Christine Todd Whitman

Over the past year, former Governor Christine Todd Whitman has offered keen political commentary as a PolitickerNJ.com blogger, voicing her positions on a multitude of local, state and national issues. Her participation has enhanced political discourse within the New Jersey political arena. We have been honored by her presence and are truly grateful for her willingness to share her views with the New Jersey political community. Christie Whitman deeply cares about this state and its future, and when she speaks, all New Jerseyans ought to reflect on what she has to say.

Judy Shaw is retiring as a partner in one of Trenton's biggest lobbying firmsCiting health issues, Judy Shaw, a former Chief of Staff to Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and a partner in a major State Street lobbying firm, announced her retirement today.  She will remain with MBI GluckShaw as “of counsel” in the firm she started with Hazel Gluck.

Shaw underwent extensive back surgery in February and requires extensive rehabilitation. She will divide her time between homes in Florida and Massachusetts. 

New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Virginia Long has four years left before she reaches the mandatory retirement age of seventy, but there is some speculation in higher echelon political circles that she will retire early – opening up another Supreme Court appointment for Gov. Jon Corzine before he seeks re-election in November 2009.  Long turns 70 in March 2012.

Insiders say that there are three leading candidates for Somerset County Democratic Chairman: Michael Ceponis, who was the last Democrat to win election to the Somerset County Board of Freeholders (Christie Whitman unseated him in 1982); former Warren Township Board of Education Rebecca Perkins, who ran a close race for Freeholder in 1999; and Margaret Schaffer, the Bedminster Democratic Municipal Chair.  The incumbent, Elia Pelios, is not seeking re-election.

Republican political consultant Tom Blakely died this morning after collapsing during a 5k run in Bordentown. He was 47.

Blakely was the President of Jamestown Associates, a New Jersey-based GOP consulting firm. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he served as an aide to Rep. Dick Zimmer and was Campaign Manager of Zimmer’s 1996 U.S. Senate bid against Robert Torricelli. He also ran County Executive campaigns for James Treffinger and Robert Prunetti, and was Director of Appointments for Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

New Jersey, a blue state that has gone longer without electing a Republican to statewide office than any other state in the nation, has not re-elected a Democrat to statewide office in fourteen years.  The last Democrat to win re-election was Frank Lautenberg in 1994.  So technically, Republicans have re-elected an incumbent statewide official (Governor Christine Todd Whitman in 1997) more recently than the Democrats have.  The last Democratic Governor to win re-election was Brendan Byrne in 1977.