Rick Shaftan

Political observers will see a mix of old and new faces on Steve Lonegan’s gubernatorial campaign team.

Veteran conservative operative and long-time Lonegan ally Rick Shaftan is the campaign consultant, while Hank Butehorn, an attorney who moonlights as a conservative blogger and activist, is serving as the campaign’s Statewide Chairman.

The newest face is Eugene Slaven, a 28-year-old Massachusetts native who will be Lonegan’s campaign manager. Slaven worked as a program manager for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation in Washington, DC. This is the first campaign he’s managed.

The responsibility of raising $340,000 in donations to qualify for matching funds falls to Nathan Brinkman, 32, a co-founder the Hoboken Republican Club.

Craig O’Brien, a recent college graduate, will be the campaign’s field director. His mother, Maureen O’Brien, just won a seat on the Paramus Borough Council.

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As U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie prepares to run for Governor, he has the luxury of a clean slate ideologically: Getty Images Photo
Yesterday, when veteran Republican political operative Dan Gallic announced that he was forming an organization to draft conservative activist Steve Lonegan into the Governor's race next year, he lamented the candidates Republicans typically choose for statewide races as "weak-kneed wimpy moderates who believe in nothing and are afraid to throw a punch."

Today, Gallic said that language doesn't apply to the two other most high profile potential candidates next year: U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie and biotech millionaire John Crowley.

"I was referring to the past slew of candidates who have lost by 9 or 10 points," said Gallic, who managed conservative State Sen. Joe Pennacchio's run for U.S. Senate earlier this year. "So far what I've seen is a far better group of candidates than the Republicans have put up in quite some time, all of which have no ties to the establishment at this point."

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's PAC has contributed $5,000 to 5th district Democratic congressional candidate Dennis Shulman: Getty Images Photo
PARAMUS -- Sitting at a conference table at IBEW Local 164's headquarters with congressionalcandidate Dennis Shulman, several labor officials and two reporters this morning, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) was asked whether he planned to back up his visible support of Shulman with a significant amount of cash.

Hoyer, smiling, pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Shulman.

"Here's another $2,500. Talk is cheap, right?" said Hoyer. "It's not in the mail. It's in his pocket now."

It was the second $2,500 check that Hoyer's political action committee, AmeriPAC, had given to Schulman's campaign - something he said would be a taste of things to come if Shulman continues to run a vigorous campaign against three-term Rep. Scott Garrett in the fifth congressional district.

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The May 13 race for Sparta Township Council is worth watching, where incumbents Scott Seelagy and Jerry Murphy face challengers Carey-Ann Shaftan and Christopher Curry. There could be some anti-incumbent sentiment in Sparta, where Mayor Michael Spekhardt, Deputy Mayor Brian Brady and Councilman Manny Goldberg face a possible recall election.

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Conservative strategist Rick Shaftan asks an interesting question: “Why were signs allowed in the Bergen County Academy for the Hillary rally but not the Corzine meeting last week? Shaftan said that he was “told last week that I could not bring in a sign ‘for security reasons.’”

“Obviously there are one set of rules for people the Governor likes and another set for people he doesn't like. Of course, the Governor had nothing to do with any of this. Naturally, none of the press in attendance dare ask why signs were allowed this Wednesday but not last Monday,” said Shaftan. “Who can blame them? Does anyone want to be on Hillary's Enemies List?

It will be interesting to see what excuse is used to ban signs on Monday night in Voorhees.” Read More >

Two polls show John McCain leading Rudy Giuliani in New Jersey’s February 5 presidential primary: a Neighborhood Research poll has McCain leading 31%-26%, with 18% for Mitt Romney, 9% for Mike Huckabee, and 4% for Ron Paul; and a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll has McCain ahead of Giuliani by a 23%-29% margin, with 10% for Romney and 7% for Huckabee.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama, 41%-27%, with 8% for John Edwards in the FDU poll.

Quinnipiac University will release their poll this morning.

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Peter Kane, the NJ for Huckabee leader, presides over the group's second meet-up WednesdaySeated at two tables pushed together in a diner in Scotch Plains, the core of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's New Jersey supporters plan their next move.

"We've got to be relentlessly positive," says Huckabee for President 2008 lead organizer Peter Kane of Summit. It's a message to which the group immediately responds because most of them say they like Huckabee because he hasn't gone negative in Iowa, and because he just generally projects likeability.

Some of these people gathered signatures for Huckabee, helping to submit 2,300 here in New Jersey or 1,300 more than what the state requires, and now they're ready for the next challenges: busing up to New Hampshire to volunteer for the campaign, writing letters to the editor, or convincing friends and relatives to back their man.

"Very few of New Jersey's Republican Congressional delegation have declared their support for a presidential candidate, and we're reaching out to them," says Kane, a senior vice president at CitiGroup who worked for the Dole campaign in Iowa in the 1996 election, and spent three days with Huckabee in the summer before committing to the former governor of Arkansas.

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After facing criticism for not being aggressive enough against Democrats, Republicans have coalesced around a new cause.

Although Republicans offered no comment on Sunday or Monday after The Star Ledger broke the story about Gov. Corzine’s $15,000 gift to ex-girlfriend Carla Katz’s brother-in-law Rocco Riccio, the GOP has now seized on this latest scandal to erupt over Gov. Corzine’s relationship with Katz in what appears to be a coordinated effort to turn it into a campaign issue.

In the latest twist involving Corzine’s monetary relationship with Katz, the governor gave Riccio $15,000 after he was forced to resign from a job at the Turnpike Authority, following rumors that he had looked into the tax record of Corzine’s political enemies. Corzine also promised to help find Riccio work in the private sector.

 

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There was an interesting e-mail exchange between Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson and conservative strategist Rick Shaftan:

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The majority of New Jersey voters say that they would not be upset if the state legalized gay marriage, according to a Zogby Poll commissioned by Garden State Equality, a gay advocacy group.

63% of those polled said that they would have no problem if “public officials in New Jersey come to the conclusion that civil unions for gay couples have not worked to provide equality under the law” and granted gay couples the right to marry.

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