Does Pallone have the fortitude to run for U.S. Senate?

Now that Newark Mayor Cory Booker has taken himself out the the gubernatorial race, everyone expects him to run for Frank Lautenberg’s U. S. Senate seat in 2014.    A recent poll indicated that Booker would easily beat Lautenberg in a Democratic primary should the 88 year old senator make another run.

That hasn’t stopped Congressman Frank Pallone from calling Democratic County Chairs to remind them that he is still interested in the Senate seat he has long coveted but never had the guts to fight for.

Pallone best shot at becoming a Senator came and went in 2002 when he declined Governor Jim McGreevey’s offer to replace the disgraced Senator Robert Torricelli on the ballot against Doug Forrester.   McGreevey brought Frank Lautenberg out of retirement and got the State Supreme Court to rewrite New Jersey’s election law so the switch could be made after the statutory deadline.  The polls showing Forrester beating Toricelli scared Pallone off from giving up a easy victory in CD-6 in favor of his dream job in the Senate.

Lautenberg went on to clobber Forrester in 2002 and was elected again in 2008. 

Pallone was passed over for the Senate in 2006 when Governor Jon Corzine chose Bob Menendez to replace him in the Senate.  Menendez won his own term that November and was reelected last month.  He is on the verge of becoming the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Pallone clearly wants to be a Senator, but his history indicates that he doesn’t have the fortitude to risk his cushy lifestyle as a congressman in order to fight for his dream.  I hope he grows a pair and goes for it, because the race to replace him in the 6th Congressional District would be great for blog traffic.

WHO WOULD RUN FOR PALLONE’S CD-6 SEAT IF IT WAS VACANT? 

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It’s official: Booker is not running for Governor

Newark Mayor Cory Booker is calling Democratic Party County Chairs to inform them of his decision not to run for the party’s nomination for governor in 2013.

Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal told MMM that Booker did not say if he would be running for U. S. Senate in 2014.

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Booker’s next step….Why not the White House?

Updated September 10, 11:20 am

Prior to last month the buzz about Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s future was that he would run for U.S. Senate in 2014, challenging Senator Frank Launtenberg if necessary.  Booker opened a federal PAC last year and Lautenberg has been sniping at him ever since.

But in the weeks leading up to the convention Booker met with county chairs to plant the seeds of a gubernatorial run against Governor Chris Christie last year.  In Charlotte he went into full campaign mode without making an announcement.  In the process he made himself the front runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2013.  A Booker candidacy for governor will clear the Democratic field. Without Booker in the race there will be a contentious primary.  Senators Dick Codey, Barbara Buono and Steve Sweeney could be contenders.  Assemblymen John Wisniewski and Lou Greenwald are acting like candidates.  Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage says he will run if Booker doesn’t.

None of the other potential candidates will be able to gain any traction until Booker makes his intentions clear.

As a nod to Booker’s front runner status, Quinnipiac polled a Christie/Booker match up.  Christie won the poll by 7%, but Booker’s name was recognised by 60% of those polled.   That is an extraordinary high number for a New Jersey politician who has never run a statewide race.  Booker has better name recognition than Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.  He is as well known and better liked than U.S. Senator Bob Menendez.

Booker told the New Jersey delegation in Charlotte that Christie can be beat and that he is only governor because urban Democrats didn’t come out to vote for Jon Corzine in 2009.  The implication is that he can get urban voters out, regardless of the desires of Democratic bosses George Norcross in the south and Joe DiVincenzo in the north who didn’t rev their machines for Corzine in 09.

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Good reading

Why Do They Want to Pick on Ann Romney?

Karin McQuillan, a retired psychotherapist and author who served in the Peace Corps in Senegal, writes at American Thinker that Hillary Rosen’s recent rant that Ann Romey never worked a day he her life is part of the Obama political strategy rooted in the politics of envy.  Worse, she says the strategy is deeply rooted in Obama’s psyche as a result of his upbringing.

I guess that’s a theory that one would expect from a psychotherapist.  McQuillan makes a fascinating case.

A FUNNY GAME OF TABLE TENNIS

Closer to home, our friends at InTheLobby have a hilarious account of how Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni turned the table on U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg during the senator’s hearing this week over the fairness of toll increases and patronage at PA.

Turns out that Lautenberg as a former commissioner of the PA he had a free EZ pass for decades and didn’t pay tolls from 1978 through 2006 when the PA stopped issuing free EZ passes to cronies.

Regarding patronage, a former Lautenberg campaign staffer joined PA in 2002, and U.S. Senator Bob Menendez’s son is an intern at PA now.

West Virginia U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller came to Lautenberg’s defense.  New Jersey Democrats have been silent, just as they were during Lautenberg’s dust up with State Senate President Steve Sweeney and George Norcross over the Rutgers-Rowan merger earlier this month.

The InTheLobby piece quotes The Asbury Park Press and The Star Ledger.

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