The national political environment favored the GOP in 1966.  It was the mid-term election of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the war in Vietnam had just begun to divide the nation.  

In New Jersey, Republican Clifford Case was seeking re-election to a third term in the United States Senate, and even though Democrats scored huge wins a year earlier (Governor Richard Hughes was re-elected in a landslide and Democrats captured both houses of the Legislative), few believed the popular Case, with strong support from traditional Democratic base voters like organized labor, was going to lose.

Hughes sought to recruit the man he viewed as the strongest possible candidate: Robert Meyner, who served as Governor from 1954 to 1962.  He went as far as to publicly declare that Meyner was the only Democrat who beat Case, and when Meyner declined (he had his eyes on a return to Trenton, and ran for Governor -- without success -- three years later), Hughes told reporters that he believed Case would now be re-elected.

That made it even tougher for Democrats to find a candidate --- a sacrificial lamb -- to run in a race that would not go well. Their first candidate was Adrian Foley, an 45-year-old lawyer (he is currently a named partner at Connell Foley LLP in Livingston) who had won election as Essex County Surrogate at age 32 and became President of the New Jersey Bar Association in 1963.  Foley had initially agreed to run, and then backed out when he became President of the 1966 New Jersey Constitutional Convention.

Democrats still didn't have a candidate in June -- the primary was in September in those days -- and party leaders began to scramble.  The offered the slot to Ned Parsekian, a 44-year-old State Senator from Bergen County (he was elected eight months earlier) with a reputation for political independence.  He had served as Acting Director of the state Division of Motor Vehicles, and because of his unwillingness to use the office for political purposes, the State Senate had held his nomination as Director for three years; in 1964, his nomination as a Superior Court Judge was also blocked.

Parsekian declined the chance to challenge Case.  He lost his re-election to the Senate in 1967, mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1969 (against Meyner), and lost a Democratic primary for Congress in 1974 to Andrew Maguire, who went on to upset eleven-term Republican William Widnall in the Watergate landslide.  Parsekian died in 2008.

The Democrats were also turned down by John Bullitt, the 41-year-old Director of the state's anti-poverty program and a former Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in the Kennedy Administration.  

Finally, the nomination went to Warren Wilentz, 42, a former Middlesex County Prosecutor and the son of one of the state's most powerful political bosses.  David Wilentz served as state Attorney General in the 1930's (he prosecuted Bruno Richard Hauptmann for kidnapping and murdering Charles Lindbergh's infant son) and as the leader of the Middlesex County Democratic organization.  Wilentz was on his honeymoon in Hawaii when party leaders called him and asked him to run.

Two Republicans will formally announce campaigns for Congress this evening against Democratic incumbents: John Runyan, a retired NFL star who played for the Philadelphia Eagles, is challenging freshman U.S. Rep. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill), and Diane Gooch, a millionaire philanthropist and newspaper publisher, is taking on eleven-term U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch).

The 36-year-old Runyan, who retired from the NFL in January, has cleared the field for the GOP nod after securing organization lines in Burlington, Camden and Ocean counties.  Adler is the first Democrat to win the seat since 1884, and GOP Gov. Christopher Christie won the third district by 21 percentage points last November.  This is a district where Republicans can pick up a House seat.

The race against Pallone, the chairman of a powerful House subcommittee dealing with health care reform, is tougher for the GOP.  Pallone is popular among independents in GOP-leaning Monmouth County, and it’s been years since his winning percentage has dipped below 60%.  Pallone has a $4 million war chest, but Gooch and her husband, Wall Street financier Mickey Gooch, have Jon Corzine-like money.  Gooch has reportedly agreed to spend $2 million against Pallone, but self-funders often understate the amount they are willing to spend.  Christie won the sixth district by five percentage points.

Gooch is the favorite to win the GOP nomination against former Monmouth County Freeholder Anna Little, Rev. Shannon Wright, and others.

The problem for Pallone is that Gooch could force him to spend his war chest, putting the veteran congressman is a tougher cash position if a U.S. Senate seat opens up in the near future.

The unlikeliest of scenarios would be for New Jersey to have both United States Senate seats on the ballot in November: a recall vote on Robert Menendez, and a special election to fill Frank Lautenberg’s seat.  Tea Party organizers will have a hard time getting the 1.3 million signatures needed to force the recall (and after that, a challenge in federal court in front of judges with greater testicular fortitude than the state Appellate Court displayed).  The 86-year-old Lautenberg, who is battling stomach cancer, insists that he won’t resign from the Senate.

Middlesex County Democrats have endorsed congressional aide Ed Potosnak as their House candidate against freshman U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-Clinton).  Potosnak, who worked for a California congressman, has also secured the organization lines in Hunterdon and Union counties.