Thomas Dunn

DENVER - Republicans who feel that New Jersey just might be winnable for John McCain sometimes look back to 1984, when Ronald Reagan carried Elizabeth over Walter Mondale.

Back then, Elizabeth Mayor Thomas Dunn endorsed Reagan. J. Christian Bollwage, then a Councilman, was there when Reagan held a rally in town - his first public appearance since being shot, he said.

"I said to him 'President Reagan, we're all Democrats here!' He said 'You should jump in. The water's fine."

But since Reagan's visit the demographics of this town have shifted significantly, with a huge influx of Hispanic immigrants. Its black vote, expected to go heavily for Obama, remains unchanged, while the working-class white "Reagan Democrats" are fewer.

Linden Mayor Richard Gerbounka has endorsed John McCain for President, but declined to say who he would support for Congress in the hotly contested seventh district race between Democrat Linda Stender and Republican Leonard Lance.  Part of Linden is in the seventh.  Gerbounka was a Democratic Councilman until launching an Independent bid to unseat longtime Mayor John Gregorio in 2006.

Back in 1984, another Democratic Mayor from Union County endorsed a GOP presidential candidate.  In a much heralded announcement, Ronald Reagan won the backing of Thomas Dunn, who spent 28 years as the Mayor of Elizabeth.  That year, Reagan beat Walter Mondale in Elizabeth by nearly 4,000 votes, 56%-44%.  Reagan carried Linden by slightly less than 2,000 votes, also 56%-44%.  In other Democratic Union County strongholds, Reagan won Rahway by almost 2,000 votes (58%-42%), but lost Plainfield by almost 7,000 votes, 72%-28%.  But Reagan had no coattails: Democrat Bill Bradley, seeking a second term in the United States Senate, carried Elizabeth, Linden, Rahway and Plainfield by wide margins.

New Jersey is assured of at least twelve new State Senators when the Legislature meets in January 2007.  But with just a handful of competitive general election contests, it seems almost impossible for the next freshman class to be larger than the Senate produced after the 1977 general election -- when twenty of the forty Senators were different than those elected in 1973.

In 1977, Thomas Dunn was a State Senator and the Mayor of Elizabeth, while John Gregorio was an Assemblyman and the Mayor of Linden. Union County Democrats dumped Dunn from the organization line and ran Gregorio for the Senate; Dunn sought re-election as an Independent.

"Mayor Gregorio said that while the (Union Democratic) County Committee had adopted a rule against holding dual public offices he and Mayor Dunn had been 'grandathered in" because they had held the two positions prior to the adoption of the rule."
-- Alfonso A. Navarez, New York Times, 10/16/77.

When L. Harvey Smith returns to Trenton in January, he will join a rather obscure and exclusive club: former State Senators who become Assemblymen. Smith served in the Senate for three months in 2003 and 2004, between Joseph Charles' resignation to become a Superior Court Judge and Glenn Cunningham taking office in January 2004.

Among the most stunning upsets of the 2006 campaign was the defeat of Linden Mayor John Gregorio, described by the Star-Ledger at the "iconic lion of Linden politics ... a controversial and bare-knuckled Democrat whose career was punctuated by a criminal conviction and an extraordinary comeback." The 80-year-old Gregorio lost to Councilman Richard Gerbounka, a former Democrat who ran as an Independent, by 74 votes.

Gregorio was first elected Mayor in 1967 and served until his 1983 criminal conviction; he was elected to the State Assembly in 1973 and 1975 and won races for the State Senate seat in 1977 (defeating incumbent Thomas Dunn, the Mayor of Elizabeth) and 1981. On his final day in office in 1990, Governor Thomas Kean pardoned Gregorio, enabling him to run again for Mayor later that year.

Gerbounka, 60, a retired Police Captain and onetime Gregorio ally, won a Council seat in 1994 as a Democrat. He split with Gregorio four years ago and won re-election to the Council as an Independent.