And Union County Shall Rule Them All

by: huntsu

Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 10:49:31 AM EST

PolitickerNJ, which has a stupid policy of not linking to other sites that is against all that the Intertubes hold holy (we're better than that), is reporting that John Bramnick (R-21) is in line to be the new Republican minority leader in the Assembly.

He would join Tom Kean, Jr. (R-21) who holds the same position in the New Jersey Senate.

If you look very, very closely at the two names above you'll notice a commonality after them: R-21. Yep, they're both from Union County district 21!

You know who else has a lot of ties to Union County? Governor Chris Christie who cut his legal teeth as a partner at Dughi & Hewit in Cranford. Sure, we think of Christie as a Morris County guy, but still ...

Union County has an awful lot of power in the GOP right now, especially for a county that doesn't have one Republican elected to a county position.

huntsu :: And Union County Shall Rule Them All

Tags: Chris Christie, john bramnick, Tom Kean, (All Tags)

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And Union County Shall Rule Them All | 4 comments

Interesting (0.00 / 0)

Hmm... Union County is a divided house. The north is crimson red; the blue south dominates the county government.

R-21 extends outside of North Union into Somerset and Morris: the towns are some of the wealthiest in the country. It's absolutely impenetrable for Democrats; I doubt there's a safer Repub district in the state.

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com

by: Jersey Jazzman @ Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 18:39:19 PM UTC

It's Union County (0.00 / 0)

Truth is, while the Somerset and Morris towns are there in the 21st, they don't have a lot of say in anything. Long Hill is a pretty middle-class working kind of a town in many ways (though it has tony sections) and the Morris County party has ceded the district to Union County.

Warren and Watchung in Somerset probably should have an Assembly member, but can't get their acts together enough to stop winging at each other and demand one.

by: huntsu @ Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 18:53:57 PM UTC

About 20 years ago, Union had a strong R presence (0.00 / 0)

Union County Republican strength was actually centered in Union Township! And then extended out through Westfield and into the Watchung Mountain towns.

We think of Union County as very blue (like we do NJ) but Bob Franks, Donald DiFrancisco and Matthew Rinaldo all had a very strong Union County base --- in fact Union County can be said to really have anchored their careers.

by: JackHarris @ Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 22:28:31 PM UTC

You forgot Bill Palatucci (0.00 / 0)

Who is also a Westfield resident, I believe, along with Kean and Bramnick.

It's hard to believe, but Bramnick was a Republican Councilman in Plainfield in the early 90s. Nowadays no Republican has a snowball's chance in heck of winning in Plainfield, but the GOP was competitive there a generation ago.

I am going to write an article discussing the shift in Union County from a competitive, back-and-forth dynamic to Democratic control, and why the GOP's misfortune here mirrors its national dilemma.

"We are the leaders we've been waiting for." - Paul Wellstone

by: Stephen Yellin @ Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 04:28:48 AM UTC