Ronald Reagan

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.

In New Jersey, incumbent United States Senators have rarely faced competitive primary challenges, and the only incumbent Senator to lose a primary was Clifford Case, a four-term Republican who lost 50.7%-49.3% to conservative Jeffrey Bell, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign.  Case had faced primary challenges from the right before: Robert Morris, who had been Chief Counsel for Senate Internal Security Subcommittee headed by Joseph McCarthy, won 33% in 1960; and James Walter Ralph, a Bergen County physician, received 30% in 1972.

Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson doesn’t like where the Republican U.S. Senate primary appears to be going.

Noting the attacks lobbed against Anne Evans Estabrook by the rival campaigns of Murray Sabrin and State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio, Wilson said that the campaigns so far are very close to violating Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican."

“I’m Switzerland here, and I’m beginning to think I need to do what I did in 2005 with all the gubernatorial candidates: invite them to have a discussion about this campaign,” he said. “It’s ok to point out differences, but there’s no reason to get personal about it or ascribe motivations to people. Fight as hard as you can, but fight fairly.”

The New Jersey Republican State Committee has a new phone system that plays old Ronald Reagan speeches for callers who are on hold, according to The Star-Ledger's Auditor column.  In an e-mail to PoliticsNJ.com, one GOP County Chairman wondered how the state party, which has incredibly limited financial resources, found the money for a fancy new phone system while telling struggling legislative candidates and county Republican organizations in "do or die" situations this fall, that they can't count on huge dollars for cable TV, radio, direct mail and GOTV.

When Gerald Ford decided to run for a full term as President in 1976, he picked Thomas Kean, the Assembly Minority Leader and the son of a former colleague (Robert W. Kean served with Ford in the House from 1949 to 1959( to run his New Jersey campaign operation. In his contest for the Republican nomination with Ronald Reagan, Ford won every New Jersey delegate. (Reagan opted not to run in the New Jersey primary, and a group of his supporters ran for Delegate under the "Former California Governor" banner. One New Jersey delegate, Thomas Bruinooge of Bergen County, wound up voting for Reagan.) In the general election, Ford won New Jersey over Jimmy Carter by a 65,035 vote margin.

Five years later, Ford returned the favor when he endorsed Kean, who was one of eight candidates for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. The former President traveled to New Jersey on April 2 to campaign for Kean and headline a fundraiser on his behalf. Former Presidents rarely become involved in contested primaries; Dwight Eisenhower declined to support his former Secretary of Labor, James Mitchell, until after he won the 1961 gubernatorial primary.