Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Frank Raleigh Lautenberg, a Democrat who won more United States Senate races than any other person in New Jersey history.
He won the most spirited U.S. Senate primary in decades and prevailed in four hugely competitive general elections for the Senate. He spent nearly 29 years in the Senate during two non-consecutive tenures and never lost an election.
The son of Jewish immigrants, Lautenberg grew up In Paterson, served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and, using the GI bill, attended Columbia University. After a brief career selling insurance, Lautenberg joined Automated Data Processing (ADP) and helped build it into one of the nation’s largest payroll companies. He later lived in Nutley before moving to Montclair.
He became active in Democratic politics, becoming a six-figure donor to George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign. Gov. Brendan Byrne nominated him to serve as a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 1978.
In 1982, following U.S. Senator Harrison Williams’ conviction on federal bribery charges in the Abscam scandal, Lautenberg became a candidate for the United States Senate in a contest that was left wide-open after Rep. Jim Florio, who came within 1,797 votes of becoming governor the previous year, declined to run. He became one of New Jersey’s earliest self-funders.
Nine other Democrats entered the race: former Rep. Andy Maguire (D-Ridgewood); Joseph LeFante (D-Bayonne), a former congressman and Assembly Speaker; Mercer County Freeholder Barbara Boggs Sigmund; former Ambassador Howard Rosen; former Commissioner of Banking Angelo Bianchi; Passaic County Freeholder Cyril Yannarelli; labor leader and former Jamesburg Mayor Frank Forst; former Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello; and Richard McAleer, the son of a former assemblyman from Bayonne who had been a political ally of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague.
His campaign might never have gotten off the ground had Essex County Executive Peter Shapiro, a rising star who was still 29 when he opted out of the race, decided to run for Senate. The two shared donors and a liberal base.
Lautenberg defeated Maguire by 11,788 votes, 26%-23%, with LeFante finishing third with 20%. They were followed by Sigmund (11%), Rosen (7%), Bianchi (4%), Yannarelli (2.5%), Forst (2%), and McAleer (2%). Cresitello, who withdrew and endorsed LeFante but remained on the ballot, received 1%.
Spending about $1.8 million of his own money, Lautenberg won Atlantic, Essex, Gloucester, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Salem, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren counties. He scored second-place finishes in Bergen, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Hudson, and Hunterdon, and came in third in Mercer.
A post-primary Eagleton/Rutgers poll gave Republican Millicent Fenwick, the pipe-smoking four-term congresswoman who inspired a Doonesbury character, an 18-point lead. She began the race with solid favorables; nearly twice as many New Jerseyans knew who Fenwick was. In early October, she had maintained her 18-point lead over Lautenberg, 50%-32%.
Fenwick refused to accept PAC money, and Lautenberg was dogged; he spent millions of his own money, tying Fenwick to a tough economy in President Ronald Reagan’s midterm election. By Halloween, Lautenberg had cut Fenwick’s lead to five points among likely voters, 45%-40%; by Election Day, Fenwick had a one-point lead. Among those who strongly supported his candidacy was George Norcross, the South Jersey AFL-CIO president and the father of Democratic powerbroker George E. Norcross III.
Lautenberg defeated Fenwick by 69,923 votes, 51%-48%. He spent about $5 million of his own money.
Re-election campaigns
The GOP thought they could beat the 64-year-old Lautenberg in 1988 and believed they hit the candidate recruitment jackpot when they got Dawkins, retired Army general and Rhodes Scholar who won the 1958 Heisman Trophy while playing football at West Point, to move to New Jersey to run against Lautenberg.
Dawkins had a great story: he eschewed an NFL career to go to Oxford and received two Bronze Stars for his service commanding infantry divisions in Vietnam. He appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in uniform and served as a White House fellow. Dawkins spent 24 years in the army, serving at the Pentagon and retiring as a brigadier general.
“Pete Dawkins is the biggest thing to hit New Jersey since Bill Bradley,” Roger Stone, one of his political consultants, told political columnist Tom Hester.
The race pitted Stone against Lautenberg’s consultants, James Carville and Paul Begala.
As a first-time candidate, Dawkins had a series of missteps.
When he said, “I’d blow my brains out if I had to live in a small town,” Lautenberg pounced.
Lautenberg slammed Dawkins for being a carpetbagger, linked Dawkins to pollution at a California army base, and called him a phony. A magazine story titled “Pete Dawkins and The Art of Failing Upward” didn’t help.
“Come on, Pete, be real” became a tagline of Lautenberg’s TV ads.
Dawkins called Lautenberg a “swamp dog.”
New Jersey voters split their ticket in 1988. Bush carried New Jersey by 422,839 votes, a 56%-42% win against Michael Dukakis. Lautenberg beat Dawkins by 249,968 votes, 54%-45%.
In 1994, Bill Clinton’s midterm and a challenging year for Democrats nationally, the better-financed and more well-known Lautenberg faced an aggressive challenge from Assembly Speaker Chuck Haytaian. With the support of the state’s new GOP governor, Christine Todd Whitman, Haytaian coasted to a 2-1 primary win over former State Sen. Brian Kennedy (R-Sea Girt).
Lautenberg spent the entire election ahead but never more than 48%. He slammed Haytaian as a career politician – his election to the Warren County Board of Freeholders came six years before Lautenberg entered the Senate – and said his pro-life, pro-gun stances were too extreme for New Jersey.
Despite the Republican landslide nationally – Republicans won eight U.S. Senate seats — Lautenberg outspent Haytaian by a 3-2 margin – he wound up putting about $1 million into his campaign – and won by 67,243 votes, 40%-47%. He was boosted by a three-point win in Bergen, a one-point win in Passaic, and an eight-point victory in Union, all considered swing counties at the time.
Retirement and comeback
In 1999, the 76-year-old Lautenberg, facing a possible challenge from Whitman and tired of raising money, announced he would not seek re-election to a fourth term in 2000. He regretted his decision almost immediately, especially after watching Whitman drop out of the race and another Democratic self-funder, Jon Corzine, win his seat.
Lautenberg missed public life so much that he briefly considered returning to Paterson and running for mayor.
But on September 30, 2002, New Jersey’s other U.S. Senator, Bob Torricelli, dropped out of the race after a federal investigation caused him to fall behind the Republican nominee, former West Windsor Mayor Douglas Forrester. Democrats were defending a 51-49 majority, pushing Torricelli out to protect the seat.
Democrats initially offered the nomination to Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), who accepted and then changed his mind. Rep. Bob Menendez (D-Union City) turned it down; so did former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley.
For a short time, it looked like McGreevey was set to go with a surprise candidate, Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Roberts, a nine-term legislator from Camden County and the former Democratic State Chairman. Roberts emerged as a strong contender with the active support of three powerful Democrats: Norcross, former State Senate President John Lynch, and Joseph DiVincenzo, the Democratic candidate for Essex County Executive.
But Senate Democratic leaders strongly opposed a largely unknown candidate like Roberts, threatening to pull the plug on DSCC funds for the New Jersey seat. Gov. James E. McGreevey even enlisted his state Transportation Commissioner, Jamie Fox, a longtime Torricelli staffer and the former DSCC Executive Director, to lobby national Democratic leaders. But national Democrats could not see the logic of picking Roberts when a better-known Lautenberg appeared willing to enter the race. Roberts issued a “thank you, but I’m not interested” statement, although the embers of his candidacy continued throughout the day of Torricelli’s withdrawal.
When the call was finally placed to Lautenberg offering him the chance to return to the U.S. Senate, he was already in his car on his way to Drumthwacket. He immediately said yes.
For Lautenberg, a five-week campaign was far more palatable than what he has been accustomed to, especially since he wouldn’t need to spend years dialing for dollars. He had agreed to put some of his own money into the race.
McGreevey dispatched his posted trusted political deputy, Kevin Hagan, to manage Frank Lautenberg’s campaign and ensured his team of consultants, Steve DeMicco and Brad Lawrence, were aboard.
Republicans argued that it was too late to switch candidates – some vote-by-mail (called absentee ballots in 2002) were already out, and ballots had been printed. They challenged the candidate switch before the New Jersey Supreme Court but couldn’t beat the election lawyer for the Democrats, Angelo Genova.
By Election Day, Lautenberg had wrestled the lead back from Forrester and the GOP; he won by 209,754 votes, 44%-44%.
Having experienced life out of the Senate, Lautenberg had no intention of leaving again; he ran for re-election in 2008 at age 84.
He faced a last-minute Democratic primary challenge from Rep. Rob Andrews (D-Bellmawr) but defeated him by more than 23 points. Republicans had trouble settling on a candidate and nominated former Rep. Dick Zimmer (R-Delaware Township); Lautenberg romped to a 490,193-vote victory, 46%-42%.
Lautenberg had initially planned to run again in 2014 when he would be 90, but after a series of health issues — and an announced primary challenge from Newark Mayor Cory Booker – he decided to retire.
On June 3, 2013, Lautenberg died of viral pneumonia at age 89.