Lautenberg touts Paterson roots in re-election drive

Flanked by allies U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, left, and U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, Lautenberg girds for battle in 2008. 

ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS - Embracing the mantle of the greatest generation, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg asked Monmouth County Democrats to join him in the battle to restore America to the people who own it, in his words: working and middle class people.

"For the first time in eight years we can change America for the better," said Lautenberg. "We can and we must. People still want to know their children can do better than they. That’s the cradle of America."

In pocketing the pro forma endorsement of the party here as part of his re-election bid, the 84-year old senator reached back to his Paterson roots, evoking those people who searched for what Lautenberg said was that first rung on the economic ladder for themselves and their families.

"Patersonians are a special breed," he said, "They’re born poor. They live in a tough town. And they love people. We understand what happens when different cultures come together. That’s what Paterson’s all about. ...We come with a special kind of training."

A hard-knock kid from the Silk City turned multimillionaire businessman who went to the U.S. Senate in 1983, Lautenberg said he was fortunate as a member of the greatest generation to have the opportunity to receive an education through the GI bill. Today, corporations ship jobs overseas leaving American workers on increasingly unstable terrain, the senator said. With President George W. Bush at the helm, the federal government spends $3 billion every week on a war in Iraq while failing to adequately fund education and infrastructure.

"My college tuition, my college expenses were paid," said Lautenberg, reflecting on the priorities of another era. "My friends, when my folks were store-keeping - a little luncheonette here, a confectionary store here - believe me, college was nowhere in sight. But neither was a way of life. I was accustomed to poverty. When I graduated from high school my job was loading milk trucks at a dairy in Clifton, New Jersey. That’s what I faced before enlisting in the army."

The educational opportunity that he and other soldiers received after returning from WWII created, in Lautenberg’s view, the greatest society on the face of the earth, and now the challenge is to bust up the injurious influence of Bush and return America to a course where the people and not special, powerful interests are the focus of government, Lautenberg said.

"Join me in trying to make America the place we knew before," he exhorted the crowd. "Join me in stopping this war and investing that money in the future of our families and to let our children grow and be healthy. Join me, so we can put our tax money back into the society from whence we come. Join me, in making sure America regains its status in the world."

The crowd was on its feet.

Moments earlier, when along with U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone entered Lautenberg’s name as the party’s nominee for Senate, he recalled the skepticism in the newspapers and among Long Branch party regulars in 1982 when they heard that an unknown millionaire executive was going to try to represent their interests in the U.S. Senate.

Newly in possession of his party’s nomination Lautenberg nonetheless was widely perceived as road-kill going in against Republican name opponent Millicent Fenwick. But he met the dour mood among the seaside working class Democrats in Alvento’s West End Manor like a pro, by the congressman’s reckoning.

"Within 15 minutes he was joking, telling stories, telling about the time when he was at Fort Monmouth and all the other things he did in his life," said Pallone, who at the time was president of the Long Branch Democratic club.

"I knew then he was going to be our next senator," recalled Pallone, who added that just last week at the Belmar St. Patrick’s Parade, Lautenberg lunged ahead of Pallone and Holt, making the 50-something representatives feel old by comparison.

"We could not keep up with him," Pallone said. "This is a guy who never stops loving his job, never stops working - all day long, late into the evening - challenges the Republican president when he needs to challenged, and most of the time works on things that are important for the state of New Jersey."