at the Atlantic City Convention Center, even if the good government intentions are nowhere visible outside whatever sessions convene behind closed doors.

A lot of people are talking about Senate President Richard Codey's party last night.

"An Irish wake," is how Sierra Club Executive Director Jeff Tittel describes the event.

More than a few people note that Codey appeared unflappable - even merry.

"Personable is not personal," explains another insider. "You have to understand the Irish. Whatever he's feeling inside, however personal he's taking this, will not take away from his ability to be personable."

Gov.-elect Christopher Christie's first big move - putting Richard Bagger and Robert Grady in charge of the state budget transition team - is an impressive display of gravitas and seems to avoid some of the early mistakes made by his predecessor, Jon Corzine.  Bagger and Grady offer an interesting contrast to Bradley Abelow and Gary Rose, two Goldman Sachs executives with no government or campaign experience, who were brought in by Corzine to run his economic shop. Christie has picked government insiders-turned-private sector outsiders who understand politics.  Democrats complained about Abelow and Rose all the time, but never about Bagger.

Bagger, who spent nearly a dozen years in the Legislature, knows his way around the state budget; he chaired the Assembly Appropriations Committee for four years, and was well-liked and respected by legislators from both parties.  He left the State Senate in after one year to move up within the Pfizer corporate structure, so he bears no responsibility for budgets passed by Democratic governors.  He also understands local government; he was a Mayor and Councilman in Westfield before his election to the Assembly.

Grady is an expert on budget matters; he was the Associate Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President George H.W. Bush, and understands New Jersey politics - and the media - from his years as Gov. Thomas Kean's Communications Director and as Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Millicent Fenwick.  He returns to New Jersey after spending more than fifteen years as a partner at the Carlyle Group, one of the nation's largest private equity firms.

Republicans have hired Benjamin Ginsberg, one of the nation's top election law experts, as national counsel for legislative and congressional redistricting in 2011.  Ginsberg served as counsel to the Bush/Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004, and has worked for the Republican National Committee.  His appointment was announced jointly by GOP State Chairman Jay Webber, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield), and Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Parsippany).

As State Chairman, Webber will name all five Republicans on the legislative redistricting commission - presumably in consultant with Kean, DeCroce and Gov.-elect Christopher Christie.  For the congressional redistricting commission, Webber, Kean and DeCroce each get two appointments.

The Ginsberg appointment marks an unusually early start for Republicans on redistricting.  Democrats started their redistricting process back in 1999, more than a year before the GOP.

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland)

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland) will make his own appointment to a 2010 congressional redistricting commission and leave a second seat for his presumptive successor to fill with his own choice.

The former governor's game plan comes in the face of state Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney's (D-West Deptford) control of the lionshare of Democratic caucus votes and Codey's likely imminent defeat come Jan. 12th when the senate reorganizes.

"I intend to make one of those appointments and leave a second appointment for Steve," former Gov. Codey told PolitickerNJ.com.

The Inside Edge yesterday reported that Codey could appoint two congressional redistricting members to the six-member commission before the end of his current term, according to the law.

Gov.-elect Chris Christie (at podium) with, from left: Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce, State GOP Chairman Jay Webber, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean.

Leaders of a once fractured minority party - over the last years seemingly constantly at the verge of splitting farther apart - see unity in Gov.-elect Chris Christie.

During the campaign, Christie regularly invoked the example of former Gov. Tom Kean, a moderate, then publicly embraced movement conservative Steve Lonegan in the closing days of the general election campaign to solidify his Republican base.

Kean's son, state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) said he believes Christie's leadership abilities are expansive enough to include both the conservative wing and moderate wing of the GOP, in addition to independents and Democrats.

Not unlike his own father's skills in that regard.

LIVINGSTON -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie returned to the town he grew up in to rally the Republican faithful one last time before polls open tomorrow morning.

Addressing a crowd of about 200 in an ornate catering hall four doors down from his childhood home, Christie gave a variation of the stump speech he’s given countless  times across the state.  But he peppered it with references to his home town and the fact that he had known some in the audience for decades.”

“Thee foundation was laid here. Everything that has happened up ‘til now, everything that will happen tomorrow night and everything that will happen the years after – all of that was laid right here in Livingston, this wonderful place where I grew up,” said Christie.  “…I don’t know whether any of us could have possibly imagined that a day like today could actually come for one of us.  But here it is, and like it or not, it’s me,” said Christie.  

Christie also explicitly hit Gov. Jon Corzine on the outsider status that his campaign has hinted at for months.

“Is there any way in hell we’re going to let a guy from Illinois beat a guy from Livingston tonight?” he said.

With a possible pending Philadelphia Phillies-New York Yankees “New Jersey Turnpike World Series”, baseball analogies regarding the gubernatorial race abound in the Garden State.  In baseball lingo, within the past 24 hours, the Christie campaign has had two hits, two errors, and a late inning lucky break.

Barack Obama is the fourth President to visit to New Jersey to campaign for the re-election of an incumbent Governor. This is his second visit; there is speculation that he will return again before Election Day.

Bill Clinton stumped for Jim Florio in 1993, Ronald Reagan for Thomas Kean in 1985, and Jimmy Carter for Brendan Byrne in 1977.  Lyndon Johnson did not visit New Jersey when Richard Hughes ran for re-election in 1965, although the First Lady did join Hughes for a tour of a Head Start center in Newark.  And Richard Nixon did not come to New Jersey in support of William Cahill, who lost the Republican primary to a White House ally, U.S. Rep. Charles Sandman.

If Jon Corzine wins re-election, it will be the first time since 1961 that any political party has won three consecutive races for Governor of New Jersey.  If Christopher Christie wins, he will become the first Governor to win his first statewide campaign since 1973.

Republicans won in 1946 and 1949, Democrats in 1953, 1957, 1961 and 1965, Republicans in 1969, Democrats in 1973 and 1977, Republicans in 1981 and 1985, Democrats in 1989, Republicans in 1993 and 1997, and Democrats in 2001 and 2005.

Since Brendan Byrne won in 1973 - his first bid for public office -- future Governors had made prior statewide bids: Thomas Kean lost a 1977 GOP gubernatorial primary before winning in 1981; Jim Florio was elected in 1989 after losing the 1977 Democratic primary and the 1981 general election; Christine Todd Whitman lost a race for U.S. Senate three years before winning the 1993 gubernatorial campaign; James E. McGreevey lost to Whitman in 1997 and won in 2001; and Corzine had run successfully for the U.S. Senate before running for Governor.