Robert Torricelli

One of the reasons Burlington County Republicans picked Christopher Myers, the relatively obscure Mayor of Medford, to succeed Jim Saxton in Congress was his ability to raise money.  When the Lockheed-Martin Vice President entered the race, the buzz among GOP insiders was that he had the ability to compete with State Sen. John Adler in the fundraising department.  Adler has raised $1.9 million in a district where Democrats haven’t won since 1882, and Myers, after a tough primary, has just a little more than $150K on hand.

One of the legendary scams in Bergen County politics came in 1984, when Republicans were considering candidates to take on newly-elected Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli. Torricelli had won the seat two years earlier, when he ousted three-term GOP incumbent Harold Hollenbeck by a 53%-46% margin. The political climate in 1982 (and congressional redistricting in the 9th) favored Democrats and Torricelli leveraged the national contacts he made working for Vice President Walter Mondale and running Jimmy Carter's 1980 re-election campaign in Illinois to help him raise $266,000 -- about $70,000 more than Hollenbeck had.

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.

Seen with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer this morning, just prior to his announcement that he will resign on March 17, was criminal defense attorney Ted Wells, a New Jersey resident who has played a key role in state Democratic politics for years. Wells has represented several prominent politicians as they faces legal battles, including U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, and Scooter Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney’s former Chief of Staff.

New Jersey has become accustomed to statewide candidates dropping out of the race. Bob Torricelli dropped out twice in two years: he announced a bid for Governor in 2000 and then pulled out twelve days later, and he ended his own Senate re-election bid in 2002, five weeks before Election Day.

Joshua Zeitz, a former aide to Governor Jim Florio and U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli, is expected to run against fourteen-term Republican Congressman Christopher Smith. Zeitz has raised $43,032, while Smith, a traditionally anemic fundraiser, has $204,161 cash on hand. Zeitz actually outraised Smith during the last quarter.

PoliticsNJ.com readers, in a highly unscientific survey that asks if Jon Corzine would rather be Governor of New Jersey or the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, say by a 2-1 margin that the Hold Me Accountable man would rather be in Rome than Trenton.  Even Corzine's friends suggest that he's not loving life as Governor.  Between problems with the Legislature, issues within his administration and personal life, and serious injuries suffered in a automobile accicdent last spring, it's not surprising that Corzine isn't having fun.

New Jersey state law says that September 16th is the deadline for a candidate to withdraw from the November general election ballot, and September 19th is the deadline for the County Committee to nominate a replacement candidate.  But in actuality, under the New Jersey Supreme Court decision five years ago when Robert Torricelli dropped his bid for re-election on September 30th, the parties really have until the first few days in October.

I am as supportive of the great calibrating power of the free market as any believer of individual liberty should be - and most Democrat politicians and a majority of Republicans, are not.