In Perth Amboy, Diaz likes Corzine for governor, and Buono or Torres for LG

PERTH AMBOY – Although his blue collar campaign for governor never materialized this year, Councilman Ken Balut still nurses irritation over his city’s longstanding tendency to get gypped on state and federal aid and generally outmuscled by urban behemoths like Newark and Paterson.  

Balut’s through with Democrats who associated with former Perth Amboy Mayor Joe Vas, and that includes incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine and former Gov. James McGreevey, whom he lumps in the same failed era with Vas, indicted last month on state corruption charges amid rumors of forthcoming indictments connected to the old regime.

It was Corzine’s state Attorney General Anne Milgram who goes into the books as the one who indicted Vas on theft and bid-rigging charges but, “I’m voting for (former U.S. Attorney) Chris Christie,” the disillusioned Balut told PolitickerNJ.com. “We need somebody in the governor’s office who’s going to go after corruption.”

Mayor Wilda Diaz, who ran on a ticket with Balut, backs Corzine.  

As she governs in the aftermath of the Vas years within a Democratic Party that rushed to embrace her after she demolished the former mayor last year in this town with a 70% Latino population, she’s aggressively making the case for residents of her city to participate in the 2010 census as a means to ultimately make a lasting political statement.

“We have a town with 14.5% unemployment and a population of 49,000,” the mayor told reporters here at the Herbert N. Richardson School. “We could have received millions more in federal aid had we been at the 50,000 mark.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, overall results determine how the feds distribute more than $300 billion annually to state and local entities. 

One obstacle for U.S. census takers is that significant numbers of undocumented workers in Diaz’s maritime hometown don’t want to participate, fearing federal reprisals – a situation borne out by the Census Bureau’s own data, which documents Perth Amboy on the high end of hard-to-count Middlesex County towns. 

Diaz said part of her job as the process goes forward over the next year will be to assure her residents that they will have protection. 

Standing onstage with Diaz, Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) backed her up on the issue in a county where less than a sixth of the 411,825 registered voters are Latinos, in a city where Barack Obama buried John McCain in the 2008 presidential contest, 11,000 to 2,200. 

“Our government does not work well without an accurate count,” he said. “The trouble is it’s like trying to count a moving target. People move, they change jobs. They fear government knocking on their doors. But it’s important when you consider that federal resources are apportioned according to population and you folks are just shy of 50,000 residents.”

In an election year in which a recession-encumbered Corzine toils for public affection and never seems to crack the low thirties in any given poll, Diaz the grassroots Democrat says she backs the incumbent governor – but doesn’t hide her own affection for former U.S. Attorney Christie, the Republican challenger and his party’s presumptive nominee who leads Corzine by nine points.   

“Yes, I am supporting Gov. Jon Corzine,” said Diaz. “I would like to make it very clear, that I have a lot of respect for Chris Christie.” 

A Perth Amboy native who vaulted to the short list of Latino elected officials when she up-ended Vas last year, Diaz said she harbors no pang for the lieutenant governor’s job. 

“I’m only interested in the City of Perth Amboy,” she told PolitickerNJ.com. “Perth Amboy needs my full focus. If I were asked, I would say no. My focus is on my constituents, who elected me to this position nine months ago. I do think that state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) would be an excellent choice.” 

Chair of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, Buono lives two towns removed from Diaz in the neighboring 18th Legislative District. 

The mayor also mentioned Paterson Mayor Jose “Joey” Torres as an option for Corzine, who ultimately must choose his own running mate. 

“I think of them both very highly,” Diaz said of Buono and Torres.

Heading into tonight’s council meeting at City Hall where the council will consider a $72 million budget, which includes a tax increase on average of $150 per household, former cop Balut can’t say the same about Corzine. 

“He gets bullied easily,” said the upstart councilman. “The only thing he understands is if you threaten him politically, that breaks him down.” 

But if Balut remains defiantly the party outsider who doesn’t mind voting Republican to prove his disdain for the Vas-party machine nexus he believes deep-sixed his city, Diaz sports a census 2010 button, and supports the incumbent governor and U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-West New York) with an eye to building upper end party contacts to jar loose some much needed federal money. 

“I am staying focused,”’ said Diaz. “I am cooperating with the authorities. The City of Perth Amboy needs someone focused on the city, and to let the legal process take its course.”

And if Amboy must wait for more dedicated federal money until after those census numbers come in next year, word here is City Hall might not have to wait as long for federal intervention of another kind: more subpoenas connected to the Vas years, while Diaz, quietly defiant in her own way, vows in English - and then again in Spanish - to shield census-complying residents fearful of government.