Paul Duggan

Over the last decade, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joe Ferrerio has consolidated power with help from a group of unlikely allies: The Bergen County Republican Organization.

Ferriero developed a fundraising machine and got most of his party in lock step behind him.  But bickering and internal disputes in the GOP hurt that party’s ability to provide a counterweight, as did anemic fundraising. 

Bob Yudin, who was elected as county chairman last month, hopes to change that. 

“Since the day I was elected, I have been reaching out,” said Yudin.  “In my acceptance speech and every day I reach out and try to counsel people.  We have to stop the fighting, we have to work together, and it has been effective to some degree already.” 

The Bergen County Republicans are seizing on the joint federal and state investigation of a huge development project gone awry in the Meadowlands.

The troubled EnCap project would have included 2,500 residences and two golf courses before it was shut down by the Meadowlands Commission last month. The Bergen Record reported that, post bankruptcy, the project is facing a corruption investigation by U.S. Attorney Chris Christie and State Attorney General Anne Milgram.

Bergen County Republican Freeholder candidate Paul Duggan’s image has apparently been co-opted by an alternate Republican Freeholder slate.

Last month, Republican Senate candidate Murray Sabrin, disenchanted with the mainstream State Republican Party, pledged to run alternate slates of candidates for all levels of government – from Senate on down.

After being approached by the Sabrin camp, Duggan had pledged to stick with the Bergen County Republican Organization’s ticket. Duggan told the Bergen Record’s Charles Stile "I don't get off trains to get on an unknown train coming in the opposite direction.”

But Duggan’s picture appears on the Sabrin slate’s Web site, www.best4bergen.org, along with the photographs of three Sabrin-sponsored county-wide candidates: Chris Harvey, Tom Flannery and Edward Durfee.

The Bergen County Committee bucked its screening committee’s recommendations tonight, voting to give Jeffrey Heller and Chris Calabrese the county line, along with Paul Duggan.

Bergen County Republicans feel that the scene is set for a competitive freeholder race.

Three incumbent Democrats are up for reelection to the all-Democrat board. There’s Bernadette McPherson, who just lost her mayoral seat in Rutherford by a landslide; David Ganz, who lost his mayoral seat in Fair Lawn to Republican Ed Trawinski in 2005 (although he was reelected to the freeholder board that same year); and the brand new Vernon Walton, a former Englewood councilman who lost that seat to Democratic Assemblyman Gordon Johnson in 2006.

“McPherson and Ganz, I think, are the soft underbelly of the Democratic freeholder board,” said Republican state Sen. Gerald Cardinale.

Add to the chastened incumbents a few local circumstances, like the growing EnCap controversy, the indictment of former Democratic state Sen. Joe Coniglio and having the popular Republican Kathleen Donovan on the ballot for reelection as county clerk, and some Republicans feel that they have the makings for a good race and a chance to win a Freeholder seat for the first time since Lisa Randall won one in 2003.

“The (Democrats) each have baggage,” said Republican strategist Thom Ammirato. “You’ve got great issues floating around them.”

When Rob Ortiz assumed the chairmanship of the Bergen County Republican Organization five months ago, he made it clear in his inaugural speech not to expect any miracles. And it would indeed take a miracle to bring unity to the organization so quickly, which today seems to remain almost as fractious as when he took over.

Already, two potential challengers to Ortiz come June appear on the horizon: former Bergen County Utilities Authority Chairman Ben Focarino, an old hand in the BCRO who ran against Ortiz in July, and former freeholder candidate Bob Yudin.

So far, Ortiz has touted some municipal victories, particularly in Rutherford, as evidence that the party is clawing its way back to relevance against the dominant Bergen County Democrats. But many Bergen County Republicans who agreed to put aside loyalties and give Ortiz a chance to revive the party have already started making noise about the glacial pace of progress, and are disappointed that Ortiz – who largely ran on his fundraising abilities – has yet to bring the party out of debt, which stands at a better-than-expected $38,000 (a number discovered after an audit commissioned by Ortiz).

After a meeting last night between newly-elected Bergen County GOP Chairman Rob Ortiz and his party’s slate of freeholder candidates, both sides say they’ve got a strategy in place to run a shoe-string campaign.

Just what that strategy is, of course, they would not say.

Think the Bergen County Republican Organization is weak? That may be what they want you to believe.

“Think of the movie Braveheart. Let them think that we’re down,” said Freeholder candidate Paul Duggan at last night’s “meet and greet” for the three candidates for BCRO Chairman.

In truth, Duggan said, the Bergen County Republican Party has seen better days, but he was confident that after electing its new Chairman, the bad old days could soon be over.

Cooperation was the overarching theme of last night’s event, which was held at a senior center in front of a posh strip mall in Woodcliff Lake. So much so that Senator Gerald Cardinale, who attended the event along with Assemblyman John Rooney and Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, went as far as to suggest having all three candidates serve as joint chairs for the remainder of the unexpired term left vacant by Guy Talarico.