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By Max Pizzaro
PoliticsNJ.com

NEWARK, March 14 - Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. says he would definitely support Rep. Donald M. Payne for re-election in 2008, but Newark Mayor Cory Booker stopped short of giving the ten-term incumbent his unconditional endorsement.

Booker and DiVincenzo Wednesday endorsed Teresa Ruiz for the Democratic State Senate nomination in the 29th district. The congressman’s brother, Assemblyman William D. Payne, says he will run for the same seat.

The arrest today of three-term Assemblyman and three-term Orange Mayor Mims Hackett, Jr., caught at least one member of the Orange City Council unawares.

"I just saw him at a city council meeting on Tuesday night," said West Ward Councilman Hassan Abdul-Rasheen. "Are you kidding, or something?"

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez's longtime fundraiser, Dannielle Leigh, has left the campaign on what sources say were extraordinarily bad terms. The campaign issued a short statement: "Dannielle Leigh has decided to leave the Menendez for Senate campaign. She has been a great asset to the campaign and to its successful fundraising team, and we wish her well. Beyond that, we have no comment on personnel matters."

Father-priest: Why do you want to accept the Latvian Orthodox faith?

George: *ahem* In this age of uncertainty and confusion, a man begins to ask himself certain questions. How can one even begin to put into words something so um…

Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny will announce today that he will not seek re-election to his 33rd district seat. The 60-year-old Hudson County Democrat had lost support of local party leaders.

The two Assemblymen from the district, Union City Mayor Brian Stack and West New York Mayor Sal Vega, are considered possible Senate candidates. Stack had been the leading contender, although published reports of a state Attorney General's investigation and a lawsuit filed by a developer who alleges pay-to-play violations could potentially change that.

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie is a likely candidate for the GOP nomination for Governor in 2009Perception of corruption’s so rampant, political scientists say it’s unlikely yesterday’s fiasco will substantially impact Election Day.

Every time U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie puts on the cape and lands on the steps of a federal building in either Trenton or Newark, inevitably there are those who want to try to drive over a mud puddle and spatter the fearless crusader.

What Christie has had to stare down in particular over the past year is the criticism that under the guise of Captain Americanism he’s little more than a lowly spear carrier for the Bush administration, serving a subpoena to Democrat Robert Menendez in 2006, and in ‘07 going after urban and mostly African-American lawmakers who represent poor Democratic districts.

After Sharpe James became Mayor of Newark in 1986 (he defeated four-term incumbent Kenneth Gibson), he was able to influence the way Essex County Democratic leaders picked state legislators. His first opportunity came a month after taking office when State Senator John Caufield, a white Democrat who had been Newark Fire Director under Gibson, died. James picked Ronald Rice, a West Ward Councilman who had been among a small group of elected officials to publicly back him against Gibson, to fill the Senate seat. The following year, James claimed one of the 29th district Assembly seats -- dumping five-term incumbent Eugene Thompson so that his Chief of Staff (and cousin), Jackie Mattison, could go the Legislature.

One of James' first moves after defeating Gibson in May 1986 was to endorse his friend, South Ward Councilman Donald Payne , for Congress in a Democratic primary challenge against 19-term incumbent Peter Rodino, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Payne lost that primary, but in 1988, when Rodino (who was helped by Gibson's support in a district where white's were the minority) retired, James made it clear that the seat would go to Payne.

Assemblyman Sean Kean today used the unraveled Fort Dix attack plan to rail against the state’s current methods of homeland security fund distribution, saying state Democrats were putting partisan politics ahead of safety. He used the thwarted plan as an argument for the need-based system of distributing state homeland security dollars he has been pushing for in the Assembly.

“Hopefully this will serve as a reminder that we need to remain ever vigilant against these threats and that one way to do so is to ensure we are wisely utilizing our state homeland security dollars,� said Kean, a Monmouth County Republican.

Larry Casha and Jay Webber sat down at an Applebee’s Restaurant in Parsippany last year and told each other they wouldn’t let things get too rugged in their upcoming Assembly race. The two self-described conservative Jersey natives said they’d run a positive campaign, Casha recalls. Then the two lawyers shook on it.

Maybe Marquis of Queensbury rules are in effect and perhaps nothing’s been below the belt to this point but what’s very clear in this dist. 26 Republican Primary is that the punches are already flying.

Even millionaire developer Anthony Pio Costa’s in on the action -- and Republicans say he was supposed to be the candidate who’s difficult to reach.

Not Wednesday.

Less than a week after Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera and Councilman Marcellus Jackson were arrested on bribery charges, City Council President Gary Schaer says the Council will hire an independent special counsel to review city contracts over the last two years. Schaer says he wants to hire a lawyer with “significant experience in matters before the U.S. Attorney.”