Brizzi, Pio Costa emerge as GOP contenders in 36th against troubled 40th backdrop

In a tortured political terrain, Republican power players in the 36th  legislative district appear to be slowly coalescing around East Rutherford Councilman/businessman Joel Brizzi and Nutley businessman Carmen Pio Costa as their best chance ticket this year.

It’s not yet set – in this geographically jagged district encompassing battle weary portions of Bergen, Passaic and Essex counties – nothing is ever really set, and there are candidate screening opportunities, after all; but there remain real factors immediately outside the district threatening party implosion. 

Sensing opportunity after coming close to victory two years ago, the party – and this goes all the way up to the top of the hierarchy - wants to stay focused here in the 36th despite the flailing fortunes of divided Republicans in the neighboring 40th. Toward that end, local leaders will sit down tonight at the Franklin Lakes Firehouse and try to re-establish in their sights the deeply fractured Bergen Democrats as their enemies and Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic) and Assemblyman Fred Scalera (D-Nutley) as statehouse targets one and two. 

To hear the prime players tell it, the GOP could be a long way from intra-party peace in the 40th, however – and as much as they want to compartmentalize the districts, there’s too much obvious overlay. 

A faction of renegade Republicans spearheading Joe Caruso as a challenger to Assemblyman Scott Rumana (R-Wayne) and riding a longtime struggle for party control in the county appears to be committed to a fight, with the blessings of former Assembly Majority Leader Paul DiGaetano (R-Nutley), who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2005.

The fight threatened to overwhelm a relatively new party chair in the neighborhing county.

“I didn’t want a primary in the 40th," insisted Bergen County Republican Chairman Bob Yudin. “I wanted to avoid a primary because this is not about the Assembly contest, this is about a Passaic County chairman’s race.” 

In addition to his elected office as 40th District Assemblyman, Rumana serves as Passaic County Republican chairman. His would-be rival Caruso’s backed by former chair Peter Murphy, and establishment sources say Caruso’s candidacy more than anything is about Murphy trying to wrest the chairmanship back from Rumana, ultimately “a suicide mission.” 

It also has comeback implications for DiGaetano. 

After initially hesitating, and even though he’s close to DiGaetano, sources say Yudin is ready to prepared to give the party line – and with it Bergen County’s six towns in the 40th District – to Rumana as early as that firehouse meeting in Franklin Lakes tonight.  

Whatever the chairman decides, the 36th in and of itself for the moment looks less cluttered and less troubled for Republicans, particularly now that it’s fairly firm DiGaetano, Rutherford Mayor John Hipp and Nutley Mayor Joanne Cocchiola won’t run. 

“I’m not actively seeking support for the nomination and no one from the party has come to me and sought my candidacy,” Hipp said. “I’ve been dealing with affordable housing issues. That’s what’s kept me up nights. I’m not going to be seeking the nomination.”  

For her part, Cocchiola likes her job as deputy counsel at the sports authority. 

One night before a GOP meeting on the issue of candidacies, businessman Don Diorio of Carlstadt, who ran with Pio Costa in 2007 and came close to beating Schaer, Wednesday said “no comment” when asked if he plans to run again this year.  He’s an enigma. At least tonight. More tomorrow, he says. 

Then there’s DiGaetano. 

Sources claim he has his eye on the 36th District state senate race two years from now, and he’d rather not have to back-track to the lower house in the meantime in order to get to his goal. He feels he already has a platform as a 16 year- Trenton veteran and as a former leader of his party, no less. Of course, after four years removed from the Statehouse and a completely new look party in the halls of government, he figures it wouldn’t hurt to have some district partisans in the Assembly between now and then to help give him a boost for his showdown with state Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Wood-Ridge) come 2011. 

DiGaetano’s most visible ally is Brizzi, 43, who with the former assemblyman’s help already appears to have significant backing in the party if he decides to challenge Schaer and Scalera.  

Yudin likes him.  

“I’m very favorably disposed to giving Joel the line if he runs,” said the Bergen chair. “He’s an outstanding individual and would make an excellent candidate.” 

Brizzi, a 14-year councilman who owns his own water distribution business and lives in a house that’s been in his family for 80 years, today told PolitickerNJ.com, “Probably the only thing that would stop me from running at this point is my business.” 

It requires no follow-up question to get him to admit there is another factor, one he learned in heartbreaking fashion when he ran unsuccessfully for freeholder in 2002, was outmaneuvered on message, and finally beaten up down the stretch of the campaign.  

He looks back on that loss now and says if only he had a grand and a half more for advertising he could have won. So when he sizes up a run in the 36th , he says he’ll need cash.  

“I need to consider money, yeah. Let’s face it, it’s a big issue. The Democrats could throw a million dollars into the 36th  to protect that district. I figure I would need a good $200,000 to $250,000 to compete with that. You pick your universe, and then you get your message out there.”

Whether it turns out to be Brizzi or another Republican candidate, basic campaign finance needs in the face of a certain amped up State Democratic Party intent on defending Schaer and Scalera are part of the reason – a large part of the reason – why establishment Republicans are attempting to diffuse the building civil war in the 40th.   

As he plays his own role in trying to stem that fight on the down slate of his own district, state Sen. Kevin O’Toole (R-Cedar Grove) has a special stake in the 36th District battle as chairman of the Essex County Republican Party.   

The 36th is composed of 11 towns, nine of which are in Bergen County. The biggest town after the City of Passaic – and especially important for Republicans given the demographics - is Nutley in Essex. 

If Brizzi with his veteran status in Bergen’s East Rutherford, name ID from his 2002 freeholder try and endless run of beefsteak dinners, Elks Club coffee klatches and country club mixers, and good relations with DiGaetano and Yudin can gin up Bergen where the majority of the district’s 53,838 votes are concentrated; O’Toole figures someone like the Essex-based Pio Costa – who put up a good showing in his 2007 loss - can shake up Scalera in the 9,289-vote rich Nutley. 

O’Toole’s close to Pio Costa. 

Now sources say the Pio Costa-Brizzi ticket represents not just strategic good sense but potentially a mutual almsgiving for O’Toole and DiGaetano, locked in a bad blood situation going back to when O’Toole didn’t give DiGaetano the county line when the latter failed in his gubernatorial bid. 

DiGaetano’s revenge - backing Caruso against the O’Toole-backed Rumana spawns its own set of renewed hurts on both sides. They’re ongoing and the ensuing battles could be bloody. 

The 36th looks early like the best chance of moving these tri-county Republicans into frontline positions for the bigger enemy out there: the currently damaged Bergen County Democratic Organization (BCDO) - the Dems’ regional power base. But sources argue a GOP ticket and two willing candidates like Pio Costa and Brizzi with state party backing can’t sustain itself if the 40th devolves into a chaotic money drain.