36th District: the GOP underground

Insiders lay out several battlefields this year, and Republican or Democrat, it’s not two or three gulps of beer into a conversation before they spill the strategic terrain of the coming legislative contests.

The Democrats will put money into 1 to defend their incumbents there, and they will try to take down the Republican incumbents in 2. They’ll play in 8 again largely as a diversionary tactic, defend in 14 and – and this is big - heavily fortify 36, where the GOP last time came within 2,400 votes of stripping the Dems of a seat.

Representatives in both parties usually mention the last of these prospective showdowns as the most meaningful, a potential north Jersey version of the 12th District Karcher-Beck war in 2007, where both parties will likely lay down their heaviest barrage.

For the moment, Democrats feel they have some GOP civil war drama on their side, and are gleefully inclined to let the Republican body count mount at this fractious tri-county, multi-ego crossroads of Passaic, Bergen and Essex, before they get in and scrap in earnest to protect Assemblyman Fred Scalera (D-Nutley) and Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic).

Better to let the other side give itself a good going over before taking casualties. That’s the attitude.

Yet despite the ongoing intra-party war in the 40th District – another story - Republican insiders who can get enough distance on the camps of two warring GOP bosses here – former Assembly Majority Leader Paul DiGaetano and state Essex County Chairman/state Sen. Kevin O’Toole (R-Cedar Ridge) - argue that the fast emerging ticket of East Rutherford Councilman Joel Brizzi and Nutley businessman Carmen Pio Costa gives their party a solid shot - if only for the critical reason that it represents compromise and a fusion of forces.

A local businessman with 14 years of experience on the East Rutherford council, Brizzi’s biggest booster is DiGaetano, who ran for governor four years ago, was crushed, and now roams the district, operating, in search of his best chance to make a comeback.

Then there’s Pio Costa.

A 30-year old manager of his family’s storage business, he’s an O’Toole protégé – maybe a selling point in those arenas where political savvy is prized - but it’s exactly his closeness to the political animal from Cedar Ridge that worries some of DiGaetano’s allies.

They see Pio Costa as a neophyte and short-timer Nutley resident who frankly doesn’t add much to the ticket.

They say O’Toole’s reasons for putting the kid out there are Machiavellian movements at best that ultimately have little to do with electing legitimate candidates from the 36th District and more to do with protecting vital O’Toole contacts.

O’Toole’s people counter that at least one of these contacts is crucial to a functioning party, after all, and that’s Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Parsippany-Troy Hills). Pio Costa’s father Tony Pio Costa – a generous financial backer of DiGaetano’s - two years ago threatened to run against DeCroce in the 26th District. While he probably would have been unable to upend DeCroce, Pio Costa had money to spend, and could have troubled the sitting minority leader.  

After threatening, the elder Pio Costa didn’t run, and the North country GOP believes O’Toole diffused the businessman’s ambitions by shaping his son into a candidate in the 36th District.

In so doing, O’Toole protected DeCroce, but also backed a candidate who, his detractors fume, has little chance of winning if the Democrats turn it into a war – which they will.

From Newark to Point Pleasant to Cape May, New Jersey’s towns have their parochial points of pride. Unless you’re from there, you’re likely better off keeping quiet and keeping your head down. Nutley residents hold fiercely to their traditions, and when it comes to political careers, it’s well known that unless a person’s put in a solid 30 to 35 years in Nutley, he or she can pretty much limit all political aspirations to carrying a clipboard for someone with a family name and some real Nutley street cred.

Now here comes Pio Costa, new to town by less than a handful of years, and eager to represent the district. Some infuriated DiGaetano forces think he’s a flat-out non-starter, and it’s not just because they would have preferred district homeboy “Paulie D” as a candidate (even though he insists he doesn’t want to go back to the lower house). If not DiGaetano, they’d like a candidate from Bergen, one who could underscore the fact that neither Schaer from Passaic nor Scalera from Essex hails from the most voter-rich section of the district, which is Bergen.

Double up on Bergen, they maintain, and Schaer and Scalera could truly be in a perilous situation without state Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) at the top of the ticket.

If O’Toole were absolutely intent on fielding an Essex candidate, they’d prefer a Nutley icon like Commissioner Mauro Tucci, who apparently doesn’t want to run because he poured his efforts into a failed mayoral bid last year and can’t rebound now to run a legislative race.

It doesn’t matter, they argue. He’s a name. A vote-getter.

Make it happen.

But it doesn’t happen, and that’s when members of the DiGaetano camp start wondering if O’Toole is fielding Pio Costa simply to protect Scalera, one of the two Democrats. The theory runs like this: O’Toole is close to Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo going back to his days as a North Ward Center acolyte, Scalera works for DiVincenzo as head of emergency preparedness, and so O’Toole soft-pedals a candidate who he knows can’t get past Scalera.

That’s the fear.

Scalera says no way.

“First of all, Nutley’s a very tight and respectful community,” said the Democratic assemblyman. “A lot of the commissioners who are Republicans (including Tucci) are my friends. So when you don’t see known names coming out of Nutley to challenge me, that’s because they don’t want to challenge me.

“Still,” he added, “no one gets a free ride here. Carmen’s still around. It’s not a surprise. Joel is a friend. If he runs, he runs.”

O’Toole’s people also deny it, and in party negotiations in recent days, sources say the Essex County chairman told DiGaetano’s people that Pio Costa was prepared to contribute $100,000 to the campaign effort.

100 grand.

The same candidate ran with half that last time and made it a close race. (Of course, Democrats point out that Schaer and Scalera ran with very little funding and little help from Sarlo who was campaigning heavily for majority leader at the time. They won’t make that mistake again.)

Sources say O’Toole challenged DiGaetano and company to present their candidate, Brizzi, with a promise to raise as much money as Pio Costa can muster, with more funds to be kicked in by DeCroce and the GOP Assembly PAC.

Brizzi’s willing.

“The Democrats could throw $1 million in here, so I figure if between Carmen and me we can raise $250,000 cooperatively, we’re in fighting shape,” he said. “Listen, you can’t buy people’s happiness. They can throw all that money in here, the Democrats and Corzine, but you can’t buy a guy a job. Not the jobs people need, that the private sector should be able to provide. I don’t care if a Republican throws in a thousand dollars on this race, the time is ripe for whoever’s not there. They’ve got to be able to do better than the guys in there now.”

For all the intrigue and O’Toole-DiGaetano bad blood going back to 2005 when O’Toole denied DiGaetano the Essex County line in the latter’s gubernatorial bid, Brizzi likes the idea of running with Pio Costa and thinks it’s strategically sound.

“Nutley’s the one town I’m not known in,” said the East Rutherford Republican, veteran of a 2002 Bergen County Freeholder race. “My wife is from Columbia, born in Columbia, and 50% of my customers are from Passaic. They come into my store. They know me. I’ve had my water business for 20 years.”

Given the makeup of the district, Republicans generally see Passaic as a write-off. The only town from that county in the 36th is the overwhelmingly Democratic Party stronghold of Passaic City. So it’s no accident that the GOP’s presumptive two candidates hail from the Bergen and Essex portions of the district.

But this time, in addition to working some of Brizzi’s natural business ties, the GOP hopes some street-level maneuvers will at least keep the Democrats busy. DiGaetano’s from Passaic, after all, and as he nurses his own ambition to get back in the game with a run at Sarlo, he’s going to work the old contacts to try to spring votes out of his old hometown.

The GOP’s working what could be several opportunistic soft spots in Passaic. 

Sources say that after losing last year’s mayoral election and after initially setting in motion the political machinery to make another run this year, an exhausted Jose Sandoval intends next week to finally pull the plug on his ops and declare his support for city supervisor Vincent Capuana, chief challenger to Mayor Alex Blanco.

Apparently there are ongoing Tick Tock diner talks between DiGaetano and Capuana. Campaign mechanics, that kind of stuff, sources say. DiGaetano allies help Capuana now, and he helps the GOP in the general election against his nemesis Schaer.

Blanco is Schaer’s chief local ally. He won a special election last year with Schaer’s backing and the vote split between Sandoval and Capuana. Now as he looks to secure a full term as mayor in May, he must consider helping to strengthen Schaer for the general election. If Capuana and Sandoval join forces and Blanco – working with Schaer - beats them in the May election, his victory will show the assemblyman’s local muscle and weaken the import of Capuana’s general election endorsement strength or anything else the GOP try to do in Passaic, for that matter.

A nagging problem for the Republicans here in the 36th District is the spillover effect of a GOP fight in Passaic County, where DiGaetano has joined forces with those renegade Republicans seeking the ejection of County Chairman Scott Rumana.

Following Bergen County GOP Chairman Bob Yudin’s endorsement of O’Toole’s running mates in the 40th District – in effect short-circuiting or at least making substantially more difficult any off-the-line effort – DiGaetano was wounded and disappointed. Still others argue that O'Toole's insistence on Pio Costa further galled DiGaetano, who wanted the option of running with Brizzi. Sources close to the former assemblyman say that's not true. He wants senatorial courtesy only, if anything.

Or governor.

Otherwise nothing.

For now, sources say he should at least be happy Yudin’s backing Brizzi.

The fact that Yudin – the chairman who carries the largest concentration of towns in the 36th District – this week strongly endorsed both Brizzi and Pio Costa even as Brizzi’s allies expressed some reservations about the councilman submitting a joint letter of interest with Pio Costa – shows Yudin working to give something to both O’Toole and DiGaetano and preserve his footing at least in this factionalized GOP kingdom.

O’Toole may have the edge, but DiGaetano has an “in,” particularly if Brizzi is as strong as DiGaetano's people says he is and wins, as one insider pleads, “Let’s just bury the freaking hatchet already.”