James Treffinger

Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo intends to seek re-election to a third term in 2010, and he should be viewed as a strong favorite to win.  Since Essex County Democratic politics is especially volatile these days, and DiVincenzo isn’t about to take his race for granted.  He’s concerned that he would face a challenge from a candidate backed by Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who is also up for re-election that year.  

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie spoke at Fairleigh Dickinson University today: Scott Giglio Photo
U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie, a likely candidate for the 2009 Republican nomination for Governor, was on home turf this morning at a speaking engagement at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Madison campus -- just a short drive from his house in Mendham.

It was another stop on the corruption busting prosecutor’s public circuit: once again he rattled off his 125 convictions, recounted stories of jaw amazingly blatant corruption and fended off what he said were politically-inspired attacks on his record -- without going into specifics.

Christie made no reference to the ongoing controversy over his appointment of John Ashcroft to a federal monitoring contract worth between $27 and $52 million, instead arguing more broadly that his office has been accused of acting with political motivations by both parties. After the event, Christie said that he would not answer any questions regarding Ashcroft or the contract.

Tom Blakely (1961-2008)Political consultant Tom Blakely’s sudden death on Saturday left his New Jersey friends and colleagues shocked at the passing of a man who had realized success and who, at only 46-years-old, had the potential to achieve so much more.

“The best was ahead of him,” said state Sen. Kevin O’Toole, a friend of Blakely and a cousin by marriage.

Blakely’s rise to prominence in the behind-the-scenes political world began with the 1990 12th district Congressional campaign of Dick Zimmer, after strategist Larry Weitzner, who was the then Zimmer’s campaign manager, advised Zimmer to take him on as a field worker. Zimmer was so happy with his performance that he hired him as his district director after he was elected, and he eventually managed his unsuccessful Senate campaign against Robert Toricelli in 1996.

“He was utterly reliable, very pragmatic, and it set my mind at ease asking him to do something because I knew he would do it,” said Zimmer.

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.

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.

Confessions of a Republican Operative: How to Rig an Election, written by Allen Raymond, to be released by Simon and Schuster on January 8, will take some shots at New Jersey political figures.  Raymond started out in politics as the campaign manager for Bill Martini's successful 1994 bid to unseat Democratic Congressman Herbert Klein, and then served as Martini's Chief of Staff.  (Martini is now a Federal Judge; Sharpe James' trial has been assigned to him.)  Raymond was also, briefly, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee, and worked for Dick Zimmer's campaign for Congress.

When then-Essex County Executive James Treffinger was indicted in 2002, there were allegations that his U.S. Senate campaign made dirty tricks calls on Super Bowl Sunday seeking support for Diane Allen, his primary rival.  Raymond was the consultant referred to in the Treffinger indictment, sources told PolitickerNJ.com.

Does John Molinelli, in the news this week for vacationing in Italy with State Senator Joseph Coniglio, the target of a federal criminal investigation, and with Bergen County Democratic Organization counsel Dennis Oury, make the list of the five worst county prosecutors in recent years?

Here are four who clearly make our list:

• Two weeks before James Florio was to take office as Governor in 1990, Camden County Prosecutor Samuel Asbell held a news conference to tell a rather spectacular story: he said two gunmen had ambushed him in what became a high speed New Year’s Day gun battle. Asbell said he shot one of the gunmen with a sawed-off shotgun he carried in his car. He said machine gun fire shattered his car windows. But investigators for the State Police found that Asbell had staged the entire event as a last-ditch effort to keep his job under a Democratic Governor. He resigned and entered a mental health facility for treatment.

On the series finale of The Sopranos, there was a not-too-subtle reference to political corruption: the prosecution of a fictional Essex County Commissioner named James Treffolio. Some PoliticsNJ.com readers say they believe Treffolio is a pseudonym for former Essex County Executive James Treffinger, who served a stint in a federal prison in 2004.

Treffinger annoyed Soprano's producer David Chase several years ago when he refused to allow the show to film at the Essex County courthouse.

There is plenty of talk these days among political insiders about the prospects of a candidate switch in the race for United States Senate. This is New Jersey, so such specualtion is fair: Christine Todd Whitman dropped out of the race for U.S. Senate in 2000, followed by Robert Torricelli's exit from the gubernatorial campaign just tweleve days after he got in. In 2001, Donald DiFrancesco dropped his bid for Governor -- just after changing the law to move the primary back a few weeks to accommodate his withdrawal. James Treffinger was the front runner for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination in 2002 when federal prosecutors -- Republican federal prosecutors -- raided his office; he was gone in four days. Torricelli dropped out of the '02 Senate race five weeks before Election Day. And in 2004, James E. McGreevey resigned after just 22 months in office.