2008

State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio will announce today that he is entering the race for the Republican nomination for United States Senator.  The Brooklyn-born Dentist and legislator from Morris County, wants to take on the Democratic incumbent, Frank Lautenberg.

By a 10-3 vote, a state GOP advisory committee considering delegate selection plans for the 2008 Republican presidential primary has recommended a winner-take-all plan proposed by Cape May County GOP Chairman David Von Savage.  The full 42-member Republican State Committee must now vote on the proposal, which appears to benefit the candidacy of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the organizational front-runner in New Jersey.

Everyone at the top of the massive, Lincoln Memorial-like entrance to City Hall instinctively or self-consciously struck an imperial pose before descending toward the crowd.

Politicians are attentive to power.

Couple that with the race memory of a place like the Parthenon or the Pyramids, and on this day there were over 100 elected officials and ten County chairs testing their best power walks under the Ionic columns of that monumental building in downtown Elizabeth.

With the occasion of Gov. Jon Corzine endorsing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for President still 15 minutes away, the warm-up act was finally prodded as a single unit, the New Jersey Democratic Party power structure, down the stairs, compressed into two cellphone-chattering phalanxes, one on either side of the podium at the bottom. 

The State Assembly voted today to move New Jersey's presidential primary to the first Tuesday in February, giving state voters the chance to be relevant in the presidential nomination process.

The vote was 59-20.

The State Assembly will vote Thursday on legislation to move the 2007 presidential primary to February 5, 2008.  The bill, which has already passed the Senate, has the strong support of Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts and Gov. Jon Corzine.

So far, seven other states have moved their primary to February 5, and more than ten additional states are considering the same date, including Illinois, New York, and North Carolina -- all home states to presidential candidates.  Only Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina would select delegates before New Jersey does.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo, a conservative Congressman from South Jersey, has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

Former Gov. Donald DiFrancesco has also endorsed Giuliani, whose poll numbers and organizational endorsements make him the clear front runner in New Jersey's February 2008 Republican primary. Former National League President Leonard Coleman, State Sen. Joseph Palaia, Assemblyman Steven Corodemus, former Republican National Committeewoman Judith Stanley, former Republican Leadership Council President Stephen Distler, Middletown Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger, former Mercer County Chairman Phil Angarone, and former Mercer County Executive Bob Prunetti have also announced their support of Giuliani.