Bob Torricelli

An observation on how the New York Times’ coverage of New Jersey has changed over the years: when Bergen County Republican Chairman Anthony Statile resigned in 1973, the New York Times wrote five separate stories on the special election to replace him – but did not cover the passage of the state budget in 2008.  The promotion of David Chen from Trenton to New York City Hall ends a chain of highly influential New Jersey-based New York Times reporters (like Joseph Sullivan, Ronald Sullivan, David Halbfinger and David Kocieniewski) that influenced New Jersey politics as much as any in-state newspaper.  As recently as 2001 and 2002, the NYT played a key role in ending the political careers of Gov. Donald DiFrancesco and U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli.

Superior Court Judge Harold Hollenbeck will reach the mandatory retirement age of seventy on December 29, possibly ending a career in public service that began with his election to the East Rutherford Borough Council in 1966.  But some Republican insiders say that Hollenbeck could be the GOP’s strongest candidate to challenge Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney in 2010.

Hollenbeck was elected to the State Assembly in 1967, at the age of 29, as part of a Republican sweep of Bergen County in the second mid-term election of Democratic Gov. Richard Hughes. After two terms in the Assembly, he won a State Senate seat in 1971. 

The new field director of Barack Obama’s Campaign for Change in New Jersey is Tim Del Monico, who is on leave from his position as a Legislative Assistant to U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone.  Del Monico worked for the 2002 New Jersey Coordinated Campaign in 2002 and for U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli and Assemblyman Peter Eagler before joining John Kerry’s presidential campaign.   Del Monico has worked campaigns in Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, California and Arizona.

One hesitates to quote Shakespeare to the Editors of The Record. The thought of all that dust rising from their library shelves is enough to make me sneeze. They do, however, "protest too much".

The Editors of the Record (known affectionately as the "Hacks on the Hackensack") announced that they were closing their main office, firing photographers, and reporters would operate from homes and automobiles by cell phone. This announcement, in the context of falling subscription rates and declining advertising revenues, led to the inevitable observation that the Record is on a course to bankruptcy.

It was a fair point. Newspapers are failing every day. The Record is located in one of the best demographic regions of the nation but has been increasingly marginalized. Its readership is aging and limited to the least educated and lowest economic base of Bergen County. Subscription rates and the County mortality rate are almost exactly equal.

The Record probably would have died anyway but the decision to abandon its role as the staple of suburban living and adopt an angry and mean tone accelerated the larger destructive trends. Newspapers are dying every day but some survive by filling niches. The Star Ledger has become the only credible source of state news while the New York Times and Washington Post have become indispensable as sources of international or national information. The Record decided that it had a role as the mirror of everything that was ugly on the face of its own constituency.

Among the nearly 1 million residents of Bergen County, approximately 0.4 percent are on the county payroll. But that figure jumps precipitously -- to more than 40 percent -- for one group of Bergen residents in particular: Democratic municipal chairs loyal to Bergen County Democratic Organization chairman Joseph Ferriero. That means that the 70 Democratic municipal chairs and five legislative district leaders in the county are more than 100 times more likely to hold government jobs than the average Bergen County resident.

Governor Jon Corzine’s 2009 re-election campaign war chest got a little bigger this weekend after an estimated 100 people attended a fundraiser at the Hunterdon County home of former U.S. Senator Bob Torricelli. Among the guests: South Jersey Democratic leader George Norcross.

Bob Torricelli, the former senator from New Jersey, thinks The Record newspaper in Bergen County is facing financial problems because they're just "mean."

More from PolitickerNJ.com:
Round One: Torricelli on The (Bergen) Record
Round Two: Doblin takes on Torricelli

Alfred Doblin, the editorial page editor and columnist for The Record, was offended by former U.S. Sen. Bob Torricelli's PolitickerNJ.com Op-Ed that sharply criticized his newspaper.

"Being lectured on meanness by the likes of Bob Torricelli is akin to Amy Winehouse leading a rehab retreat for substance abusers," Doblin wrote.  CLICK HERE TO READ DOBLIN'S COLUMN