John Bennett

The Board of Elections and Democratic and Republican Party operatives run down the provisional ballots, town by town, voter by voter.

FREEHOLD –  The vote stands at 694 provisional ballots for Amy Mallet and 476 for John Curley – not including hand counts - with the count for Manalapan ongoing and Marlboro and Long Branch left to go.

That puts the Fair Haven candidate for Monmouth County Freeholder in a position to win the election, as Long Branch is heavily Democratic and Mallet scored well in Manalapan and Marlboro in the regular vote count.

Prior to the provisionals process, Mallet led Curley by 18 votes overall: 135,688 to 135,670, in this county of 53 towns.  If Mallet defeats Curley, county control of this longtime Republican stronghold will favor the Democrats by 3-2.

Now on the tattered, unresolved edge of the Nov. 4th election, operatives from both parties sit with two Board of Elections reps from each party and a representative from the state attorney general's office at a long table. They all pour town by town over the provisional ballots.

John Adler won a seat in Congress eighteen years after his first House race.

Now it seems trendy to run for Congress, lose, then spend a lot of years in state government before finally making it to Washington.  In 2006, Albio Sires won an open House seat twenty years after his first attempt.  Sires had challenged U.S. Rep. Frank Guarini as a Republican in 1986; he later won local office in West New York, and after switching parties in 1999, he beat an incumbent Assemblyman in the Democratic primary.  He became Assembly Speaker after the 2001 election, and went to Congress after Bob Menendez joined the United States Senate.

Both of New Jersey's freshmen Congressman had previously lost House races.  John Adler ran against Jim Saxton in 1990 and lost 60%-40%.  A year later, despite one of the two biggest Republican landslides in state political history, he ousted four-term GOP State Sen. Lee Laskin.  Leonard Lance first ran for Congress in 1996, when Richard Zimmer gave up his seat to run for U.S. Senate; he finished third in the GOP primary, behind Michael Pappas and John Bennett. Lance moved from the Assembly to the Satate Senate in 2001, and became Minority Leader in 2004.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has tentatively scheduled oral arguments in the Appeal by Earle Asphalt Co., which is challenging New Jersey's pay to play laws on November.  The matter involves a contribution made to the Monmouth County Republican Committee by Walter Earle III, the owner of Earle Asphalt, which later barred his firm from winning state contracts.  Upon finding out that his contributuion (made at the request of former Co-Senate President John Bennett) would violate pay to play laws, Earle asked for his money back.  Still, the state invalidated the award of a state Department of Transportation contract -- on which Earle Asphalt was the lowest bidder.  New Jersey prohibits the award of public contracts of more than $17,500 to any business that has contributed more than $300 to certain candidates and party organizatons.

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie and State Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Rumson) met privately this summer to discuss the 2009 campaign for Governor and specifically the possibility of Beck running on Christie's ticket for Lieutenant Governor, according to two key Monmouth County Republicans who say they heard this from Beck.  Christie did not offer the number two spot on his ticket to the freshman State Senator from Monmouth County, the sources say, but did indicate he was likely to enter the race for Governor next year.  

Beck, who ousted a Democratic Assemblyman in 2005 and a Democratic State Senator in 2007, has appeared on most short lists as a possible candidate for Lt. Governor next year.  He Senate seat is not up until 2011.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Enjoying his current career as an attorney, lobbyist and political operative, former Republican Senate President John O. Bennett said that he has no desire to return to elected office.

“I’m not done. I’m involved. But I’m done with elected office, other than party positions, basically,” said Bennett, who served an eventful four days as acting governor in 2002 and is in Minnesota this week as an alternate delegate.

Bennett remains active in the Monmouth County Republican Party, and is the county’s state committeeman. He said he believes that the new Republican county chairman, former Sheriff Joseph Oxley, has the ability to bring competing factions together.

Former state Sen. John Bennett, left, and Assemblyman Sam Thompson (R-Old Bridge).: Politicker photo

MINNEAPOLIS - Everything but an afternoon business meeting is off the table at tomorrow's Republican National Convention here, with Hurricane Gustav bearing down on New Orleans south of this Mississippi River town.

Standing in front of the Hilton among the early arrivals for the New Jersey delegation on late Sunday afternoon, and going with the flow at this point, were former state Sen. President John Bennett (R-Monmouth) and Assemblyman Sam Thompson (R-Old Bridge).

Widely lambasted for taking a ho-hum approach to the devastation wrought on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina three years ago, President George W. Bush will not speak at the convention tomorrow night.

The New York Post has reported that Elliot Spitzer’s “girlfriend,” Ashley Dupre, is now in a relationship with T.J. Earle, scion of the Earle Asphalt and construction companies in Monmouth County. If that company sounds familiar, its because a recent Appellate Court case upholding the state’s pay to play law was In re Earle Asphalt. The conduit for campaign contributions that wound up preventing Earle Asphalt from receiving public contracts was former Senate Co-President John Bennett.

The Superior Court’s Appellate Division today affirmed the constitutionality of an amendment to a  law that bans state agencies from awarding contracts to companies that have donated over $300 to gubernatorial candidates and county political parties.

An amendment to the 2005 Campaign Contributions and Expenditure Reporting Act was challenged by Earle Asphalt, which had put in the lowest bid for roadwork on a section of Interstate 195.  But after the company revealed that it had donated $1,500 to the Monmouth County Republican Committee at the request of former Senate President John Bennett, its bid was rejected by the Department of Transportation. 

The New Jersey General Assembly Alumni Association – and the Marlboro Mayoral Alumni Association -- took another hit this week when Morton Salkind, who served from 1974 to 1976, pleaded guilty to tax evasion.  A Democrat, Salkind was the Mayor of Marlboro when he ran for the Legislature in a heavily Democratic district in 1973.  That was the Watergate year when Republicans lost 25 Assembly seats.  Two years later, Salkind was ousted by Republican Marie Muhler.  After his political career ended, Salkind became a real estate developer, and after moving to Secaucus, became a member of the Hudson County Improvement Authority.