Senate GOP eyes Van Drew, Whelan
By Wally EdgeTwo '09 State Assembly races are pivotal for Republicans as they seek to win back control of the State Senate in 2011. The GOP needs to oust Democratic Assemblymen Nelson Albano and Matthew Milam in the first district, with the hope that one of the newly-elected Republican legislators, perhaps Michael Donohue or John McCann, will challenge freshman Democratic State Sen. Jefferson Van Drew. Van Drew, who runs well in GOP-dominated Cape May County, unseated Republican State Sen. Nicholas Asselta in 2007.
Republicans still see Freeholder Leonard Desiderio, the Mayor of Sea Isle, as a strong contender for the Senate. Desiderio declined to run for the Assembly this year. Another possible candidate is U.S. Marshal James Plousis, who is a former Cape May County Sheriff. Plousis is currently on holdover status while U.S. Senators Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg consider possible candidates.
The other seat the GOP wants back is in the second district, where Democrat James Whelan unseated incumbent James "Sonny" McCullough in 2007. McCullough had won a special election convention earlier that year when Bill Gormley retired after 25 years in the Senate. Republicans need to make sure their two freshmen Assemblymen, Vincent Polistina and John Amodeo, win re-election (they are favored), so that one of them is positioned to take on Whelan in two years.
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One election at a time!!!
Albano and Milam have working class roots and support working class values and causes.Don't write these independent moderates off against two out of the main stream far right conservatives.As far as Van Drew goes the opposition better pack a lunch if they want to take him on!
uppercut
Are these the same "moderates" who voted for all sorts of tax increases and helped bankrupt the state and put it $10 billion in the hock? The same "moderates" who voted in stale democratic leadership in the assembly that ram through borrowings without voter approval, hold up reform bills, do nothing about property tax relief, and chearlead for Jon Corzine? Those "moderates"? They are far left tools of urban machines and backbenching enablers of fiscal destruction.
Albano/ Milam Independent working class Democrats
These two know the District. They work hard for the District.They are Independent when they need to be independent. Donohue and this guy McCann have done nothing for the District. For years Republicans controlled this area and did nothing. These two plus VanDrew have done more in two years then the lazy Republicans had ever done. NO CHANGE DOWN HERE ! MILAM AND ALBANO DESERVE REELECTION!