Elizabeth Randall

BPU Commissioner Christine Bator was dumped by Gov. Jon CorzineGov. Jon Corzine has appointed former Assemblywoman Elizabeth Randall to hold one of the Republican seats on the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and has reappointed BPU President Jeanne Fox to another term.

Former State Treasurer John McCormac was unopposed in his bid for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of Woodbridge, and becomes the strong favorite to win a November Special Election to fill the remaining thirteen months of the late Frank Pelzman's term. If he is successful, he will become the eighth person (under the current State Constitution) to win an election after leaving the cabinet: Brendan Byrne and Christine Todd Whitman both served as President of the Board of Public Utilities before becoming Governor; former Public Advocate Wilfredo Caraballo was later elected to the State Assembly; Elizabeth Randall served as Commissioner of Banking and Insurance before her election to the Bergen County Board of Freeholders; Robert Roe, the Commissioner of Conservation and Economic Development in the 1960's who went on to spend 23 years in Congress; former Secretary of State Edward Patten, who served in the House from 1963 to 1981; and former State Treasurer Feather O'Connor went on to win a seat on the Cranbury Township Committee.

Decades have past since the classic civil wars of Bergen County Republican politics in the 1960's and 1970's, when bitter enemies like State Senators Walter Jones and Pearce Deamer, or Republican County Chairmen like Nelson Gross and Anthony Statile ran full slates in primary campaigns that forced Republicans -- from low-level county employees to candidates for statewide office -- to take sides in their almost yearly intra-party battles. In recent years, open conventions have allowed more than 1,200 elected GOP County Committee members to award the organization line, avoiding more expensive and divisive primary contests. Now, there are indications that two candidates will face off in a primary for County Executive that is seemingly intertwined with a challenge to the incumbent Republican County Chairman, Guy Talarico.

Talarico is backing former Freeholder and gubernatorial candidate Todd Caliguire, who was unopposed for the GOP nomination until last week, when the party's top vote-getter in recent years, County Clerk Kathleen Donovan, entered the race. Donovan has the backing of Alan Marcus, a Trenton lobbyist who ran the county GOP oganization in the days of the old-time wars, and may form her own line in the primary rather than deal with Talarico and Caliguire at a convention. The lone Republican Freeholder in Bergen, Elizabeth Randall, announced today that she would run with Donovan -- even if that means eschewing the organization line. Randall's would-be running mate, former Wyckoff Board of Education member Robert Yudin, has not said whether he will run on the organization line or seek to join Randall on the Donovan slate. Randall could potentially lose her primary, which would send the GOP ticket into the general election without their only incumbent.

Several Bergen Republicans are now wondering whether Caliguire, who finished last in Bergen County in his '05 run for Governor, will remain in the race against Donovan, a four-term County Clerk and ex-Assemblywoman. Caliguire didn't bargain for a primary, and a costly battle for his party nomination won't necessarily help him oust the Democrat, Dennis McNerney, who has the advantage of incumbency and of the Bergen Democratic warchest. If Caliguire does drop out, party insiders predict that another candidate would emerge -- perhaps Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, the de facto leader of the state's conservative Republican wing. Lonegan is not likely to back Donovan.

Competing primary slates could force U.S. Senate candidate Thomas Kean and Congressman Scott Garrett will need to decide whether they want to run on the organization line, on the Donovan slate, or on no line at all. Bergen is a must-win county for Kean in a general, and a divided party reduces his chance of building the kind of plurality Kean needs to offset U.S. Senator Robert Menendez's likely margins in Hudson and Essex counties.

Indirectly, an anti-organization primary slate is responsible for Caliguire's own political career. In 1977, the Bergen County Republican Organization endorsed State Senator Raymond Bateman for Governor. Bateman's main opponent, Assembly Minority Leader Thomas Kean, ran a full line of Freeholder and legislative candidates in Bergen County. While Bateman won Bergen, Kean carried the towns in the old 40th district -- causing two incumbent Assemblymen running on the Bateman line two lose the primary to the two Kean-backed candidates, Oakland Councilman Cary Edwards and attorney Walter Kern. When Kean was elected Governor four years later, he picked Edwards to serve as Chief Counsel. In turn, Edwards hired Caliguire to work for him.

Bergen County Democrats have picked two women to run for Freeholder this fall: Paramus Councilwoman Connie Wagner and former Ramsey Councilwoman Julie O'Brien. Wagner was re-elected to a second term in 2005, while O'Brien lost her bid for re-election to a second term. Wagner and O'Brien will compete with the lone Republican Freeholder, Elizabeth Randall, and for the seat being vacated by Valerie Vainieri Huttle, who was elected to the State Assemby last year. Randall is running with Robert Yudin, a former member of the Wyckoff Board of Education.

Paramus Councilwoman Connie Wagner, easily re-elected to a second term on the Council last November, is among the candidates under consideration by the Bergen County Democratic Organization to run for one of two Freeholder seats this fall. Democrats are seeking two candidates: Democrat Valerie Vainieri Huttle, elected to the State Assembly in 2005, says she will complete her current term but not seek re-election to the Freeholder Board; the other incumbent is Elizabeth Randall, the only Republican on the Board of Freeholders. Last week, the Bergen County Republican Organization Executive Committee endorsed Randall and former Wyckoff Board of Education member Robert Yudin to run for the two Freeholder seats.

Among the candidates Bergen County Democrats are considering for Freeholder in 2006 is Thomas Sarlo, a Little Ferry Councilman and the brother of State Senator (and Wood-Ridge Mayor) Paul Sarlo. Incumbent Freeholder James Carroll (the Mayor of Demarest) is expected to seek re-election to a third term, but Democrats will need to pick a candidate to challenge the lone Republican Freeholder, Elizabeth Randall -- and possibly one more if newly-elected Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle is not a candidate for re-election.

One possible Republican Freeholder candidate is John Baldino, the 21-year-old Paramus resident who ran an impressive campaign for State Assembly against Robert Gordon and Joan Voss in 2005.

If Valerie Vainieri Huttle wins the 37th district Assembly seat in a special convention scheduled -- for now -- on Thursday evening, she would become the third woman to follow her father to the New Jersey General Assembly: Anthony Vainieri represented Hudson County in the Assembly from 1984 to 1986. Others: Elizabeth Randall, who served in the Assembly from 1985 to 1991 (she presently serves on the Bergen County Board of Freeholders with Huttle and served in the Assembly with her father), is the daughter of Harry Randall, Jr., who was a Bergen County Assemblyman for six years in the 1960's.; and Assemblywoman Alison McHose, whose father, Robert Littell, served in the Assembly from 1968 until his election to the State Senate in 1990.