JASON RILEY: GUESSWORK….WHO WILL REPLACE FRANK LAUTENBERG?
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Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey died Monday morning from complications due to viral pneumonia. He was 89, the Senate’s oldest member and the last World War II veteran in the Upper Chamber.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie will name Lautenberg’s replacement, and a special election is expected to be held in November. State law permits the governor to appoint a replacement and to schedule a special election, according to National Journal. “That special has to take place either on Nov. 5, 2013, when Christie himself is likely to win reelection, or an earlier date if he chooses.”
Lautenberg, who had been ill for several weeks, had already announced that he wouldn’t run for re-election next year, and Cory Booker, the Democratic mayor of Newark, is a 2014 candidate. But Lautenberg’s death means that Democrats will lose a reliable vote in the Senate at least until the special election.
Republican Senate candidates have not had much luck in the Garden State in recent decades. The last successful bid was Clifford Case’s in 1972, when Mr. Christie was 10 years old. Given the poor track record of moderate Republican candidates like Tom Kean Jr. and Joe Kyrillos, the governor will come under pressure to name a conservative.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for the governor to be his bold self and appoint a pro-life woman or a full-spectrum conservative businessman,” Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway told me in an email. John Crowley, a biotech executive who briefly considered challenging the state’s other Democratic senator, Robert Menendez, last year, “would be a superb choice,” said Ms. Conway. “This would be smart policy and smart politics, buttressing his conservative bona fides for 2016 and quieting the misplaced criticism about the Obama Bromance following Hurricane Sandy.”
Steve Lonegan, who runs the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity and who lost the GOP gubernatorial primary to Mr. Christie in 2009, told me that he’s interested in the Senate seat. Fox News host Geraldo Rivera has talked about running and even met with the governor. Mr. Christie’s lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, may also be under consideration. The governor might be tempted to go with someone like Bill Palatucci, a confidante and fundraiser, though such a pick would almost certainly be criticized as crony capitalism.
New Jersey is a blue state that President Obama won by 17 points last year, so the conventional political wisdom is that only a liberal Republican would stand a chance against Mr. Booker, a rising Democratic star who is expected to win his party’s nomination. But if Mr. Christie is thinking about his own political future beyond New Jersey, a conservative pick could win him points with GOP primary voters in the 2016 presidential race.
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