Some political insiders view independent Christopher Daggett as a potential spoiler in the race for Governor.

"I think the race has come down to Daggett," said Newark South Ward leader Carl Sharif, a Democrat and a Corzine supporter. "With Chris Christie and Jon Corzine even (most recent polls register the candidate in the 40% range), the question becomes whether Daggett's 12 to 14 percent is solid support. If it's hard support, Corzine wins. If its soft support, and those voters peel off Daggett in the voting booth, most polls show they're going to vote for anybody but Corzine, and that's where Corzine could have problems. That's where Christie wins."

Democrats like Sharif figure that as long as Daggett's support holds and he drains Christie's independent voter support in southern Morris, Somerset and Hunterdon counties, Democrats can win a GOTV dogfight with their superior party machinery and squeak Corzine back into power.

"Barack Obama is here today as part of a mechanical calculation," said Bill Schluter, a former Republican senator and independent candidate for governor in 2001 who supports Christie for governor. "His presence here is designed solely to motivate a listless Democratic Party base, and it remains to be seen whether that actually works."

Sharif agrees.

"The Democrats have brought in two party sweethearts in as many days - Obama and former President Bill Clinton - and whether that translates is a big question," he said.

Biden, Clinton, Obama - all the big names this week here stumping for Corzine still lead people back to Daggett.

Dr. Christopher Daggett, the former Kean cabinet member who said today that he will run for Governor as an independent, will need to raise $340,000 in contributions of $3,400 or less in order to qualify for public financing and participate in the debate.  In New Jersey, independent statewide candidates traditionally do not fare well.

The only independent candidate to qualify for matching funds was Murray Sabrin, a Ramapo College Professor who ran as the Libertarian candidate for Governor in 1997.  Sabrin won 5% of the vote in his race against incumbent Christine Todd Whitman and her Democratic challenger, then-State Sen. James E. McGreevey.  A conservative, Richard Pezzullo, won 1% in the same race.

In 2001, Bill Schluter, an incumbent Republican State Senator from Mercer County, mounted an independent bid for Governor.  He used the same campaign team that had elected Jesse Ventura in Minnesota three years earlier, but won just 1% of the vote against McGreevey and Republican Bret Schunder, the former Mayor of Jersey City. 

A GOP candidate for the Assembly in the 23rd District, Hunterdon County Freeholder Matthew Holt this week announced endorsements from former state Sen. Bill Schluter, former Hunterdon County Clerk Dottie Tirpok, and former Warren County Clerk Terry Lee. 

"I know the Trenton scene and what it takes to be an effective Legislator,” Schluter, who served as senator of the district for 13 years, wrote in a letter to Hunterdon/Warren County Republican Committee members.

“Matt will not let partisan gridlock prevent him from seeking responsible bipartisan solutions for the public good.  He is not flamboyant -- he works quietly and efficiently with constituents including farmers, environmentalists, and citizen advocacy groups. He will perform his Legislative duties in a fair and responsible manner while protecting the interest of the 23rd district, earning both your respect, as well as the respect of his fellow legislators."

The three way race for senate in the 23rd Legislative District has been narrowed down to two.

Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt, who had already declared his candidacy for state senate, has opted instead to run for one of the two possible assembly seats that will soon open up.  Both incumbents, Assembly members Marcia Karrow (R-Flemington) and Mike Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) are running to replace Congressman-elect Leonard Lance in the state Senate. 

"My mission to represent the 23rd District in the Legislature will not change.  I repeat my pledge to run a campaign based on issues, and to be a unifying force that all Republicans can rally around to further the goals of the party,” said Holt in a statement.  “Low taxes, responsible government, transparency, and impeccable integrity can be the hallmarks of New Jersey governance.  I continue my total commitment to these principles.” 

Calling himself as a fiscal conservative and social moderate in the mold of state Sen. Leonard Lance and former state Sen. Bill Schluter, Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt formally declared his candidacy for state senate in the 23rd district today to local municipal chairs and elected officials.

“It is time that the traditional Republican principles of low taxes, responsible government, transparency and impeccable integrity become the hallmarks of New Jersey governance,” wrote Holt in a letter to Republican county committee members from Hunterdon and Warren that's set to widely distributed tomorrow. “As your State Senator, I will pledge total commitment to these principles.”

Holt, the grandson of former U.S. Sen. Clifford P. Case, joins Assemblyman Mike Doherty (R-Washington Twp.) of Warren County and Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow (R-Flemington), a fellow Hunterdon County resident, in the race to succeed state Sen. Leonard Lance, who was just elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Democratic pollster Don Herche, who passed away last night, began his political career in 1974 as a young staffer on the campaign of Democrat Helen Stevenson Meyner, the former First Lady of New Jersey who was a candidate for Congress in a heavily Republican district.

The story of Meyner's congressional campaign actually begins four years earlier when Republicans cut a deal to clear the field for GOP State Chairman Nelson Gross in the race for U.S. Senate.  One potential primary rival, Morris County State Sen. Joseph Maraziti, dropped his statewide bid with the promise that he would chair the committee that drew new congressional districts after the 1970 census.

Maraziti drew what became known as the Maraziti district: a Democratic House seat in Hudson County was eliminated (forcing two incumbents to face off in a primary), and replaced with a new seat in northwestern New Jersey that included Hunterdon, Sussex and Warren counties, part of Morris, and a small part of western Mercer.  The district was so Republican that Richard Nixon carried it with 70% of the vote against George McGovern.  (In 2008, Republican House candidates won 64% of the vote in the towns that make up the old thirteenth district.)

As a candidate for Congress, the 60-year-old Maraziti won 50% in the GOP primary, defeating Sussex Assemblyman Walter Keough-Dwyer (25%) and Mercer Assemblyman Karl Weidel (17%). 

In the general election, Maraziti faced Meyner, 43, a cousin of Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson and the wife of Robert Meyner, who served as Governor from 1954 to 1962.  Maraziti won 56%-43%.

As a freshman Congressman, Maraziti won a seat on the House Judiciary Committee, which put him in the national spotlight as a staunch defender of Nixon.  He voted against all three articles of impeachment.   Meyner decided to run again in 1974.

Her campaign, the one Herche worked on, was helped by the disclosure that Maraziti put his girlfriend, 35-year-old Linda Collinson, on his congressional payroll in a no-show job  -- one of the highest salaries on his staff -- while she worked at a Whippany law firm.  Collinson was outed when she applied for a loan with the House credit union and a staffer who answered the phone in Maraziti's office said she had never heard of her.  Real estate records also listed the house where Collinson lived as owned by Maraziti.

Late in the campaign, the Hackettstown Star-Gazette fired their managing editor, Donald Thatcher, after the Meyner campaign pointed out that Maraziti put Thatcher on his congressional payroll to write press releases.  Nicholas DeRienzo, who was the general manager of two northwestern New Jersey radio stations, WCRV and WFMV-FM, was also put on Maraziti's payroll.

Democratic pollster Donald Herche passed away last night.  He was the owner of Public Opinion Research, Inc., a Maryland-based polling company that did work for New Jersey Democratic candidates. 

A graduate of Drew University, Herche started out in New Jersey politics during Helen Meyner's successful campaign for Congress against incumbent Joseph Maraziti in 1974.  Herche later joined Meyner's congressional staff as communications director, and helped run her 1976 re-election campaign against Republican Bill Schluter. 

Former Republican state Sen. Bill Schluter wants to see his old seat kept in moderate Republican hands, and he thinks Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt is the man to do it.

Schluter, 81 is actively working to help Holt, the grandson of former U.S. Sen. Clifford P. Case, run for the 23rd District state Senate seat.

“I’m definitely in the camp of Matt Holt. I think he’s an outstanding individual and would make a good state senator. I’d like to retain the district as a Republican district, and I think he could do that,” said Schluter.

Holt has formed an exploratory committee, but yesterday told PolitickerNJ that he would not make a formal announcement until after Thanksgiving.

True, the 23rd District is drawn to be safely Republican, but, Schluter said, “stranger things have happened.”

Matthew John Rinaldo (1931-2008)
Friends and rivals remember Matthew J. Rinaldo, a former Republican Congressman who died yesterday after a long bout with Parkinson's disease at age 77, for his bipartisan style and top notch constituent services.

For Rinaldo, a Republican, that bipartisanship was partly out of necessity. For the entirety of his 20 years in the House, he was a member of the minority party.

"There is no Republican now serving in the House of Representatives who has ever chaired a committee, gaveled a hearing to order, or scheduled a bill for debate on the House floor," he said in a statement announcing his retirement. "Unfortunately, I do not foresee any prospect of that changing in the near term."

Rinaldo served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as the House Select Committee on Aging, and those who knew him say he was frustrated that he never got a chairmanship.

Two years later, the Republicans swept into power. But many of the newcomers of the "Republican Revolution," led by the new House Speaker Newt Gingrich, were not Rinaldo's ilk. They were rock-ribbed conservatives, while he was a moderate with strong labor ties and strong alliances with key Democrats.

He developed a political alliance with Elizabeth Mayor Thomas Dunn - a Democrat who endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 - and carried that heavily Democratic city during most, if not all, of his campaigns.

"They both worked across the aisle. That's why both of them were so successful. The key in new jersey has been, and still is, people who can appeal to both parties," said former Gov. Tom Kean. "I did the same thing."

One of the gripes some members of the state political elite have with Gov. Jon Corzine is that politically he can be a bit tone deaf.  Here's an example: yesterday, Corzine announced a rather bold, potentially historic proposal for campaign finance reform, taking on those so-called party bosses and special interest groups. Then later in the day, he quitely nominated a new member of the state Ethics Commission: newly-elected Democratic National Committeewoman Stephanie Bush-Baskette, a former Assemblywoman from East Orange and state Community Affairs Commissioner.  She now works (albeit part-time) at Florio Perrucci Steinhardt & Fader, a politically active law firm that is registered to lobby state government.  The highly regarded Bush-Baskette also runs an urban policy center at Rutgers University, which has numerous overlaps with state government.

(Editor's note: Bush-Baskette, who defeated Roz Samuels for the DNC seat in July and took office a few weeks ago, resigned her seat yesterday, just prior to Corzine's announcement.)