Jamestown Associates

Of the two New Jersey congressional districts where Republican incumbents did not seek re-election this year, the third district in parts of Ocean, Burlington and Camden counties is arguably more Republican than the seventh district, which includes parts of Hunterdon, Somerset, Union and Middlesex counties.  In District 3, Jim Saxton won 58% of the vote in 2006 and 63% in 2004; George W. Bush won with 51% in 2004.  In the 7th, Mike Ferguson nearly lost his 2006 re-election bid to Democrat Linda Stender, 49%-48%, after winning 57% in 2004; Bush won 53% four years ago.  Republicans have held the Saxton seat since 1884 and the Ferguson seat since 1956.

Larry Weitzner, the CEO of Jamestown Associates, issued a statement this evening on the death of his business partner, Tom Blakely:

Republican political consultant Tom Blakely died this morning after collapsing during a 5k run in Bordentown. He was 47.

Blakely was the President of Jamestown Associates, a New Jersey-based GOP consulting firm. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he served as an aide to Rep. Dick Zimmer and was Campaign Manager of Zimmer’s 1996 U.S. Senate bid against Robert Torricelli. He also ran County Executive campaigns for James Treffinger and Robert Prunetti, and was Director of Appointments for Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

Third district congressional candidate Christopher Myers has dropped Jamestown Associates as his campaign consultant – just a week after Jamestown scored a major victory in Maryland where their client ousted a seven-term incumbent in a GOP primary.

A must read for political insiders is an Op-Ed written by GOP political consultant Tom Blakely, reprinted with his permission, on the danger of running for re-election as an incumbent in 2008. Blakely's firm, Jamestown Associates, is the consultant to Anne Evans Estabrook's U.S. Senate campaign, and the House campaigns of Leonard Lance in the 7th district and Christopher Myers in the 3rd district. Last week, a Jamestown client ousted a Republican Congressman in the Maryland GOP primary:

Buried in Tuesday's defeat of nine-term incumbent Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.) is a message that should be heeded by incumbents everywhere: You must earn the support of the people you represent.

When Gilchrest was first elected, incumbents were considered nearly unbeatable. But during the 18 years he served in Washington, the world changed and he failed to change with it.

The change is not Fox News, YouTube and text messaging; they are symptoms of the change. The real change is that elected officials can be held more accountable. And if you forget this lesson, someone will remind you.

The winner of the day in New Jersey is Jamestown Associates, the Princeton-based political consulting firm, for running the successful primary campaign of Andy Harris for Congress in Maryland.  Harris ousted seven-term incumbent Wayne Gilchrest in yesterday’s Republican primary.  Jamestown is also working for U.S. Senate candidate Anne Evans Estabrook and congressional candidates Leonard Lance and Christopher Myers.