Local news trucks prepared to cover President George W. Bush’s attendance at a New Jersey Republican State Committee fundraiser in Edison this afternoon were asked to leave their designated area by police and secret service agents before the President’s arrival. Apparently the owner of the property did not grant permission and wanted the media out. "Clearly (the) GOP didn't do (their) homework," one veteran reporter told PoliticsNJ.com.

From WNBC-TV's Brian Thompson:

Back Story: GOP Embarrassed At N.J. Bush Event

By New Jersey Reporter Brian Thompson

New Jersey's Republican party has been struggling in recent years, unable to win a statewide race since Christie Todd Whitman a decade ago. Now, adding insult to injury, just as they bring in the president for a major fundraiser, the television live trucks get kicked off the property where the event is being held just before we're supposed to go on air. Seems as though the owners of the New Jersey Expo and Convention Center in Edison don't like the news media. So they asked the police department and Secret Service to get us to leave, a little more than an hour before we're supposed to go live. I called Todd Riffle, executive director of the state GOP, and he was almost apoplectic with the realization that our live trucks were being forced to leave the biggest event of the year for the party. Still, at that late hour, there was nothing he could do to save the situation, and we had to set up our shots a block or so away. Even the state police at the roadblock where we were moved to were chuckling over the GOP's embarrassing lack of preparation.