Kip Bateman

Senate Minority Leader Ton Kean, Jr. (R-Union), and Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon).: Politicker photo

State Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., (R-Union) became minority leader just as a new band of hungry Republican legislators came up from the General Assembly to assume their Senate seats.

Another under 40 senator with statewide aspirations might send out at least back channel messages of panic in the face of a baseball roster's worth of new GOP talent.

And indeed there have been some nose-to-nose moments in the last few months since Kean made caucus boss, notably between the patrician leader and the headstrong state Sen. Kevin O'Toole (R-Essex).

But according to his colleagues, the stoic Kean has generally met the onrush by embracing it; and has assumed a statesmanlike stance while tapping the scrappy skills honed by his freshmen senators in the lower house.

Republican state Sen. Christopher "Kip" Bateman knows that, if he really does want to enter the U.S. Senate race, he'll have to make a decision very soon.

"It all happened very quickly. My head's spinning," said Bateman, whose father, Raymond, was state Senate President in the early 1970s and was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1977. "It's a little late in the game and Joe (Pennacchio) has gotten county endorsements already. I'm kind of testing the waters, quickly."

Bateman has toyed with the idea of running for a Senate seat before, and yesterday afternoon began to receive phone calls from people encouraging him to make a run for it to fill in for Anne Evans Estabrook, who abruptly withdrew from the race yesterday.

There are five Somerset County residents running for congress in the seventh district, but the county’s three native legislators aren’t endorsing any of them.

On Monday, state Sen. Christopher “Kip” Bateman, Assemblyman Peter Biondi and Assemblywoman Denise Coyle will endorse State Sen. Leonard Lance, a Hunterdon County resident, for congress.

Peter Biondi says he might run for CongressAssembly Minority Conference Leader Peter Biondi said he is considering running for Congress to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson, but he’s having a tough time making a decision.

“Your ego says ‘Yes, this is great,’ but there are a lot of variables you have to consider,” said Biondi.

Meanwhile, his running mate, Assemblyman/state Senator-Elect Kip Bateman, said he will not run for Congress and will support Biondi if he does.

“I’m excited about going to the New Jersey state Senate. I have young children and the Washington seat doesn’t appeal to me at all,” said Bateman, who also said he wouldn’t want to give up his law practice. “If Pete (Biondi) is a candidate, then I would certainly support him.”

Manville Mayor Angelo Corradino lost his bid for re-election to a fifth termA bowling alley named Tenpin Lanes stands in the center of Manville, between a pair of Superfund sites that are the remnants of the town’s bulldozed factory era.

The alley for years has been a source of entertainment and relaxation for the hard luck blue collar work force here, and for Angelo Corradino, the borough’s longest serving mayor who straddled the transition Manville made from factories to shopping malls, and who earlier this month lost by 78 votes in his bid for a fifth term in office.

An old high school linebacker and longsuffering Jets and Mets fan who spent 19 years as an elected official in Manville, the past 16 of those as mayor, Corradino says rumors that he wanted to go full time with an annual salary of $95,000 sank his chances of re-election.