Robert Menendez

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 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. 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.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) is scheduled to board a flight to Florida today and will be there until tomorrow campaigning for presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.), according to Democratic sources.

Menendez was in Nashville on Tuesday and took part in multiple nationally televised interviews at the second presidential debate.

U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark): Politicker photo

DENVER - It was coming to an end in an Irish bar, only it wouldn’t actually end there. It would in another bar, a few blocks removed.

Two bars separated by one speech.

"It should be a walkover, of course," said U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark). "These guys - Obama and McCain - are neck and neck. I think it’s perhaps the trepidation about race that makes it that way, but we'll see."

In a few hours, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would take the stage and accept his party’s nomination.

Payne, and his elder brother former Assemblyman Bill Payne, mingled among a respectably large crowd of guests in this, the last big, pre-Obama speech bash in downtown Denver at the Celtic Tavern, thrown by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) and U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson).

The Celtic Tavern is located near the light rail line, and soon the delegates and superdelegates and other guests would pile aboard and head out to Invesco Field to see and hear Obama.

In the meantime, the hosts brought Speaker Joe Cryan up onto the stage with the folk band to take a bow. Just as they were stepping over the microphone cords and getting ready to launch into the Irish songs, the bar door swung open and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy walked in, prompting Pascrell to make a special introduction.

It almost looked staged, as if a staffer had sent Healy a text message. Healy's a good Irish tenor with a rich, well-modulated voice.

But the mayor’s stride-in would astoundingly prove a premature entrance to the main event, for on this afternoon, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Union City) went to the front of the room.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Union City): Politicker photo

DENVER - Sen. Robert Menedez (D-Union City) sang a more than passable verison of "Tora Lora Lora" at the Pallone-Pascrell pre-Obama speech party at the Celtic Tavern here Thursday night.

The Irish-Americans in the room listened with apparent satisfaction.

Corzine deputy chief of staff Maggie Moran, governor's spokesman Sean Darcy, Pallone chief Jeff Carroll and others all gave Menendez's perfomance a ramrod thumbs-up.

There wasn't a dry mug in the place.

U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn): Politicker file photo 

DENVER - It's not in his hands now, but U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn) would love to see Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Union city) receive a speaking role at the Democratic National Convention.

"It would be great for Obama, great for New Jersey and great for the party," said Rothman, Obama's Northeast Regional campaign co-chair, who is in attendance at a party in the Inverness Hotel in honor of Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden).

DENVER - When Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) attended his first convention, he was running for Congress and serving as a Bill Clinton delegate in 1992. "It was interesting," Menendez recalled in a phone interview with PolitickerNJ.com. "We invited this little known Southern governor to Hudson County, to our Hudson County dinner. He lost his voice that night, but he was very earnest in his effort, and he went on to become our president." Now Menendez, vice chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), backs Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL.), calling the Illinois senator the kind of leader people are looking for to help the country through a tough time in its history. 

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez has an upside-down 33%-34% approval rating among New Jersey registered voters, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. That’s a sharp drop from a June 11 poll, when the Senator’s job approval was at 36%-26%. He’s at 28%-36% among independents, 31%-37% in South Jersey, and 30%-35% among white voters. 

BRANCHBURG- Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6) helped the Somerset County Democratic Party raise about $50,000 at a private fundraiser here on Saturday.

"Bob Menendez came up from Washington because he believes in the potential to turn this county blue," said Zenon Christodoulou, vice chair of the party.

Christodoulou and his fellow Democrats are fighting a long tradition of Republican rule in Somerset.