Robert Menendez

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U.S. Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Joseph Lieberman (ID-Conn.)

Both of New Jersey's Democratic Senators voted to keep Joe Lieberman as Chairman of the Senator Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Lieberman, an Independent Democrat who backed John McCain for President, held his post by a 42-13 vote, with Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez voting in the majority.

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U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey will designate an Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Ralph Marra,, Jr., the current First Assistant AUSA, has reportedly been recommended by Chris Christie for the post

Christopher Christie's early exit as federal prosecutor makes it easier for his top assistant, Ralph Marra, Jr., to become the Acting U.S. Attorney while the new President settles on a permanent replacement.  Traditionally, prosecutors sbmit their resignations effective with the change in administrations (January 20, 2009) and the U.S. Attorney General designates the First Assistant as Acting U.S. Attorney.  That person remains in office for four months, with a term that can be extedned by a panel of federal judges, until the President gets around to nominating a new prosecutor -- and until the U.S. Senate votes to confirm the nomination.  Christie didn't become U.S. Attorney until more than a year after George W. Bush took office.

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For Barack Obama, the process will be a bit easier: New Jersey has two Democratic U.S. Senators, and a Senate that is controlled by Democrats.  But appointing Christie's successor is not likely to be the top priority of the new adminisration.  Christie's departure 51 days before Obama takes office allows Michael Mukasey, Bush's Attorney General, to designate the Acting U.S. Attorney -- presumably Marra, a career federal prosecutor and a Democrat with close ties to Christie.   

U.S. Marshal James Plousis, a Republican, is expected to lose his job when Barack Obama becomes President

One campaign certain to get underway soon is the race for U.S. Marshal, a post that will flip from Republican to Democrat next year.  James Plousis, a former Cape May County Sheriff who was named U.S. Marshal by George W. Bush in 2002, is expected to follow tradition and offer his resignation effective with the start of Barack Obama's presidency on January 20, 2009.  Plousis' predecessor was Glen Cunningham, who was a former Jersey City Police Officer and City Councilman before Bill Clinton named him in 1996.  New Jersey's two United States Senators, Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, will effectively pick the next federal marshal.

One Democratic leader close to the senior U.S. Senator suggests that Lautenberg's choice could be Mitchell Sklar, his former Legislative Assistant who is now the Executive Director of the New Jersey Association of Chiefs of Police.  Lautenberg is also backing Paul Fishman, a former Justice Department official in the Clinton administration, for U.S. Attorney.  Menendez has not reportedly not yet focused on this particular position.

Cunningam was the only African American to serve as New Jersey's U.S. Marshal.  All his predecessors where white men.

While the shot list has not yet developed, expect several names to come off quickly: Democratic insiders say it won't be Atantic County Sheriff James McGettigan, who lost his bid for re-election to a sixth term last week and needs a job.  And it is not likely to be Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire, whose ties to indicted Democratic County Chairman Joseph Ferriero won't help his chances (and besides, he wants to run for County Executive in 2010 when Democrats dump Dennis McNerney). 

John Adler won a seat in Congress eighteen years after his first House race.

Now it seems trendy to run for Congress, lose, then spend a lot of years in state government before finally making it to Washington.  In 2006, Albio Sires won an open House seat twenty years after his first attempt.  Sires had challenged U.S. Rep. Frank Guarini as a Republican in 1986; he later won local office in West New York, and after switching parties in 1999, he beat an incumbent Assemblyman in the Democratic primary.  He became Assembly Speaker after the 2001 election, and went to Congress after Bob Menendez joined the United States Senate.

Both of New Jersey's freshmen Congressman had previously lost House races.  John Adler ran against Jim Saxton in 1990 and lost 60%-40%.  A year later, despite one of the two biggest Republican landslides in state political history, he ousted four-term GOP State Sen. Lee Laskin.  Leonard Lance first ran for Congress in 1996, when Richard Zimmer gave up his seat to run for U.S. Senate; he finished third in the GOP primary, behind Michael Pappas and John Bennett. Lance moved from the Assembly to the Satate Senate in 2001, and became Minority Leader in 2004.

Three New Jerseyans played key roles in Barack Obama's 50.8%-48.4% win in Florida yesterday: Jamie Fox, a former Chief of Staff to Governor James E. McGreevey, was dispatched to Florida at the request of Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to help turn the state from Red to Blue; and U.S. Senator Robert Menendez spent several days campaigning in Florida for Obama -- especially in the Cuban-American community that makes up about 29% of the county's population. Fox also brought Tom Shea, a former Chief of Staff to Governor Jon Corzine, to Florida to help with the effort. Obama won Miami-Dade 58%-42%, a margin of nearly 140,000 votes. In 2004, the Democratic margin was about 48,000.

A bottomed-out President George W. Bush and losses in New Jersey presidential elections extending to the late 1980s invariably prompt Republicans to designate the Reagan era as a modern touchstone for their party.

The fact that he won here in back-to-back elections still sparks the GOP to pepper their fighting words with Reagan invocations, evidenced by McCain surrogates specifically targeting “Reagan Democrats” at the opening of their headquarters in Woodbridge this summer.

The Gipper remains the man among GOP, going up to the top of their ticket, where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) repeatedly refers to Reagan as his hero and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hits a raise the roof crescendo every time she utters the late president’s name on the stump.

U.S. Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) today announced that the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded more than $4 million in federal funds to Princeton University for its climate research programs.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) is scheduled to return to Florida on Thursday and Friday of this week to stump for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.).

The senator was in the battleground Sunshine State earlier this month campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nominee in Miami.

Before he leaves, Menendez is also scheduled to keynote a rally sponsored by Latinos for Obama at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark on Wednesday evening.

PATERSON - Since North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato brought New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to the Flamboyan on the weekend after the Democratic National Convention, major Latino leaders have to this point hardly shown overwhelming enthusiasm in their endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.).

Hillary Clinton beat Obama in the Democratic Primary by almost ten percent or roughly the equivalent of the Latino vote, which is heavily Democratic in New Jersey and which was energized for Feb. 5th by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken), Adubato and U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-West New York).

Now heading for the general election in three weeks and mindful - but not fearful - of that primary falloff in Latino numbers for Obama, party leaders held a Spanish and Spanglish-heavy rally here today, in a city that's over 50 percent Latino, in a county where Latinos number 44,849, or well over a fifth of all registered voters in Passaic.

Democratic insiders say that Lawrence Lustberg, the chairman of the criminal defense department at Gibbons, one of the state's largest law firms, will be on the short list of candidates for United States Attorney if Barack Obama wins the presidency.