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EAST HANOVER – Christine Serrano Glassner was introduced Wednesday night as someone who will be running against Bob Menendez next year.
It’s probably wishful thinking to the extreme, but don’t blame the crowd of Morris County Republicans at the Hanover Manor for doing a little dreaming.
Republicans, as all who care about this stuff know, have not elected a senator from New Jersey since 1972.
But now the incumbent Democrat is under indictment for among other misdeeds, taking gold bars as bribes. Talk about a nice target.
Unfortunately for Serrano Glassner, Menendez probably will not be on the ballot. The feeling here is that he won’t run again.
But even if he does run, Menendez is highly unlikely to survive the primary. Andy Kim, the congressman from CD-3, already is in the race.
For the sake of trivia, just a partial list of unsuccessful Republican Senate candidates over the last five decades is a diverse one.
It includes, in no particular order, a pipe-smoking aristocrat (Millicent Fenwick), a former college football star (Pete Dawkins), the son of a popular governor (Tom Kean Jr.), the then-Speaker of the Assembly (Chuck Haytaian) and a one time pharma executive (Bob Hugin).
Serrano Glassner, the mayor of Mendham Borough, seems undaunted by all that.
She told the crowd that she’s working 10 hours a day, seven days a week, to first secure the GOP nomination and then win the seat next fall.
And whoever the Democratic candidate is, she says she’ll be ready.
She’s looking ahead, but on this night, Laura Ali, the county GOP chair, was recapping the recent past.
It’s already been, Ali said, a “fantastic 2023.”
She highlighted the ascension of state Sen. Anthony M. Bucco of Boonton Township to Minority Leader and a number of big primary wins.
Candidates backed by the GOP organization faced what turned out to be nasty primary challenges this June for legislative seats in LD-24 and LD-26 and also for county commissioner.
The candidates endorsed by the party won them all. And as Ali put it:
“We are the winners. We are the team that wins.”
But there was more good news to trumpet. The event was in East Hanover to highlight the fact that a few months ago, the entire five-person council switched parties en masse from Democrat to Republican.
Sen. Jon Bramnick of nearby Union County was on hand as well, praising Bucco, and his late father, Anthony R. Bucco.
“When Tony Bucco’s your friend, he’s your friend forever,” Bramnick said. “That’s what the Bucco family is all about.”
As for Bucco, he spoke about the need for Republicans to stay together, which, judging from recent primaries in Morris, doesn’t always happen.
“We can’t fight among ourselves,” he said.
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