OLD BRIDGE – When Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Rullo tried to forge an emotional connection with his audience at Wednesday night’s Middlesex County GOP screening, he didn’t get exactly the response he had sought.

A Middlesex native who now lives in Ocean County, Rullo asked the crowd if they would like to have a governor from their home county.

“We already had one,” someone said. “McGreevey.”

The reference was, of course, to the former Woodbridge mayor, a Democrat who resigned in 2004.

The same individual noted that Middlesex has given the state four governors.

Rullo also isn’t the only Middlesex native running in this current campaign cycle. Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-19) of Sayreville originally hails from Perth Amboy.

It’s notable that the last colonial governor of New Jersey lived in Middlesex.

William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Ben Franklin, prior to fleeing NJ occupied the proprietary house, which still stands in Perth Amboy.