Bob Torricelli

Ivan Zapien will leave his post as Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Robert Menendez to accept a position in the private sector.  He will be replaced by Danny O’Brien, who served as Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Joseph Biden and as Political Director of Biden’s presidential campaign.  O’Brien served as Chief of Staff to U.S.  Senator Robert Torricelli, and was Co-Director of gubernatorial candidate James E. McGreevey’s coordinated campaign in 2001.

Coming late to the U.S. Senate race, political veteran Dick Zimmer formally kicked off his candidacy at the state house today.

"Welcome to day six of the Zimmer for Congress campaign," he said.  

The announcement came on the tail of a stinging loss for Zimmer in his native Hunterdon County. Local Republicans there held a re-do vote last night to consider switching the party’s preference from rival Joe Pennacchio – who they had awarded the county line to in February – to Zimmer.

If Dick Zimmer had won his race for U.S. Senate in 1996 – our premise is purely hypothetical because he did not – who would be running this year? 

The first question is this: would Zimmer have won re-election in 2002?  Rob Andrews, Bob Menendez and Frank Pallone would have probably declined to challenge him – it’s fair to assume that if they were unwilling to give up their safe House seats to run against Doug Forrester, they would have been less likely to risk a race against an incumbent in post 9/11 New Jersey, when George W. Bush was actually off-the-charts popular in New Jersey.  

Here is one scenario how this might have played out:

Who would Bob Torricelli vote for in November 2008: Frank Lautenberg or Dick Zimmer?

If the reports are accurate – frankly, there has been so much confusion over the last six weeks that it’s hard to believe any of this – Republicans may have found a credible U.S. Senate candidate in Dick Zimmer. 

The rules that govern the Democratic Party's Presidential Delegate selection process are the result of thirty years of conflict. National conventions have been divided and reform commissions have fought into many long nights. There's really only one major reform in recent decades that represented a consensus: everybody recognized the need for the Super Delegates.