Charles Schumer

Getty Images Photo

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, with President-elect Barack Obama, wil be the new Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Earlier this evening, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez accepted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's invitation to become the Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  Reid will officially announce Menendez's appointment tomorrow.   Menendez will replace Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who announced today that he would step down after four years heading the DSCC.

Sen. Bob Menendez, earlier this year with Hillary Clinton: Getty Images Photo
No longer as involved in the day-to-day mechanics of local politics, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) in back to back statewide elections has proved to be his party’s New Jersey go-to guy.

The former mayor of Union City got out the machine-backed Feb. 5 vote for Clinton with a war cry - "We have an opportunity in Hudson, Hudson, Hispanics, Hillary and history." And leading up to June 3, he helped U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-9) stare down a party uprising in Bergen County that might have weakened crucial organizational support for U.S. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)

Clinton won by ten points here with significant Latino support, and Lautenberg buried U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) yesterday, 61-34%.

Vilified by the local press, which in New York includes television, Governor Eliot Spitzer has a 48%-37% job approval rating, according to a poll released this morning by Quinnipiac University.  These are Spitzer's worst numbers since taking office eleven months ago, but they are still slightly better than his neighbor, Governor Jon Corzine.  A Quinnipiac poll this week had Corzine's approvals at 44%-43%.

As a point of comparison, Corzine’s Quinnipiac numbers after his first eleven months in office (December 2006) was 49%-32% -- just a little better than Spitzer.

The death of former Massachusetts Governor Edward King leaves Ned Lamont, Chuck Schumer and Robert Abrams as the sole living members of a very exclusive club: people who beat a Presidential or Vice Presidential nominee in a statewide primary.

King ousted incumbent Michael Dukakis in the 1978 Democratic gubernatorial primary. Schumer defeated '84 VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro in the 1998 Democratic U.S. Senate primary; Abrams beat her in 1992 but lost the general election to Republican Alphonse D'Amato. Lester Maddox, who defeated Jimmy Carter in the 1966 Democratic primary for Governor of Georgia, died in 2003.

If the club is extended to people who beat Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates in general elections, living members include: Kent Hance, who defeated George W. Bush in a 1978 congressional race in Texas; Lawrence DeNardis, who won a 1980 House race in Connecticut against Lieberman; Arkansas' John Paul Hammerschmidt, who beat Bill Clinton for Congress in 1974; U.S. Senator Norman Coleman, who won a 2002 U.S. Senate race over the last-minute candidacy of Walter Mondale; and James Abdnor, who unseated U.S. Senator George McGovern in South Dakota in 1980.

More for extreme junkies: Frank White, who ousted Clinton in the race for Governor of Arkansas in 1980, died in 2003. Paul Cronin, who defeated John Kerry in a 1972 House race in Massachusetts, died in 1997. George H.W. Bush lost two races for the U.S. Senate in Texas: in 1964 to Ralph Yarborough, who died in 1996, and in 1970 to Lloyd Bentsen, who passed away last May. Edmund (Pat) Brown won a 1962 race for Governor of California over Richard Nixon; he died in 1996. John F. Kennedy defeated Henry Cabot Lodge in the 1952 Massachusetts U.S. Senate campaign, and Pappy O'Daniel, who beat Lyndon Johnson in a 1941 special election for U.S. Senate in Texas, died in 1969. Stephen Young, who died in 1984, defeated '44 Vice Presidential candidate John Bricker in the 1958 Ohio U.S. Senate race.

Jon "SuperBoss" Corzine Is At It Again
--Corzine Sends Senate Hopefuls To Smokey Back Rooms To Kiss The Rings Of Power Brokers--

People who know Richard Codey say that even if he is interested in going to the United States Senate, he would never take the job if he believed Jon Corzine's ulterior motive would be to get him out of Trenton. People who know Bob Menendez say that he would be "one angry man if Corzine were to pass him over."

Some Democratic insiders say they have made the Codey for Senate case to Corzine directly, arguing that appointing Codey, who comes with high statewide name ID and huge favorables, gives him a way out of choosing between the Democratic Congressmen who want the job -- and helps him avoid having to deal with Senate President Codey (not exactly his strong ally or close friend) as the second most powerful man in New Jersey politics.

Add a third component to the mix: a recent Zogby poll conducted for the Wall Street Journal has Republican State Senator Tom Kean, Jr. leading head-to-head matchups with Menendez and Rob Andrews. Even Republicans admit that voters don't realize the candidate is not the former Governor, but the strength of the Kean family name is still slightly intimidating to Beltway Democrats (i.e, Chuck Schumer), who are anxious to lock up the blue-state Senate seat without having to spend resources to defend it.

The presumed front runner for the Senate, if Corzine wins the general election, has been Menendez, who strongly believes he's received enough winks and nods from his Hoboken neighbor to think he has a commitment. The conventional wisdom among some Democrats is that Corzine isn't willing to launch a new administration by feuding with the Hudson County Democratic machine. And Corzine doesn't want his national political ambitions to be hampered by Menendez complaining about his treatment to Latino activists across the country.

The case against Menendez is being made by one of his fiercest rivals, former U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli. Torricelli, still active behind the scenes (there is some evidence that he helped Loretta Weinberg in the State Senate special election convention), has weighed in against Menendez with some of his ex-colleagues, including Schumer, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman.

Corzine, who must at some point make peace with Bergen County Democratic Chairman (and likely Menendez backer) Joseph Ferriero -- and vice versa -- could avoid battling the HCDO by working around Menendez by backing Bernard Kenny, the HCDO Chairman, for Senate President and by sharing some of his toys with three Democratic legislators who are not Menendez kool-aid drinkers (Nicholas Sacco, the Mayor of North Bergen, Joseph Doria, the Mayor of Bayonne, and Brian Stack, the Mayor of Union City), and with Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy.

Right now, the virtual chairman of the Codey for Senate campaign is State Senator Paul Sarlo, a Bergen County Democrat tied closely to Ferriero. Sarlo has made no secret of his desire to see Codey in the U.S. Senate so that he can become the next Senate President. But for Democrats who believe that Codey would pass on Washington if he believes he's being "gotten rid of," Sarlo may be hurting his cause more than boosting it.

Looming large for Corzine may be the story of his predecessor, James E. McGreevey, who promised to appoint Cuban-American Zulima Farber to the New Jersey Supreme Court, only to renege and pick John Wallace instead. That caused a very public split between McGreevey and Menendez that cost the sitting Governor considerable political capital.

Corzine does have two opportunities in his early days as Governor that could help him avoid a defection of the Hispanic base vote: one is the election of Wilfredo Caraballo as Assembly Majority Leader (which also helps his constant courtship with Newark Democratic leader Steven Adubato, Sr.); the other would be his appointment of a new Chief Justice to replace Deborah Poritz, who reaches the mandatory retirement age of seventy next year. Several key Democrats say that Farber, now very much a member of Corzine's inner circle, could emerge as a strong contender for Chief Justice.

Some Republicans are surprised that their side hasn't pushed Corzine to declare his intentions regarding a U.S. Senate appointment. Corzine, of course, has little to gain by telling Menendez, Andrews, Frank Pallone and others that they lost before they help turn out voters in November.

Codey's own views on the United States Senate remain incredibly mysterious, especially among his closest friends. Some say he truly has no interest in a life that involves three or four nights a week in Washington, that he really is a Jersey-guy "raised atop a funeral home." But others say he has enjoyed the prominence of holding statewide office and wouldn't mind pursuing his hearfelt mental health agenda in a national arena. Different friends say different things about how his wife, Mary Jo Codey, would feel about the Senate seat.

And if Codey were to agree to go to Washington -- and if Corzine were to sign on as a Codey for Senate backer -- the Acting Governor could opt to become a caretaker U.S. Senator, agreeing to go to Washington for just one year. That could allow Corzine to avoid choosing between Menendez and Andrews (and others) and allow Democratic primary voters to make the call. Schumer might not be pleased with such a scenario, but as one Democrat notes, Corzine doesn't really care whether Schumer is happy or not. New Jersey has still not elected a Republican to the United States Senate since 1972 and there is no reason to believe that a contested '06 primary would necessarily end the Democratic winning streak against an untested Tom Kean, Jr.

For those who say Corzine's answer to consolidating power in Trenton is sending Codey to Washington, consider the story of Theodore Roosevelt, who became William McKinley's Vice President largely because Republican party leaders in New York wanted to get him out of the Governor's mansion -- only to be in worse shape six months later when Leon Czolgosz made Roosevelt President.

New York Senator Charles Schumer, who took over the chairmanship of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from Jon Corzine after the '04 elections, has spoken with Acting Governor Richard Codey and asked him to consider running for the United States Senate next year, according to sources close to Codey. Schumer pulled Codey aside at an event last month commemorating the fourth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack and told him he should take a look at the Senate race.