Robert Kennedy

Bobby Kennedy, Jr., right, with Gov. Jon Corzine

ELIZABETH - First came Caroline Kennedy, then Patrick Kennedy, and tonight at the Portuguese Social Club, Bobby Kennedy, Jr. appeared in support of Gov. Jon Corzine.

Heedless of specific state issues, Kennedy went right for the jugular.

"We cannot reward Republicans for what they did to this country during the eight years prior to Barack Obama," said the son of the late Attorney General and 1968 candidate for president. "How can Chris Christie come over and seriously run for governor? It's time for them (Republicans) to sit down and let someone else run the state."

More than one thumb and forefinger blew a shrill and long whistle of approval into the big room amid resounding hand claps.

New Jerseyan Nicholas Katzenbach, right, then the Deputy U.S. Attorney General, confronts Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who blocked the door of the University of Alabama to prevent the enrollment of Black students in 1963

Former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach says he can't imagine Robert F. Kennedy didn't talk to Democratic leaders about running for the U.S. Senate while he was still Attorney General, but says that it's a different situation than Chris Christie talking to Karl Rove.

"The Attorney General doesn't do the investigations of cases or determine what cases should be brought in any event," said Katzenbach, a Princeton resident who served as the Justice Department's No. 2 under Kennedy and currently lives in Princeton.  "I think if a U.S. Attorney had called anybody political in the White House without first consulting the Attorney General, whether it was me or Bobby Kennedy, he would have been asked for his resignation."

Katzenbach, 87, became Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson after Kennedy was sworn in as a Senator from New York in 1965.  Katzenbach served in that position for almost two years, from early 1965 to late 1966, before being appointed Under Secretary of State.

A registered Democrat, Katzenbach said that he has not taken an active political role in anything since he testified against impeaching President Bill Clinton in front of Congress in 1998.  In an interview with PolitickerNJ.com last year, he called Christie's appointment of former Attorney General John Ashcroft to a no-bid federal monitoring contract "inappropriate" and "as wrong as it can be."

Gov. Corzine's campaign pounced on this month's revelation that Christie spoke with former Rove - President George W. Bush's political point man - about a potential gubernatorial run while he was still U.S. Attorney.  Christie dismissed the conversations as "social," but Corzine, other Democrats and an outside ethics watchdog group think have called it a potential violation of the Hatch Act

Katzenbach said that, given the alleged politicization of the Justice Department that took place under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Rove's involvement in it, Christie should have avoided any conversations with Rove.

"Things have changed, and there was a great deal of effort to politicize the department of justice in the Bush Administration," he said.  "I thought that would have made it even clearer that it would be a very bad judgment to talk to somebody like Karl Rove if you were the U.S. Attorney."

But Katzenbach said that he did not see anything wrong with Christie's $46,000 loan to former First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Brown two years ago, when he was still U.S. Attorney.  Brown resigned yesterday, writing in her resignation letter that she did not want to be a "distraction."

Left to right: Robert F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy III

A campaign appearance by Robert F. Kennedy III on behalf of Hoboken mayoral candidate Peter Cammarano comes 34 years after his father, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., visited New Jersey to stump for a young State Assembly candidate. 

In 1975, 23-year-old Peter Shapiro ran for State Assembly in the old 28th district, which included South Orange, Irvington and Newark's West Ward.  Shapiro took on the powerful Essex County Democratic machine that year and won a rare off the line 181-vote primary victory over incumbent Rocco Neri.  He received an enormous amount of coverage when his famous Harvard classmate rang doorbells on his behalf.

Getty Images Photo

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), convicted of criminal charges a few weeks ago, is trailing in his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate seat he's held since 1968

If Republican Ted Stevens loses he'll become the fifth incumbent U.S. Senator to lose re-election in a year when a home state candidate is on the national ticket.  It happened twice in 1916, and again in 1964 and 1980.

Despite Gov. Sarah Palin's presence on the GOP ticket in Alaska, Stevens -- convicted on federal corruption charges last month -- trails Democrat Mark Begich by 814 votes, with 35,000 ballots still to be counted --

The first time that happened was in 1916, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson was re-elected to a second term as President.  But in Wilson's home state of New Jersey, Republican Joseph Frelinghuysen, a cousin of U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, ousted Democratic U.S. Sen. James Martine by a 56%-39% margin. And in Indiana, the home state of Wilson's vice president, Thomas Marshall, Republican Harry New unseated incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kern by a 48%-46% margin.

Brian M. Hughes, Mercer County executive: Politicker file photo 

The Murphy-Hughes brothers’ first Democratic National Convention was the last one staged in New Jersey: 1964, Atlantic City.

It was hard to beat for drama when compared to everything that followed, with the exception of Chicago just four years later, which the brothers also both attended.

Staged a year after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and a month after Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 1964 Democratic Convention featured the nomination of Johnson, of course; and a speech by Robert Kennedy, oldest surviving brother of the slain president.

Former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley with state Sen. Loretta WeinbergIt was Bobby Kennedy in 1964 who inspired the young Bill Bradley to get into politics.

He would go through his hall of fame basketball career, but as Bradley writes in his latest book, "The New American Story," Kennedy ‘s leadership in the 1960s planted the seed for Bradley's life of public service following his career with the New York Knicks.

On Monday, the day before Election Day, the late Bobby Kennedy’s memory was alive as both sides - the Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama campaigns - appealed to his legacy with the help of his heirs.

Even as Sen. Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy mounted the stage in the Meadowlands Monday to back up Obama, Bobby Kennedy, Jr., was preparing for a campaign appearance in Passaic on behalf of fellow New Yorker Clinton.

In the final days of Eugene McCarthy’s campaign for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination – when Hubert Humphrey appeared to have the votes to win following the assassination of Robert Kennedy and George McGovern’s last-minute replacement candidacy never took hold – McCarthy released a list of possible cabinet appointments.  He had narrowed his choice for U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development down to two choices: Governor Richard Hughes of New Jersey and Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York.