Paul DiGaetano

New Jersey Veterans for McCain will hold a rally tonight in Carlstadt, but Bergen County GOP Chairman and U.S. Navy veteran Bob Yudin has been left off the guest list.  Yudin seemed to annoy some Republicans last week when he named former Assembly Majority Leader Paul DiGaetano, an Essex County resident, as the Bergen County campaign coordinator for the Republican ticket headed by John McCain.  DiGaetano is in a bitter feud with State Sen. Kevin O’Toole, an early McCain supporter who represents part of Bergen County in the State Senate – and is also the Essex County Democratic Chairman.  Yudin has unsuccessfully sought to get Douglas Doyle, a politically active Bergen County lawyer, named as the McCain county coordinator.

Bergen County Republican Chairman Bob Yudin has named Assembly Majority Leader Paul DiGaetano as the coordinator for the 2008 Republican ticket headed by John McCain. That’s an interesting choice since DiGaetano lives in Essex County, although he represented part of South Bergen in the Legislature for sixteen years. By naming DiGaetano, who left the Legislature in 2005 to run unsuccessfully for Governor, Yudin is taking a real shot at Kevin O’Toole, the Essex County Republican Chairman and a State Senator who represents Yudin’s own district. O’Toole and DiGaetano are bitter rivals.

Some Republican leaders believe Nutley Mayor Joanne Cocchiola and Rutherford Mayor John Hipp would make a strong ticket for the State Assembly against incumbents Frederick Scalera and Gary Schaer in the 36th district next year.  Last won by Republican Paul DiGaetano in 2003, the 36th was the closest race in the state last year in a district where the EnCap development at the Meadowlands has led to the defeat of more than a dozen local officials.

Bergen County Republican Chairman Rob Ortiz and challenger Bob Yudin are furiously working the phones today in preparation for Tuesday’s runoff election for the party’s top seat.

The key to winning the chairmanship will be to appeal to the 115 voters who supported Ben Focarino last night before he was knocked out of the race. But, due to a rule reversal, Ortiz and Yudin will also have the opportunity to appeal to voters who missed last night’s election.

That has renewed controversy over whether or not to allow those who didn’t vote last night to vote next Tuesday.

When the results were read last night, Election Committee Chairwoman Patricia DiCostanzo announced that Tuesday’s runoff would be restricted to last night’s voters.

That first upset Yudin, who objected to it before acquiescing a few minutes later, while Ortiz’s supporters agreed with it.

But that ruling was apparently reversed this morning by Ortiz, allowing all county committee voters to participate.

Lobbyist Boss continues non-inclusive trend

The race for Bergen County Republican Chairman between incumbent Robert Ortiz and challenger Robert Yudin is being viewed as a proxy fight of sorts between two outsiders with influence over Bergen County politics.  Ortiz has the backing of State Sen. Kevin O’Toole, the Essex County Republican Chairman, while Yudin is receiving help from former Assembly Majority Leader and gubernatorial candidate Paul DiGaetano.  O’Toole and DiGaetano are political rivals whose relationship has deteriorated exponentially over the last two years.

A town of 27,362 people in northeastern Essex County, Nutley has a long tradition of clout and influence in state and county politics -- largely through power of a bi-partisan local political machine run for more than thirty years by Frank Orechio, who leveraged a chain of weekly newspapers in Nutley, Belleville, Bloomfield and Glen Ridge to help deliver votes to the candidates of his choice. Critics had long complained that the Orechio media empire -- for a time in the 1970's and 1980's it included a cable television station -- was a blatant conflict of interest because of the positions the Orechio family held at different levels of government.

Assemblywoman-elect Caroline Casagrande becomes the youngest woman to ever win election to the New Jersey Legislature.  At age 30, she is three years younger than Republican Barbara Curran was when she won in 1973, and three years younger than Kathleen Donovan was when she ousted Democratic incumbents in 1985. 

If Republicans lose any seats in the State Assembly in the November mid-term election, look for Peter Biondi to challenge Alex DeCroce for Minority Leader. The 65-year-old Biondi, a five-term Assemblyman from Somerset County, ousted Guy Gregg from the #2 leadership post, Republican Conference Chairman, after the 2005 election.

Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera, arrested today on bribery charges, is no stranger to scandal.

The 60-year-old Rivera joined the Passaic Police Department around 1968, around the time the city's Latino population began to surge. He served on a nine-man Vice Squad that was described by the Herald News in 1970 as "the most feared among any on the entire police force...as far as gamblers and drug violators are concerned."  He later servd on a specia police squad aimed at patrolling the city's most troubled areas.  

In 1970, Rivera was one of eight police officers to face brutality charges.  He never went to trial, and resigned to return to Puerto Rico, where he became a police officer.