Harold Hollenbeck

The political career of Harold Pareti, a very good natured and popular Bergen County Republican who died on Monday at the age of 85, was ended by the Watergate scandal. Pareti, the longtime Mayor of Carlstadt, was elected to the State Assembly in 1971. He lost his bid for a second term by a wide margin in a Democratic landslide that cost the GOP fourteen Senate seats and 25 Assembly seats in an election that came less than two weeks after the Saturday Night Massacre -- President Richard Nixon's firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. He was unseated by Democrat Robert Hollenbeck, the cousin of the Harold Hollenbeck, the Republican State Senator from that district.

One of the great stories about New Jersey politics in the mid 1970's was the one about Byron Baer and how he came excruciatingly close to winning a congressional seat 28 years ago.

The Congressman from the 9th district was Henry Helstoski, a six-term Democrat with a trademark crew cut who made his mark as an opponent of the Vietnam War. Helstoski was the 39-year-old Mayor of East Rutherford when he beat a nine-term Republican incumbent by 2,428 votes in the Democratic landslide of 1964. Amidst the violence of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Helstoski turned his Chicago hotel room into an infirmary for Eugene McCarthy delegates and volunteers who were injured during the anti-war demonstrations. He ran for Governor in 1969, becoming a candidate just thirty minutes before the filing deadline, and finished second in the Democratic primary for Governor.

At 76-years-old, and thirty years since he last won a general election, Frank X. Herbert is seeking a political comeback in a race for the State Senate, where he served from 1978 to 1982. The former Bergen County Democrat, now a resident of Rockaway, filed today to run against Republican State Senator Anthony Bucco in the 25th district.

Herbert, a retired teacher, first won public office in 1969 when he was elected Waldwick Councilman. He won a race for Bergen County Freeholder in 1973 -- the Watergate landslide year -- defeating future Congressman Harold Hollenbeck. (Hollenbeck, elected to the State Senate in 1971, opted to run for Freeholder instead of re-election.)

The bi-partisan consensus among New Jersey pundits seems to be that Assembly Republicans are not likely to be positioned to capture control of the lower house in 2007 -- but that while Democrats are also strongly favored to hold the Senate, GOP control -- or at least shared control -- is not impossible.

Republicans could potentially compete for Senate seats currently held by Democrats Frederick Madden (District 4), Ellen Karcher (District 12) and Paul Sarlo (District 36). They would need to win all three to win a majority, and two for a return to the shared control of 2002-03.

It would be substantially more difficult for the Republicans to compete against Senators Stephen Sweeney (District 3) and Joseph Coniglio (District 38). Democrats are also threatening to mount a strong challenge to Senator Bill Gormley (District 2), and for the seat of retiring Senator Joseph Palaia (District 11). Look for another highly competitive race in the 14th district if GOP Senator Peter Inverso retires.

GOP success will likely hinge on candidate recruitment. Their top choice in the fourth district -- if Madden doesn't seek re-election, Democrats would likely pick Assemblyman/Washington Township Mayor Paul Moriarty -- is state Administrative Law Judge George Geist, who spent twelve years in the Legislature before losing to Madden by just 63 votes in 2003. Against Karcher, Republicans want to run freshman Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck.

The strongest possible GOP contenders against Sarlo are former Assembly Majority Leader Paul DiGaetano, who left the Legislature in 2005 to run for Governor, and Nutley Mayor Joanne Cocchiola -- but neither seem to be actively looking to run. Some Republicans list Bergen County Clerk Kathleen Donovan as a possible candidate -- she wanted to run in 2003, but state Republicans preferred former Assemblyman John Kelly -- but she was weakened a bit by her losing bid in the '06 GOP primary for Bergen County Executive.

One interesting candidate against Sarlo would be Superior Court Judge Harold Hollenbeck, who will reach the mandatory retirement age of seventy in December 2008. Hollenbeck served as a State Senator from 1972 to 1974, and as a Congressman from 1977 to 1983 (he lost his seat to Bob Torricelli.) Hollenbeck now lives in Ridgewood -- his base was in Rutherford -- and would have to move back to South Bergen to make the race.

One of the legendary scams in Bergen County politics came in 1984, when Republicans were considering candidates to newly-elected Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli. Torricelli had won the seat two years earlier, when he ousted three-term GOP incumbent Harold Hollenbeck by a 53%-46% margin. The political climate in 1982 (and congressional redistricting in the 9th) favored Democrats and Torricelli leveraged the national contacts he made working for Vice President Walter Mondale and running Jimmy Carter's 1980 re-election campaign in Illinois to help him raise $266,000 -- about $70,000 more than Hollenbeck had.

Ronald Reagan's popularity heading into the 1984 election, and a new congressional map (the '82 redistricting plan was tossed by federal judges), gave Republicans reason to believe Torricelli could be beaten. The 9th district went strongly for Reagan, giving him a 59%-41% win over Mondale -- a plurality of almost 47,000 votes.

Party leaders had several attractive candidates, including newly-elected Assemblyman William "Pat" Schuber and Bergen County Sheriff William McDowell, but decided to go with a unknown insider, Neil Romano, who had served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee in the late 1970's. Romano appeared before the Bergen GOP screening committee and sold them on his ability to raise money -- saying that wealthy family members and politically connected friends would provide him with a hefty campaign warchest -- the type of money a challenger would need to take on Torricelli.

The problem for the Bergen GOP is that they were scammed. Romano had practically no capacity to raise money and the personal wealth he pledged just wasn't there. The lethargic Romano raised just $89,166 -- giving Torricelli an almost 6-1 edge in fundraising. Torricelli won a second term with 63% of the vote, with Romano running more than 60,000 votes behind the top of the ticket.