Gordon MacInnes

Mike DuHaime is now running John McCain's political operation
New Jerseyan Mike DuHaime is the new political director for John McCain’s presidential campaign, according to published reports this morning.  DuHaime, the former Executive Director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee, will assume the management of McCain’s political operation following a management shakeup earlier this week. 

He had been campaign manager of Rudy Giuliani’s bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

Arthur Albohn, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 86, was the last person to defeat an incumbent member of the State Assembly in a Morris County general election.  He did it in 1979, when he ousted Democrat Rosemarie Totaro by 3,088 votes.  (The last person to defeat an incumbent State Senator in Morris County was Anthony Bucco, who unseated Gordon MacInnes in 1997.  MacInnes had beaten John Dorsey four years earlier. 

One difference between Leonard Lance and the other Senate Republican leaders over the last thirty years is that Lance has never run himself in a competitive general election. His predecessor, John Bennett, began his legislative career by ousting three-term Democratic Assemblyman Walter Kozloski in 1979. Donald DiFrancesco, the Senate President from 1992 to 2002, unseated Democratic Assemblywoman Betty Wilson in 1975, and won a State Senate seat against Joanne Rajoppi, now the Union County Clerk, in a politically competitive district that included Plainfield and Rahway. John Dorsey, who followed DiFrancesco as Senate Minority Leader in 1984, defeated incumbent Democrats Gordon MacInnes and Rosemarie Totaro to win an Assembly seat in 1975, and beat incumbent State Senator Stephen Wiley in 1977. And Thomas Gagliano, who was Minority Leader in the late 1970's, won a competitive race for an open Senate seat in 1977, defeating Marlboro Mayor Arthur Goldzweig in a district that elected one Republican and one Democrat to the Assembly that year.

The resignation of Gordon MacInnes as the Assistant Commissioner of Education is fueling speculation that he will challenge GOP State Senator Anthony Bucco in the 25th district. MacInnes, who served in the State Senate before losing to Bucco in 1997, has not announced his future plans.

The 65-year-old Democrat, who has spent five years administering the state's Abbott district program, was elected to the State Assembly in the 1973 Democratic landslide. He lost his bid for a second term two years later, and then went to the Senate in a major upset when he defeated Majority Leader John Dorsey in 1993. In 2003, his wife, Blair MacInnes, won 45% in her race against Bucco.

Bucco is the last Republican to unseat an incumbent Democratic State Senator. His campaign was managed by Michael DuHaime, now the Campaign Manager for Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid. His consultant, Mark Campbell, is now Giuliani's National Political Director, and his Field Director, Bill Stepien, is now Giuliani's National Field Director.