Richard Nixon

A new Quinnipiac University poll gives President George W. Bush has an upside-down 26%-70% disapproval rating among New Jersey voters, who say (62%-34%) that going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do.

Back in 1972, when legislators still drew congressional districts with the consent of the Governor -- and when the GOP controlled state government -- court mandated redistricting led to the creation of a new Republican district in northwestern New Jersey at the expense of a Democratic district in Hudson County. 

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.

International name ID isn’t always a benefit to a candidate. In June 1971, Republican primary voters rejected the candidacy of Robert F. Marasco, a 29-year-old retired Green Beret who was seeking a seat on the Bloomfield Township Council.

 Richard Nixon Library PhotoAccording to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, President George W. Bush has an upside-down approval rating among New Jersey voters: 21% approve of the job he's doing, and 74% disapprove.  That's almost identical to Richard Nixon's approvals in a May 1974 Eagleton/Rutgers poll: 18%-77%. 

The last time a New Jerseyan was within three heartbeats of the Presidency was from August 9 to December 19, 1974, when William E. Simon was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. When Richard Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford became President, next in line were Carl Albert, the Speaker of the House, and Senate President Pro-Tempore James Eastland. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was not in the line of succession since he was a naturalized citizen. That put the Paterson-born Simon, who ran a Wall Street investment banking firm before joining the Nixon administration, third in the line for the Presidency.

Republicans still talk about the Saturday Night Massacre and how a White House scandal so badly effected the political environment that the New Jersey GOP suffered their worst electoral defeats in state history. On October 20, 1973 -- seventeen days before the General Election -- with a second term Republican President engulfed in a major scandal -- Richard Nixon decided to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. He forced the resignations of his Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General when they refused to fire Cox. On Election Day, Republicans lost the Governor's race by 721,378 votes. They lost fourteen State Senate seats and 25 Assembly seats. Democrats picked up Freeholder seats in places like Morris, Somerset, Sussex and Monmouth counties.

If Douglas Forrester wins, he will become the third consecutive elected Governor of New Jersey to have started out as a government staffer. Christine Todd Whitman began her public career working for the Nixon administration in the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, and then at the Republican National Committee. James E. McGreevey worked on the Assembly Democratic staff and for the state Parole Board before running for the Legislature. Forrester worked on the Assembly Republican staff (when Tom Kean was Minority Leader) and as Assistant State Treasurer.

Other ex-staffers-turned-politicians: Bob Torricelli, who worked for Gov. Brendan Byrne and Vice President Walter Mondale before running for Congress; Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, who was an aide to then-Morris County Freeholder Dean Gallo (he later joined Gallo on the Freeholder Board and in the Assembly, and succeeded him in Congress; Congressman Bob Menendez, who worked for Union City Mayor/State Senator William Vincent Musto; former Congressman Bob Franks, who was Political Director on Ray Bateman's 1977 campaign for Governor; State Senator Nia Gill, who was an aide to longtime State Senator Wynona Lipman; State Senator Tom Kean, Jr., who worked in Franks' Washington congressional office; State Senator Joseph Kyrillos, who worked for the U.S. Secretary of Energy; Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, who was an Assistant Counsel to Gov. Kean; former State Senator Byron Baer, who was an aide to Assemblyman Arnold Brown in the 1960's; new state Labor Commissioner A.J. Sabath, who worked on the Senate Democratic staff; and South Jersey Democratic leader George Norcross III, who began his political career working in the district office of Assemblyman Ernest Schuck.

You can add other staffer-turned-politicans in the comments section.