Gerbounka passed on 7th district endorsement
By Wally EdgeLinden Mayor Richard Gerbounka has endorsed John McCain for President, but declined to say who he would support for Congress in the hotly contested seventh district race between Democrat Linda Stender and Republican Leonard Lance. Part of Linden is in the seventh. Gerbounka was a Democratic Councilman until launching an Independent bid to unseat longtime Mayor John Gregorio in 2006.
Back in 1984, another Democratic Mayor from Union County endorsed a GOP presidential candidate. In a much heralded announcement, Ronald Reagan won the backing of Thomas Dunn, who spent 28 years as the Mayor of Elizabeth. That year, Reagan beat Walter Mondale in Elizabeth by nearly 4,000 votes, 56%-44%. Reagan carried Linden by slightly less than 2,000 votes, also 56%-44%. In other Democratic Union County strongholds, Reagan won Rahway by almost 2,000 votes (58%-42%), but lost Plainfield by almost 7,000 votes, 72%-28%. But Reagan had no coattails: Democrat Bill Bradley, seeking a second term in the United States Senate, carried Elizabeth, Linden, Rahway and Plainfield by wide margins.
Dunn, who served as a Democrat in the New Jersey State Senate from 1974 to 1978, often supported Republican candidates. He backed Richard Nixon in 1972, and most of Matthew Rinaldo’s congressional races. He lost his Senate seat in 1977 as an Independent, after Union County Democrats endorsed Gregorio, who was both Mayor and an Assemblyman. He was defeated in his bid for an eighth term as Mayor in the 1992 Democratic primary by Christian Bollwege, and backed Christine Todd Whitman for Governor against Jim Florio in 1993.
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Gerbounka also ...
endorsed McCain in 2000 and Bush in 2004, so this is really not deserving of all the hoopla you're giving it.
Gerbounka has long been a Republicrat, and left the Democratic Party in 2005 for good.
I'm just waiting....
...for Mountaintop to say, probably accurately, that Reagan would have won Elizabeth even if Dunn had backed Mondale.
True
Local people can't deliver squat in a Presidential race -- particularly in a general election. But they can in other contests.
In Dunn's case, the endorsement was more symbolic than anything else -- that Reagan was the candidate of inner suburban and outer urban Catholic ethnics.
McCann's 1980 Reagan endorsement (and de facto 1984 endorsement) didn't deliver Jersey City, but again, it was symbolic of Reagan's appeal -- the same appeal Steve Lonegan has to working men and women around New Jersey.
Should Lonegan run and be the nominee you will see a close parallel to the 1980 GOP percentages around the state with the exception of North Hudson.
1980 parallel?
I'm not sure Lonegan would pick up a single Democratic Mayor in a general election race against Jon Corzine, especially in a county with a strong D machine. It would be the end of their career.
That dog just doesn't hunt. 1980 national and 2009 NJ are far, far different scenarios.
And may I also say. Steve Lonegan is no Ronald Reagan (but Corzine may be Mondale).