By Susan C. Moeller / Senior Reporter

(From left, Loretta Weinberg and Kim Guadagno)

(Oct. 29, 2009) — Barring an upset from “Team Daggett” and his lieutenant governor candidate Frank Esposito, the role of New Jersey’s first lieutenant governor will go to a woman.

Democrat state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, the only Bergen County resident at the top of the ballot, is running with Gov. Jon S. Corzine against Republican candidate Chris Christie’s pick for the spot, Kim Guadagno.

Weinberg, who has two children and two grandchildren, made waves in Bergen County politics by bucking then-party leader Joseph Ferriero before his 2008 indictment and Oct. 22 conviction on conspiracy and mail fraud charges.

“I stood up to my party boss,” Weinberg said in an interview with The Leader after a Lyndhurst event in September.  “They never invited me to this party. I had to fight my way into it.”

Weinberg, who worked with her late husband in his small business before taking on government and elected positions, first got involved in politics at the local level in Teaneck. She went to a council meeting because, as a mother pushing a baby carriage on a hot day, she was dissatisfied with the number of trees in town, Weinberg said.

Since then, she has served on the Teaneck council and in the New Jersey general assembly and senate.

At the state level, she has sponsored legislation that requires insurers to pay for at least 48-hours of in-hospital care for mothers who have just given birth. She also sponsored the NJ Smoke Free Air Act, prohibiting smoking in the workplace and other public places.

As a senator, Weinberg voted on the legislation to create the position of lieutenant governor, but she didn’t expect to run for the job herself. “I can assure you that I had no idea that it would have anything to do with me personally,” Weinberg said.

“She watches out for those without a voice,” Corzine said of his running mate, responding to a question about Weinberg from the Leader during a telephone press conference. “She has always been known as the conscience of the legislature.”

On the other side of the race, Guadagno has roots in law enforcement. She is currently Monmouth County Sheriff, but her career has also included stints in the federal prosecutor’s office in Newark and in Brooklyn, New York.

As part of the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office, Guadagno was Deputy Chief of the corruption unit, where she prosecuted cases against politicians from both parties.

Being the first woman in a power slot is not new for Guadagno; she earned the distinction when she took the reigns of the Monmouth County Sheriff’s office. With Guadagno at the helm, the department has achieved “ national accreditation in five major areas of operation. It is the only agency of 3,088 across the United States to earn this distinction,” according to information provided by the Christie campaign.

“Kim has the executive experience that New Jerseyans need in their first lieutenant governor,” Christie stated when he announced Guadagno as his running mate.

“Kim has proven over her career that she has the ability to do the right thing, day in and day out.”

Guadagno is married with three children.

Efforts to contact Esposito, Chris Daggett’s pick for lieutenant governor, proved unsuccessful before press time. The picture the campaign provided for Esposito was not of a resolution fit for publication.