Sires won't rule out LG

PERTH AMBOY – He straddles four fundamental statewide Democratic Party building blocks in Hudson, Essex, Union and Middlesex, and, if asked, U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-West New York) “would consider” running for lieutenant governor on a ticket with Gov. Jon Corzine, he told PolitickerNJ.com. 

It’s the politic answer, of course, meaningless perhaps in assessing the core of a public will, as it’s the same response most elected officials would give to the question. It insults no one, offers little discernable in the way of true ambition, yet admits a large enough ego - often useful in this game - to keep the option afloat, while enabling the politician to move himbly forward with the job immediately at hand - in this case, constituent services. 

In his favor, sources close to the 58-year old Sires note that his formation in politics was as an executive, not as a legislator. He served 12 years as mayor of West New York, which might make it easy for voters to envision him comfortably assuming the role of governor. 

And ex-athlete Sires was popular in Trenton – “To this day I have good ties in state government,” he says - where he rose to become Speaker of the Assembly before running against Perth Amboy Mayor Joe Vas for a vacant congressional seat in the 13th District in 2006.

“I used the same pollster as Bloomberg and Booker,” Vas told PolitickerNJ.com last Thursday, a week before the state Attorney General’s Office indicted him on bid-rigging and theft charges. “If I hadn’t been convinced by the polling that I could win, I wouldn’t have run for Congress.”

He ran, and Sires – with the backing of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) and the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) – demolished Vas.

Despite opposing the party organization a year later when he backed old pal, Union City Mayor Brian P. Stack, against HCDO candidate Sal Vega of West New York in the 33rd District senate race, which Stack won, Sires ran for reelection to Congress in 2008 without any serious opposition.

As a Cuban American, el "congrecista de nuestro pueblo" can make also make a direct appeal to a strong voting demographic in New Jersey, as 515,069 of the state’s 4,833,857 registered voters consider themselves Latinos.

Moreover, Sires offers a decidedly unCorzinelike political profile as an urban mayor who climbed the hard way to the U.S. Congress, who has told people in the past that lawmakers should overhaul campaign finance laws to enable everyone – not just millionaires – to run for governor.

Sires allies say he’s more likely to stay in D.C. than run for lieutenant governor, fulfilling his congressional duties as a relative newcomer, whose Jersey City office high above Journal Square affords him an all-encompassing view of his district: an eyeshot from Hudson all the way to Perth Amboy at the tail end of the Arthur Kill. 

Last Friday, Sires stood before that Perth Amboy constituency in a parish center with Mayor Wilda Diaz and urged anyone to contact his office with their issues: jobs, immigration, foreclosure, etc., as he and Diaz paid each other mutual respect in what they say has so far proved a successful relationship.

“I would consider it,” the congressman told PolitickerNJ.com when asked after the mayor’s foreclosure forum about the LG job, refusing to go into the matter further before greeting another wave of Latino constituents.