By Fred Tuccillo, Managing Editor
New Jersey voters preparing to play their part in the Super Tuesday round of presidential primaries next week confront a shrinking cast of candidates and some last minute script changes in both the Democratic and Republican contests.
For Republicans, the withdrawal of Rudy Giuliani has set off some rapid reshuffling in a state that had once been seen as one of the keys to the former New York City mayor’s presidential aspirations.
Mr. Giuliani on Wednesday night endorsed Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is scheduled to campaign in New Jersey on Monday, making a noon appearance at the Colonial Volunteer Firehouse at 801 Kuser Road. Campaign organizers, anticipating a large crowd, are advising supporters to arrive at the firehouse by 11 a.m.
For Democrats, the withdrawal on Wednesday of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards frames Tuesday’s primaries in New Jersey and 23 other states as head-to head showdowns between New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
But Mercer County Democrats will still find Mr. Edwards on their ballots, along with former candidates Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich. They will also have the option of casting their votes for one of two “uncommitted” delegate slates, including one led by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora of Princeton.
In a letter to The Packet published on page 8A today, Assemblyman Gusciora said that New Jersey’s decision to move its presidential primary from June to February was “shortchanging the electorate” by providing too little time for voters to study the candidates’s positions on issues. The remedy, he said, was to send delegates to the party’s August convention who are not bound to any particular candidate.
Unlike the Democrats, New Jersey Republicans will be choosing between presidential candidates but not designating convention delegates on Tuesday. GOP delegate slates will be elected in the state’s June primary.
In addition to Sen. McCain, the Republican ballot in Mercer County will list his remaining opponents, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Congressman Ron Paul as well as Mr. Giuliani and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, who has also dropped out of the race.
The potential ramifications of Mr. Giuliani’s Wednesday night endorsement of Sen. McCain were illustrated the night before, when the Mercer County Republican Committee met in Hamilton to take its presidential endorsement vote. Sen. McCain outpolled Mr. Romney, his principle opponent, 32 to 17, but fell two votes short of the 34-vote majority required for endorsement. Mr. Giuliani, who was by that time absorbing a fatal defeat in Florida, received 16 votes from the Mercer committee.
The Giuliani supporters included Mercer County GOP chairman Roy Wesley.
”John McCain is the clear frontrunner as far as the committee is concerned,” Mr. Wesley said afterward. “Two more votes and he would have had the county’s endorsement.”
Mr. Wesley noted that neither the McCain nor Romney campaigns had sent surrogates to the Mercer committee meeting. “It’s unfortunate that these campaigns did not send representatives to make the case for their candidates,” he said. “I believe in McCain’s case it would have gotten him the endorsement.
The McCain campaign did raise its profile in central New Jersey on Saturday by setting up its state headquarters at 4619 Nottingham Way in Hamilton, the former campaign headquarters of State Sen. Bill Baroni, who is supporting Mr. McCain.
By Monday, campaign volunteers were working the phones and distributing lawn signs, according to Sen. Baroni, who had also begun visiting Republican voters in West Windsor Township on Sen. McCain’s behalf. “This is the hub epicenter of the McCain campaign,” he said. “It’s exciting to have it here in Central Jersey. It’s the first time a major presidential campaign has had that kind of base in the region.”
In the Democratic race, Sen. Obama’s campaign on Monday received a New Jersey endorsement from Princeton author Toni Morrison. Her letter of support was released at the same time Obama was being endorsed in Washington, D.C. by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy.
Ms. Morrison, who famously referred to Bill Clinton as the nation’s “first black president” is a winner of the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes and has been described by The National Endowment for the Humanities as America’s most renowned black woman writer.
In her written endorsement of Sen. Obama, she told the Illinois senator: “In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which, coupled with brilliance, equals wisdom.”
In his acknowledgement, Sen. Obama said: “Toni Morrison has touched a nation with the grace and beauty of her words, and I was deeply moved and honored by the letter she wrote and the support she is giving our campaign.”Staff Writer Nick Norlen also contributed to this story.
