BCRO

"If Barack Obama is taking economic advice from Gov. Corzine, then voters throughout the nation should be very scared,”

“Bergen County will play a key role in deciding the fortunes John McCain and Dick Zimmer in New Jersey and I want to demonstrate to the state that the Bergen Republican Party is energized and ready to work for candidates from the top of the ballot down to the municipal level."

I ask that a cease fire be declared in the Internet war and that you all put your energies into rebuilding our party and restoring Republicans to a position of prominence and leadership in Bergen County

Robert Ortiz’s reign as Bergen County Republican Chairman came to an end tonight, just 11 months after he took the helm of this beleaguered party.

The victory for Bob Yudin, 69, was the conclusion of a particularly nasty and hard fought battle, but Yudin sought to start the process of unifying the party immediately.

“No recriminations. None,” said Yudin in his victory speech. “This is about all of us getting together, and uniting as one Bergen County Republican Organization.”

Yudin won with 412 votes to Ortiz’s 317.

Rob Ortiz was widely viewed as a rising star in New Jersey politics in June 2007 when the political newcomer won 57% of the vote in his bid for Bergen County GOP Chairman after Guy Talarico stepped down one year early.  The 35-year-old lawyer was a fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani – at the time the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination – and Bergen Republicans, down on Talarico and anxious to restore their former days of glory, saw Ortiz as a bright light for their future.  But one year later, Ortiz is the underdog as he fights to win his first full two-year term as BCRO Chairman.

Robert Yudin, a 67-year-old appliance store owner from Wyckoff, could be one day away from becoming the Bergen County Republican Chairman – a post that up until about six years ago was one of the most powerful positions in New Jersey politics.  Yudin will face incumbent Rob Ortiz in a runoff election tomorrow night.  Over the last few years, the former Wyckoff Board of Education member has made three unsuccessful bids for Freeholder.

Yudin's first campaign for public office came 41 years ago, when the 26-year-old Navy lieutenant who had just left active duty was recruited by Essex County Republicans as their candidate for Assemblyman.

Bergen County GOP Chairman Rob Ortiz, facing a runoff election with Bob Yudin, says that State Sen. Gerald Cardinale was "misinformed" when he criticized the incumbent for changing the election rules.

Overwhelmingly positive response to post-victory agenda