President

The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider moving attorney Paul Fishman's nomination forward, The Star-Ledger reports.

The committee has scheduled a meeting for next Thursday, September 17, at 10am to consider whether to send Fishman's nomination on to the Senate for a confirmation vote.  Also up for consideration is a U.S. Attorney nominee for the Western District of Washington.  

Fishman, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who once served in that office’s No. 2 spot, is currently a partner in the firm Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman, where he specializes in white collar criminal defense.  He was nominated by President Obama in May.  

Since former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie left the office in December, his former First Assistant U.S. Attorney, Ralph Marra, has headed up the office in an acting capacity. 

New Jersey's two U.S. Senators and the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Health subcommitte issued statements tonight following President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress:

New Jerseyan Philip Murphy did not make a very good impression on his first day as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, according to a Congressional Quarterly report.   Murphy, who was a top executive at Goldman Sachs and the Democratic National Committee Finance Chairman, apparently arrived in Berlin last month on a Gulfstream V jet just as the German press "was describing how top embassy posts in the Obama administration were going almost exclusively to wealthy campaign donors."

The "ostentatious top-of-the-line executive jet that left German Chancellor Angela Merkel grinding her teeth over President Obama's gift of ambassadorships to wealthy donors," the report said. 

From CQ:

President Barack Obama has a 51%-43% approval rating in New Jersey, a state that he carried 57%-42% nine months ago, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning.  Obama's local approval rating was at 56%-39% three weeks ago, at 61%-33% on July 14, and at 68%-25% on June 10. 

In a photograph taken in the mid-1970's, left to right: Sen. Harrison Williams, U.S. Reps. Peter Rodino and Jim Howard, Gov. Brendan Byrne, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and Democratic State Chairman Jim Dugan

Ted Kennedy easily won the only campaign when his name appeared on the ballot in New Jersey: his 1980 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination against incumbent Jimmy Carter.  Kennedy won a hotly contested New Jersey primary (held at a time when no candidate had clinched enough delegates to become the nominee) by a 58%-39% margin and a plurality of 102,722 votes.

Kennedy carried 19 of 21 counties, losing only Cape May (by 7 votes) and Salem (by 198 votes).  He narrowly won Hudson (48%-46%), but won solid victories in Bergen (63%-32%), Camden (60%-32%), Essex (62%-33%), and Middlesex (52%-41%).

A Draft Kennedy campaign in New Jersey was launched in September, 1979 by former State Sen. James Dugan (D-Bayonne), who had served as Democratic State Chairman from 1973 to 1977.  Five Democratic State Senators - Frank "Pat" Dodd (D-West Orange), Eugene Bedell (D-Keansburg), Angelo Errichetti (D-Camden), John Gregorio (D-Linden), and Raymond Zane (D-Woodbury) signed on, along with Assemblymen Richard Van Wagner (D-Middletown) and James Bornheimer (D-East Brunswick).

Once Kennedy entered the race, U.S. Rep. James Howard (D-Spring Lake) and Essex County Executive Peter Shapiro became the chairs of his New Jersey campaign.  Fran Rein, a Democratic operative who worked for Shapiro, was the Kennedy state director.  When the New Jersey primary became critical to Kennedy's national campaigns strategy, a young operative named John Sasso, came in to run the day to day operations.  Sasso later ran Michael Dukakis' campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and was a senior advisor when John Kerry ran for president.

Carter's New Jersey campaign was led by Gov. Brendan Byrne, and activist Daniel Gaby, now the Executive Director of E3 (Excellent Education for Everyone), ran the state campaign.

Since convention delegates are apportioned, Kennedy had 68 delegates from New Jersey and Carter had 45. 

Getty Images Photo

Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama backstage at the IZOD Center on February 4, 2008 -- Kennedy's final campaign visit to New Jersey.

U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass.) last public power performance in New Jersey occured last year on Feb. 4th on the eve of the Democratic Presidential Primary at the Meadowlands.

He appeared onstage at a rally with Barack Obama and other primary backers of the underdog candidate who would go on to seize his party's nomination and the presdiency.

"We have a candidate for the president of the United States that will inspire a new generation of young people, bring our people together, and face the great issues that we should face in this century, at this time," Kennedy said in his introduction of Obama.

Among those onstage with Kennedy and Obama were former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, niece Caroline Kennedy, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, actor Robert DeNiro, and state Sen. President Richard Codey (D-Roseland).

RED BANK - After weathering a roomful of angry residents tonight who called him everything from "liar" to "socialist" to Speaker Nancy Pelosi "lackey" to illegal alien enabler, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) said he failed to hear an argument to change his mind about the need for a public healthcare option.

'No, I have to be honest, so much of it is misconceptions," Pallone told reporters as 250 residents who attended the first round of this town hall meeting filed out of the Red Bank Middle School auditorium to make way for another 250.

The congressman, who chaired the committee and helped craft the healthcare reform bill which made it through committee on the House side but which the Senate still has not considered, was ready for a third batch of residents at 10 p.m.

Hundreds more lined up outside the school wouldn't make the cut.

"This program is designed not to impact employer-provided healthcare - most people get healthcare through their employer," said Pallone. "It's desiged to address the problems of those who don't have insurance. ...I'm very proud of the bill."

Gov. Jon Corzine, right, with Somerset County Democratic Party Chair Peg Schaffer and Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Franklin Township), left.

SOMERVILLE - When President Barack Obama choppered into Holmdel and stood at a podium with Gov. Jon Corzine as flashbulbs popped, the event went down as a high profile rescue effort by the president of a governor for whom much of the Democratic Party was hitting the panic button.

Today, in a seeming effort to shake off the candidate in distress designation and himself come to the oratorical aid of a president whose own favorables have dipped since his appearance at the PNC Arts Center earlier this summer, Corzine sounded a note of defiant allegiance to Obama.

"Our president is under attack," Corzine told a crowd of 75-100 rain-spattered troops at the opening of the Somerset County Democratic Party headquarters on Division Street. "We need to send him a signal that we're with him. We're not going backwards, we're going forward."

While the governor is running nine points behind GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, the Christie campaign had a week and a half of negative headlines, which may have tightened the race.

"Everything is moving in the right direction," Corzine roared. "Let's keep it going. Things are moving in the right direction, right?"