Apparently when the chips are down, people start gambling. Consumers may be clutching tighter to their purse strings these days, but neither the rumblings of a recession nor the recent smoking ban have kept gamblers from spending in Atlantic City.

After casino profits plummeted throughout 2007, causing New Jersey’s gaming revenues to register the first year-over-year decline in Atlantic City’s history (widely attributed to the introduction of slots in Pennsylvania), Memorial Day gave Jersey Shore casinos a much needed boost.

In May, the state’s gaming revenue increased 1.61 percent to $415.348 million, according to Fantini’s June Gaming Report published today (for subscribers), after dropping steadily since January.  read more »

Rob Andrews, the South Jersey congressman who is challenging Senator Frank R. Lautenberg in New Jersey's June Democratic primary, just appointed his campaign chairman: Michael Murphy, the stepson of former Governor Richard J. Hughes (who served two terms from 1961 to 1969) and himself a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1997.

Murphy is generally one of the good guys in New Jersey politics, but apparently he's had quite a change of heart when it comes to Andrews.  read more »

Frank Lautenberg is ripe for defeat in New Jersey’s June Democratic primary, and his opponent, Rob Andrews, looks well-positioned to dislodge him.

Lautenberg is 84 years old, while Andrews is a young-looking 50. The challenger will benefit from future-vs.-past themes. And it’s not as if Democrats feel much personal or political pull toward the incumbent.  read more »

For the first time in eight years, it will be up to New Jersey’s Democratic voters to determine their party’s nominee for a statewide office. Here’s a look at one of the major factors that will shape this June’s Senate fight between incumbent Frank Lautenberg and challenger Rob Andrews:

The County Lines

These are uniquely important in New Jersey politics. In most states, every voter’s ballot looks pretty much the same, with candidates grouped together by the office they’re seeking, and with their names arranged in some kind of coherent order.  read more »

Three years ago, Rob Andrews—like every other ambitious New Jersey Democrat—believed that the best way to get ahead was to be a team player, racking up goodwill and IOU's among party insiders with the faith that, when the time came, they'd return the favor and support his for statewide office.

Part of being a team player meant supporting Frank Lautenberg, who returned to the Senate in 2002 after a brief two-year absence. In March of 2005, Lautenberg held his first major fund-raiser for his 2008 reelection campaign, a lavish affair at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Barack Obama was the star attraction. Marvin Hamlisch provided the music. And Rob Andrews was one of the top donors.  read more »

Finally, after years of false starts, Rob Andrews has grasped what so many ambitious and otherwise bright New Jersey Democrats haven’t: If you stand around waiting for someone to hand you a promotion, you’re never going to get anywhere.

Andrews, age 50, is intimately familiar with the particular agony that attends missed opportunities in politics, because he is condemned to live with the knowledge that he might this very moment be a top player in national politics—if only he could have found a way to beat Jim McGreevey.  read more »

So much for that. Just when it looked like Frank Lautenberg had dodged a career-threatening bullet, the dams suddenly appear to be breaking.

Rob Andrews, the South Jersey congressman who jolted the New Jersey political world on Monday when he suddenly began flirting with a primary challenge to Lautenberg, has – according to PolitickerNJ.com – made some stunning inroads into North Jersey's most coveted Democratic turf.  read more »

Frank Raleigh Lautenberg, New Jersey’s 84-year-old senior U.S. senator, is not a beloved public official. He has served off and (mostly) on since 1982, but has never garnered more than 54 percent of the vote in four winning campaigns. His approval ratings are mostly lukewarm, owing more to New Jersey’s partisan tendencies than anything else, and his biggest accomplishment in D.C.  read more »

The concert promotion powerhouse Bowery Presents, owners of the Bowery Ballroom and the Mercury Lounge, as well as the more recently opened Music Hall of Williamsburg and Terminal 5, is beginning a new venture across the Hudson River. Starting this fall, the historic Wellmont Theater in Montclair, N.J.—an artsy town that's home to lots of actors and journalists (and Stephen Colbert)—will reopen under a newly formed independent concert promotion company called Montclair Entertainment, which includes several principals from Bowery Presents, The Star Ledger reports.  read more »

In another sign that the Democratic establishment now views Barack Obama as the inevitable nominee, Hillary Clinton has been hit by two more major defections -- from key supporters in a state whose primary she won handily.

Dana Redd and Donald Norcross, two superdelegates from New Jersey, both announced this morning that they are switching their backing from Clinton to Obama.  read more »