US Senate

When Bill O'Reilly asked former CNN anchorman Lou Dobbs if he will consider running against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) in 2012, Dobbs refused to rule it out.  "A lot of things are on my mind, I'm not going to be coy about that," Dobbs said.

The peril of mortality has sparked a debate among Democrats over the political future of 85-year-old Frank Lautenberg.  Some Democrats think he should retire from the United States Senate before Republican Christopher Christie is sworn in as governor in January.  That would give Gov. Jon Corzine the ability to appoint a Democrat to replace him, and have ten months of incumbency before a November 2010 special election to fill the remaining four years of Lautenberg's term.  But realistically, Lautenberg isn't going anywhere, at least not voluntarily.  He tried retirement once before and did not especially enjoy it.  The chances of Democrats, in Washington or in New Jersey, convincing him to walk away from his Senate seat early is slim to none.

Democrats have a short window before Christie takes office to pass a new law that would change the way U.S. Senate vacancies are filled.  If Lautenberg's service in the Senate were to end over the next four years, Christie could appoint a Republican to fill his seat.  There could be a special election in November 2010 - the mid-term election year of a Democratic president - or in November 2011, when it might be tougher to turn out voters. 

There are two ways Democrats could go: the power of filling U.S. Senate seats could be taken away from the governor, with the seat remaining vacant until a special election could be held perhaps sixty days later; or forcing the governor to appoint someone from a list of names supplied to them by the political party that held the seat - a move that would trigger a vote of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee with the top three candidates being presented to Christie.

Now that Lou Dobbs has resigned as anchor of the CNN nightly news, some Republicans are wondering if the Wantage resident will seek the GOP U.S. Senate nomination against Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) in 2012.  In June 2008, there was considerable speculation that Dobbs would run for governor.  He initially told reporters that he would not dismiss the idea outright; a few days later, he said he would not run.

Last Thursday, Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the appointment of my successor as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA, Judith Enck, who had been serving as Deputy Secretary of the Environment under New York Governors Eliot Spitzer and David Patterson.  Simultaneously, Lisa also announced the appointment of other Regional Administrators in Regions 1, 3, 6, and 9.

Christopher Christie's 100,000 vote margin in the race for governor is the second biggest win for a Republican challenger against a Democratic incumbent in New Jersey history.  Christie topped Albert Hawkes, who unseated incumbent William Smathers in the 1942 U.S. Senate race.  The record still belongs to Hamilton Kean, who ousted Democratic U.S. Sen. Edward Edwards by 233,000 votes in 1928.

Overall, Christie ranks third on the all-time list of highest pluralities for a challenger against an incumbent. The record for the biggest plurality for a Democratic challenger against a Republican incumbent belongs to A. Harry Moore, who ousted Kean by 230,000 votes when he ran for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 1934.

Watch for New Jersey Democrats to consider legislation that will change the way the state fills vacancies in the United States Senate.  Now that Democrats have lost the governorship, some party leaders are concerned that Republican Gov.-elect Christopher Christie would appoint a U.S. Senator if Democrat Frank Lautenberg, who turns 86 in January, leaves office without finishing the final four years of his term.  Some Democratic leaders have already discussed a plan to take the appointment away from the governor and forcing a quick special election.  Jon Corzine could sign that bill before he leaves office in January.

Five years ago, when there was a good chance that Democrat John Kerry might get elected president, the Democratic-controlled Massachusetts Legislature changed the law so that Republican Gov. Mitt Romney could not appoint Kerry's successor.

The amount of vitriol in the 1996 U.S. senate race between Democrat Robert Torricelli and Republican Dick Zimmer became the stuff of legend, even by Garden State standards.

Tonight, Zimmer showed up to Chris Christie’s party marking the conclusion to another particularly nasty race.  But how did it stack up to his own?

“I am resigned to the 1996 race being the permanent gold standard,” said Zimmer, who ran a much lower profile U.S. Senate race against incumbent Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) last year.  

Zimmer did see some parallels between the Torricelli race and Christie’s battle with Gov. Corzine.

“Robert Torricelli even said that I was opposed to mammography,” he said, noting that Corzine top campaign advisor Jamie Fox was also Torricelli’s chief of staff at the time.    “It worked.”

Worth noting: the Corzine campaign put U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone on TV as their spokesman early this evening - at least an indication that Gov. Jon Corzine might prefer the Monmouth County congressman if a U.S. Senate seat were to open up.  Also worth noting: if Corzine loses his re-election bid, Christopher Christie would appoint a Republican to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy.

A win by Jon Corzine will make Democrat Robert Menendez one of the safest incumbents in the United States Senate when he seeks re-election in 2012.  Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey since 1972 and have had no statewide victories since 1997, and if the GOP can't take out a governor with upside-down approval ratings, it's unlikely that they will be seriously competitive against Menendez in a presidential year.  Menendez, who has taken a personal interest in Corzine's Hudson County campaign, will appear with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show tonight to plug his new book.