Andrew Maguire

Ned J. Parsekian, a former State Senator from Bergen County, sought the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1969Former State Sen. Ned J. Parsekian, a Bergen County Democrat who ran for Governor in 1969, died on Monday in Sarasota, Florida, according to his law partner, Melvin Solomon. He was 86.

A graduate of New York University and Columbia Law School, and a World War II veteran, Parsekian began his political career serving in the administration of Gov. Robert Meyner. He was Deputy Attorney General, Director of the state Division of Workmen's Compensation, and Director of the Division of Motor Vehicles. He held the post on an acting basis for three years before the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed his nomination.

Parsekian was elected to the State Senate in 1965 and lost re-election in 1967. He briefly considered entering the race to challenge GOP U.S. Sen. Clifford Case in 1966, but declined.  Democrats later decided to back Warren Wilentz, the Middlesex County Prosecutor, for the post.

New Jersey Democrats haven’t had a real statewide primary in eight years – the last time was in 2000, when newcomer Jon Corzine beat former Governor Jim Florio’s South Jersey-based coalition in the U.S. Senate primary by a 58%-42% margin.

In the eleven primaries since Democrats last lost a U.S. Senate race in 1972, eight of them have been virtually uncontested. In 1978, basketball star Bill Bradley beat the establishment choice, State Treasurer Richard Leone, by a 59%-26% margin, with ex-State Sen. Alexander Menza receiving 9%. And in 1982, newcomer Frank Lautenberg won a ten candidate primary with 26% of the vote against former Reps. Andrew Maguire (23%) and Joseph LeFante (20%), and Princeton Mayor Barbara Boggs Sigmund (11%). Six other candidates – businessman Howard Rosen, former state Banking Commissioner Angelo Bianchi, Passaic County Freeholder Cyril Yannarelli, labor leader Frank Forst, Richard McAleer, and Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello combined for the remaining votes. Cresitello, who is running again this year, finished last with 4,295 votes statewide.

If Linda Stender defeats Michael Ferguson, she would become just the sixth woman to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives since the ratification of the 19th Ammendment in 1920.

Four of New Jersey's five Congresswomen went to Washington after defeating an incumbent: Mary Norton, a Hudson County Freeholder who went to Congress in 1924 when she defeated incumbent John Eagan in the Democratic primary with the backing of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague; Florence Dwyer, an Assemblywoman from Elizabeth, who ousted two-term Democrat Harrison Williams in 1956; Helen Meyner, the former First Lady of New Jersey, who beat freshman Republican Joseph Maraziti in 1974; and former Ridgewood Board of Education President Marge Roukema, who unsteated three-term Democrat Andrew Maguire in 1980.

Millicent Fenwick, a Republican who served in the State Assembly and as state Director of Consumer Affairs, won an open House seat in 1974 when Peter Frelinghuysen declined to seek re-election; she defeated Assembly Minority Leader Thomas Kean (and future Governor) in the GOP primary by less than ninety votes. In the general election, she defeated Democrat Frederick Bohen, a former Johnson Administration official from Princeton whose campaign was managed by a young political operative named Timothy Carden; Carden lost a House race to Ferguson in 2002.

Norton remained in Congress for 26 years and is the only New Jersey woman to chair a full House committee. Dwyer retired in 1972 after eight terms and Roukema retired in 2002 after eleven terms. Meyner won again in 1976 (narrowly defeating Republican William Schluter) and lost her seat in 1978 to James Courter, an Assistant Warren County Prosecutor. Fenwick left the House after four terms to run unsuccessfully for the United States Senate; she lost to Democrat Frank Lautenberg.

All four of the men who lost their House seats to women sought a political comeback: Eight years after being unseated by Norton, Eagan (who first went to Congress on Woodrow Wilson's coattails in 1912, lost his seat in 1920 and regained it two years later) won a seat on the Weehawken Board of Education; he spent eight years on the school board before beginning a fourteen-year stint as the Weehawken Tax Collector. Williams ran for U.S. Senate in 1958 and defeated Republican Robert Kean, a ten-term Congressman. Maguire sought the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 1982 and finished second in the primary behind Lautenberg. Maraziti ran for the State Assembly in 1977 and lost a general election to Democrat Rosemarie Totaro; he later lost a GOP primary for Morris County Freeholder.