In 50-year political career, Herbert Shaw, 81, has sought many offices, from North Bergen commissioner to U.S. senator
Herbert Shaw, Hudson County's 81-year-old perennial candidate, has run for office on the "Politicians Are Crooks" ticket for around 50 straight years. He sits in his kitchen with the new sample ballot on the table. Last year, he lost the Sheriff race, and now he's put his name in for 32nd District State Senate.NORTH BERGEN — When his race is run — again — there will be no bands playing, no supporters to thank, no campaign headquarters where anxious crowds wait for the returns.
There will be no confetti, balloons or jobs to hand out either.
If history is any judge, 81-year-old Herbert Shaw is going to lose his bid for office Tuesday, just as he has every year for the past five decades. And it won’t be a squeaker for the North Bergen resident’s opponent. Shaw will be slammed. Trounced. Annihilated.
But he will not be bent or broken.
"My motive is revenge," says the state Senate candidate who looks more like a white-haired Abe Lincoln than a ruthless pol. Shaw says he continues his grudge matches because he was on the losing end of a public job in the 1960s — and he isn’t done rubbing the Hudson County Democratic Party machine’s nose in it yet.
Running on his perennial platform "Politicians Are Crooks," the retired operating engineer this time seeks to topple Sen. Nicholas Sacco (D-Hudson). In his 50-year political career, he has sought office as a North Bergen commissioner, Hudson County executive, county sheriff, assemblyman, state senator and U.S. senator. The registered Republican running as an independent also has never spent a penny on a campaign, or even a post-election special dinner. ("Celebrate my defeat?" he scoffed. "Ha.")
The Weehawken native’s interest in politics began with his opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam and his frustration with an electrical inspector’s position in North Bergen — he says he took a civil service exam and passed but lost that job to a politically connected man who failed the test. By the end of the ‘60s, Shaw had named his ticket and launched an inglorious political career.
DON’T CALL HIM A ‘HOPEFUL’
Shaw holds no illusions about winning an election. He runs his campaign from a blue-paneled three-story home he shares with his wife, Anne, three daughters, two grandsons and a pair of rat terriers — which is to say he doesn’t knock on doors and he doesn’t put up billboards. In other words, a whisper campaign would be louder. Yet the lifelong conservative still believes putting his slogan on the ballot every year helps raise awareness about what he sees as Democratic machine politics running the county.
This time around, Shaw’s making a point about "double-dipping," the New Jersey practice that lets elected officials serve in multiple public positions at the same time — and collect multiple taxpayer-supported pensions.
Even though then-Gov. Jon Corzine banned double-dipping in 2007, anyone who was already holding more than one public office at that time could continue to do so — including Sacco, Shaw’s latest opponent. Sacco has served concurrently in the state Legislature and as mayor of North Bergen for close to two decades, while also holding the position of assistant superintendent of the town’s public schools.
By Sharyn Jackson/For The Star-Ledger