Rick Shaftan

There is some speculation that Barack Obama's choice to serve as Democratic National Chairman is Tim Kaine, the Governor of Virginia and a runner-up to Joe Biden in the summer vice presidential sweepstakes.  If Kaine gets the DNC post, it might drive traffic to www.timkaine.com - something that might help Steve Lonegan, the conservative Republican running for Governor of New Jersey this year.  The timkaine.com domain forwards to Lonegan's campaign site.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan has raised enough campaign cash to receive matching funds from the state, according to his strategist, Rick Shaftan.

Shaftan didn’t have the exact numbers, but he said that Lonegan has raised over $340,000 – the threshold to receive two dollars for every dollar he raises beyond the $109,000 deductible.

If the contributions are verified, Lonegan will start out with about $802,000.

“The last six to eight weeks has been all fundraising,” said Shaftan.

Chris Christie resigned as U.S. Attorney on Monday, but says he hasn't decided if he'll run for Governor next year.

Rick Shaftan, the political point man for gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan, is convinced: the much heralded announcement that former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie is running for governor will never come.

"He's absolutely not running," said Shaftan.

That is, of course, coming from the chief strategist for Lonegan, the  conservative former mayor of Bogota and anti-tax advocate who entered the race on Monday. But Shaftan said that since resigning from his post as U.S. Attorney on Monday, Christie has not acted like a candidate.

"Don't you think Todd Christie would say he's absolutely in this race, 100 percent? On December 2nd the operation starts going. That's what these guys expected," said Shaftan, referring to the former U.S. Attorney's brother and the Republican county chairmen who are hoping Christie enters the race.

Hank Butehorn will chair Steve Lonegan's campaign for the GOP nomination for Governor.

Political observers will see a mix of old and new faces on Steve Lonegan’s gubernatorial campaign team.

Veteran conservative operative and long-time Lonegan ally Rick Shaftan is the campaign consultant, while Hank Butehorn, an attorney who moonlights as a conservative blogger and activist, is serving as the campaign’s Statewide Chairman.

The newest face is Eugene Slaven, a 28-year-old Massachusetts native who will be Lonegan’s campaign manager. Slaven worked as a program manager for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation in Washington, DC. This is the first campaign he’s managed.

The responsibility of raising $340,000 in donations to qualify for matching funds falls to Nathan Brinkman, 32, a co-founder the Hoboken Republican Club.

Craig O’Brien, a recent college graduate, will be the campaign’s field director. His mother, Maureen O’Brien, just won a seat on the Paramus Borough Council.

As U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie prepares to run for Governor, he has the luxury of a clean slate ideologically: Getty Images Photo
Yesterday, when veteran Republican political operative Dan Gallic announced that he was forming an organization to draft conservative activist Steve Lonegan into the Governor's race next year, he lamented the candidates Republicans typically choose for statewide races as "weak-kneed wimpy moderates who believe in nothing and are afraid to throw a punch."

Today, Gallic said that language doesn't apply to the two other most high profile potential candidates next year: U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie and biotech millionaire John Crowley.

"I was referring to the past slew of candidates who have lost by 9 or 10 points," said Gallic, who managed conservative State Sen. Joe Pennacchio's run for U.S. Senate earlier this year. "So far what I've seen is a far better group of candidates than the Republicans have put up in quite some time, all of which have no ties to the establishment at this point."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's PAC has contributed $5,000 to 5th district Democratic congressional candidate Dennis Shulman: Getty Images Photo
PARAMUS -- Sitting at a conference table at IBEW Local 164's headquarters with congressionalcandidate Dennis Shulman, several labor officials and two reporters this morning, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) was asked whether he planned to back up his visible support of Shulman with a significant amount of cash.

Hoyer, smiling, pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Shulman.

"Here's another $2,500. Talk is cheap, right?" said Hoyer. "It's not in the mail. It's in his pocket now."

It was the second $2,500 check that Hoyer's political action committee, AmeriPAC, had given to Schulman's campaign - something he said would be a taste of things to come if Shulman continues to run a vigorous campaign against three-term Rep. Scott Garrett in the fifth congressional district.

The May 13 race for Sparta Township Council is worth watching, where incumbents Scott Seelagy and Jerry Murphy face challengers Carey-Ann Shaftan and Christopher Curry. There could be some anti-incumbent sentiment in Sparta, where Mayor Michael Spekhardt, Deputy Mayor Brian Brady and Councilman Manny Goldberg face a possible recall election.

Conservative strategist Rick Shaftan asks an interesting question: “Why were signs allowed in the Bergen County Academy for the Hillary rally but not the Corzine meeting last week? Shaftan said that he was “told last week that I could not bring in a sign ‘for security reasons.’”

“Obviously there are one set of rules for people the Governor likes and another set for people he doesn't like. Of course, the Governor had nothing to do with any of this. Naturally, none of the press in attendance dare ask why signs were allowed this Wednesday but not last Monday,” said Shaftan. “Who can blame them? Does anyone want to be on Hillary's Enemies List?

Two polls show John McCain leading Rudy Giuliani in New Jersey’s February 5 presidential primary: a Neighborhood Research poll has McCain leading 31%-26%, with 18% for Mitt Romney, 9% for Mike Huckabee, and 4% for Ron Paul; and a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll has McCain ahead of Giuliani by a 23%-29% margin, with 10% for Romney and 7% for Huckabee.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama, 41%-27%, with 8% for John Edwards in the FDU poll.

Quinnipiac University will release their poll this morning.

Peter Kane, the NJ for Huckabee leader, presides over the group's second meet-up WednesdaySeated at two tables pushed together in a diner in Scotch Plains, the core of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's New Jersey supporters plan their next move.

"We've got to be relentlessly positive," says Huckabee for President 2008 lead organizer Peter Kane of Summit. It's a message to which the group immediately responds because most of them say they like Huckabee because he hasn't gone negative in Iowa, and because he just generally projects likeability.

Some of these people gathered signatures for Huckabee, helping to submit 2,300 here in New Jersey or 1,300 more than what the state requires, and now they're ready for the next challenges: busing up to New Hampshire to volunteer for the campaign, writing letters to the editor, or convincing friends and relatives to back their man.

"Very few of New Jersey's Republican Congressional delegation have declared their support for a presidential candidate, and we're reaching out to them," says Kane, a senior vice president at CitiGroup who worked for the Dole campaign in Iowa in the 1996 election, and spent three days with Huckabee in the summer before committing to the former governor of Arkansas.