RONALD RICE

U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark), left, and Councilman Donald Payne, Jr.

NEWARK – In what is more than a one-man crusade, even if its most significant political implication may be a test of the fighting shape of a respected political dynasty, and the future of an aging congressman, former 28th District Assemblyman Craig A. Stanley intends to launch his off-the-line election campaign tomorrow at noon at the corner of South Orange Avenue near the Garden State Parkway.

The nephew of U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark), Stanley served for six consecutive terms before the alliance of Mayor Cory Booker and North Ward Democratic Party leader Steve Adubato backed an alternative district slate that included Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville) and Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark), both of whom are now seeking reelection with Booker’s and Adubato’s backing.

NEWARK – Veteran Sen. Ronald L. Rice (D-Newark) said he has had several sit-downs with Gov. Jon Corzine to make certain women and minorities are an integral part of the federal aid package, which Rice fears could turn into a labor free-for-all that would little benefit low-income District 28 constituents.

“As a Democrat I’m asked to fight for construction trades contracts but then those projects don’t include women and minorities, and all I’m saying is when we start really distributing this aid from the feds, we better pay attention to Latinos, our African Americans and women – you follow me? Because historically with projects like these, there has not been that inclusion. 

“We’re in a tough cycle economy,” added Rice, who infuriated the AFL-CIO when he abstained on last year's Paid Family Leave Act vote. “This is real in terms of the downside: 12-13-14 % unemployment in Newark, but I want to make sure we are part of the stimulus, and the Black Caucus will continue to meet with the governor to collectively drive that issue home.”

From left: U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, Sen Ronald Rice, Andre Reames, Bill Payne, Freeholder/Councilman Donald Payne, Jr., and Craig Stanley

NEWARK – Democratic Party stronghold Essex was supposed to be quiet this season as Newark and the environs reflect on a North Ward-City Hall lovefest and prepare for the reelection campaign of Gov Jon Corzine. 

Now the Payne family appears mobilized on the primary horizon here in the 28th District and potentially in the 29th, though insiders say it's unlikely they will be able to escalate a fullscale battle, even if they choose to fight.

After getting bumped out of office by an Adubato-Booker alliance in 2007, family scion former Assemblyman Craig Stanley (D-Irvington) is trying to scratch his way back into the legislature and finding little organizational support in the process with two weeks to go before the April 6th state filing deadline.

Essex sources on all sides say there’s little or no chance Chairman Phil Thigpen will award the District 28 party line to Stanley over incumbents Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville) and Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) - not in a gubernatorial election year when an unpopular Corzine faces more than a warm body challenge from the Republican Party, and party chieftains are intent on trying to keep his troops in line. 

Thigpen himself is cryptic on the Stanley issue.

Senate President Richard Codey (D-West Orange)

Democratic Party auditions are ongoing for the state’s first lieutenant governor, but if there are any white males interested in playing Banquo to Jon Corzine’s Macbeth, their soliloquies at present are decidedly understated – even inaudible.  

Sources close to state Senate President Richard Codey (D-West Orange), for example, say the former governor who shouldered executive office duties after Jim McGreevey’s 2004 bow-out, doesn’t want the lieutenant governor’s job, although some party insiders say the regular guy lawmaker – or someone like him - could provide the right bounce to a ticket headed by Gov. Jon Corzine.

New Jersey’s electorate breaks roughly into three ideological sections: 25% liberal, 25% conservative, and 50% moderate. 

Of course, Republicans will seize on spending during the last eight years and a budget ballooned from $25 billion up to $33 billion to brand Codey a bloated government Tip O’Neill lib, but the former governor’s coach and family man cred lends him the kind of Christmas card patriarch appeal arguably doable with suburban white moderates. And if Codey couldn't convince as a moderate, he at least would have little trouble wearing the label "political pragmatist."

At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano, left, and Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton)

SOMERSET – The influx of federal stimulus money dominated much of the conversation here Saturday night at the Garden State Equality dinner, with some Democrats privately terrified by the prospect of misspent money ballooning into a crippling headline just in time for the gubernatorial election.

As there are just two gubernatorial contests nationwide this year, New Jersey becomes the de facto frontline for President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, and what most anticipate will be a Meadowlands charm offense by the president on the eve of the election could boomerang badly for Democrats if they mismanage the historic infusion of cash. 

After meeting a week ago with Obama, who told governors to pay particular attention to ensuring stimulus transparency, Gov. Jon Corzine said New Jersey would receive $17.5 billion from the  federal aid package, or $7.5 billion in tax benefits, and $10 billion for Medicaid, and investments in highways, roads, bridges, mass transit, and healthcare information technology.

Democrat Craig Stanley is expected to announce next month that he will seek his old State Assembly seat.  Stanley spent twelve years in the Assembly before narrowly losing the 2007 Democratic primary to Ralph Caputo and Cleopatra Tucker, a casualty of a political war that sought to oust State Sen. Ronald Rice.  Rice won his primary despite strong opposition from Newark Mayor Cory Booker; Stanley ran on the Rice line.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker

NEWARK – Television star Oprah Winfrey’s decision this month to drop a $500,000 gift on Steve Adubato’s North Ward Center effectively stamps out the fuse on a standoff between the North Ward Democratic leader and Winfrey confidante Mayor Cory Booker, in a resolution that underscores the political strengths of the two main combatants.

If Adubato, native Newarker and a grizzled guru now in his seventies, proved his relevance by waging a war in the streets and alleys he has known since childhood, Booker the Bergen County outsider turned Newark activist and statewide star, proved his manna from Heaven connections. 

And the community won in the end, according to sources from both camps, as Adubato’s Blue Ribbon charter school, the Robert Treat Academy - whose students consistently rate higher math and science test scores than students in schools in all of urban New Jersey and all of Essex County - stands to get an unprecedented infusion of funds.

The contribution came with a back story.  

For almost as long as Booker’s been in office, Adubato poked, prodded, cajoled, and chest-thumped in the face of the young star’s particular power, and now sources close to the North Ward leader say he intends to endorse the first term mayor for reelection next year.

It’s been an odd relationship.

Councilman Jerome Jewell

HILLSIDE – Here it comes – a Hillside free-for-all. 

Sources close to Councilman Jerome Jewell say he will formally enter the race for mayor sometime in the next two weeks. The long-serving Newark detective will run with the backing of the local Democratic Party organization. 

But there’s still political oxygen out there that at least two other candidates are trying to gobble up in the apparent aftermath of the troubled tenure of Mayor Karen McCoy-Oliver, niece of the late Assemblyman Willie Brown, who has not publicly declared her intentions regarding reelection.  

Whatever she does, McCoy-Oliver’s well-publicized head-butting episodes with powerful local party leader Charlotte DeFilippo have made the mayor an off-the-line contender at best now as Jewel commands the organization’s backing.

Regardless of the outcome of the game of political musical chairs in the 28th legislative district, where two incumbents and a former Assemblyman are posturing for two spots on the Democratic line, look for the mostly white, blue collar towns of Belleville and Bloomfield to be split away from Newark and Irvington when a new map is drawn after next year's census.

The 28th was supposed to be one of the voting rights districts that protected minority representation in the Legislature when it was drawn in 2001.  The incumbents at the time were three African Americans: State Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) and Assemblymen Donald Tucker (D-Newark) and Craig Stanley (D-Irvington). 

If Caputo holds his seat this year, it makes a defense of the current district under the Voting Rights Act more difficult.

Belleville, which was in the old 36th district, and Bloomfield, part of the old 34th district, were mostly represented by Republican legislators before the towns were moved in to the new 28th.  Rice beat GOP Assemblywoman Marion Crecco (R-Bloomfield) by a 69%-30% margin in 2001.

But Belleville and Bloomfield, which was estimated to have a combined population of 79,816 last year, have proven to be a greater force in Essex County politics than the redistricting commission imagined.  In 2007, Essex Democrats backed Ralph Caputo, a white Freeholder who served as a Republican Assemblyman from 1968 to 1972, to run for the Assembly.  Caputo and Cleopatra Tucker, whose late husband held the seat until his death in 2005, unseated two incumbents, Stanley and Oadline Truitt (D-Newark). 

Raymond Lesniak moved up to the Senate in 1983 after John Gregorio's criminal conviction.

After today's special election convention in District 23, a full one-quarter of the Senate will have entered the upper house by way of a special election: Raymond Lesniak (1983), Ronald Rice (1986), John Girgenti (1990), Robert Singer (1993), Thomas Kean, Jr. (2003), Paul Sarlo (2003), Loretta Weinberg (2005), Sandra Cunningham (2007), and James Beach (2009).  An eleventh Senator, Kevin O'Toole, initially served in the Senate in 2001 after winning a special election convention; he later returned to the Assembly and won a Senate seat in November 2007.

Lesniak replaced John Gregorio, who left the Senate following his criminal conviction.  Rice, Girgenti and Singer were elected following the deaths of Senators John Caufield, Frank Graves and John Dimon, respectively.  Kean took the seat of Richard Bagger, who resigned to concentrate on his career at Pfizer.  Sarlo became a Senator when the incumbent, Garry Furnari, was appointed to serve as a Superior Court Judge.  Weinberg won the seat of Byron Baer, who resigned for health reasons.  Cunningham replaced Joseph Doria, who resigned to become state Community Affairs Commissioner.  Beach, the most recent addition to the Senate won a special election convention after John Adler was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.