Barack Obama

NEW BRUNSWICK - Obama's on the ballot Tuesday.

That's what U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark) told a group of black activists and Payne allies at a meeting of the African-American Political Alliance here aat the United Methodist Church on Saturday.

"This race has national significance," the veteran congressman told a room packed with 100 leaders and community activists. "The Republicans would love to say a Corzine loss is a referendum on Obama. If we lose Virginia, and then lose New Jersey, you can see the headline: 'Clean sweep by GOP: Obama on the decline.' They just can't wait to write that story.

"There's no way we're going to allow that to happen, right?"

"Right," the crowd called back.

Payne called up Corzine Deputy Campaign Manager James Gee.

"It's essential the - and they have all these fancy names for it - the base vote comes out," said Gee.

From left: GOP nominee Chris Christie, Assemblyman John DiMaio (R-Hackettstown), Steve Lonegan.

FLEMINGTON - Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie this afternoon stood onstage with the man he conquered in the June Primary: former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, leader of the conservative movement in New Jersey, who promptly bashed President Barack Obama.

"The people who crossed the Atlantic Ocean in ships didn't come here looking for security and a welfare check, they came here seeking freedom and liberty," Lonegan told an excited crowd packing the sidewalk in front of the Hunterdon County Courthouse. "Barack Obama doesn't understand that simple message.

"Those folks had learned a lesson that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do not understand," Lonegan said.

A day before Obama is scheduled to appear at rallies in Camden and Newark in support of Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, the crowd cheered in the rain.

"Some of my friends said they were going to write Steve Lonegan in," added the former gubernatorial candidate. "But let me tell you, we have an opportunity to take back New Jersey, to make New Jersey the economic leader it once was. The best man did win. The best man will put an end to the advancement of the Corzine-Obama team."

**** UPDATED: Sen. Ronald Rice's staff today told PolitickerNJ.com that Rice will not attend the Obama rally tomorrow because his mother is gravely ill.  

NEWARK - Two big charter buses idle outside of headquarters off South Orange Avenue and state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) is just about ready to give the signal for the two of them to get going.

"Our people always march at night," he says in the face of the darkening streetscape. "They hit the doors between 4 and 8 p.m."

Onboard are 109 canvassers for Gov. Jon Corzine, with instructions to blanket the West Ward with door hangers and campaign literature for the incumbent Democratic governor two days in front of President Barack Obama's 11th hour Corzine rally in Newark followed by the election itself next Tuesday.

No one seems to know at this point exactly who's going to win: Corzine or his Republican opponent, Chris Christie; but the campaign wants to squeeze 40,000 votes out of Newark, and Rice has a goal to help get the governor 8,000 votes in the West Ward, a long-shot, he admits.

Four years ago, then-candidate Doug Forrester's campaign tore through the streets with a lot of hoopla and once the operatives here had recovered after being doubled over with laughter, they hit back with a vengeance against the interloper from the GOP and delivered nearly 9,000 votes for the Democrat.

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, right, with Assemblywoman Joan Quigley (D-Jersey City) and Assemblyman Vincent Prieto (D-Secaucus)

HARRISON - Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy agrees that North Hudson will be selfishly motivated to land decent numbers for Gov. Jon Corzine next Tuesday. 
 
But South Hudson?
 
"Corzine will be fine," said the Jersey City mayor, refusing to go into detail. "I think he wins the election by two points."
 
At the heart of North Hudson Democratic Party turnout is a fierce warlord rivalry between state Sen. Nicholas Sacco (D-North Bergen) and state Sen. Brian P. Stack (D-Union City) for northern bragging rights.
 
In addition, operatives are confident that a mayoral race in Hoboken will drive numbers up in that overwhelmingly Democratic town and help the incumbent governor.

But broken local infrastructure in South Hudson (Jersey City and Bayonne), owing to summertime corruption busts; and political standoffs taking the heart out of intraparty rivalry mere months after local elections in Jersey City, dog the party, despite county coordinator Jason O'Donnell's best attempts to revitalize those towns for the governor and despite Obama hoopla.

Essex County Corzine Campaign Coordinator Leroy Jones, left, and Assemblyman Albert Coutinho (D-Newark) Thursday in the East Ward.

NEWARK - After months of mostly unobservable underground movements and five days in front of President Barack Obama's appearance at the Rock, there is evidence of effort on behalf of Gov. Jon Corzine in a city the governor needs to win amply in order to land another four years in office.
 
Of course, Democrats are leaning heavily on Corzine-Obama linkage.

In 2005, Corzine defeated Republican challenger Doug Forrester in Newark, 39,573 to 3,336, while carrying Essex County overall, 131,312 to 45,789 on his way to statewide victory.
 
By comparison, Obama punished Republican Sen. John McCain in Newark by a vote of 77,112 to 5,957 last year, as he carried Essex County, 240,127 to 73,975, recording a larger number of votes here than in any other county on his way to winning New Jersey by a 15% margin. 

"Certainly for Obama, people had a clear and distinguishable reason for coming out," says Essex County Democratic Party chairman Phil Thigpen. "Now, it's not as visible when you talk about quality of education or property taxes and you're a renter, for example. So we've got to jazz it up."

Orange Mayor Eldridge Hawkins arrives at Mayfair Farms on Tuesday evening to hear former President Bill Clinton.

WEST ORANGE - Former President Bill Clinton tried to get the Essex County troops in battle mode this evening at Mayfair Farms as he made the case for Gov. Jon Corzine's reelection.

Standing on a double-decker stage crammed with Democratic Party elected officials, Clinton rammed the good governor in tough economic times argument beside a beaming Corzine.     

"New Jersey is the first state in the country in median income, and the median income increased in 2008," said Clinton, donning glasses to read from notes. "Yours is the first state to have an economic recovery plan.. ...The mortgage foreclosure rate is half the national average. This governor has reduced the size of government while increasing school funding by a billion dollars. Under his watch, there has been an 11% reduction of kids without health insurance. You're the second state in the country to enact Paid Family Leave."

Amid growing applause from the party faithful, who packed the banquet hall here, Clinton noted the drop by 12% in the state's murder rate and a drop by 7.5% in the violent crime rate.

The outcome of the 2009 campaign for Governor of New Jersey is not historically significant to Barack Obama's presidency. It is almost twice as likely that New Jerseyans elect a governor who is not a member of the president's party.  Indeed, the party of the incumbent president is 15-26 in New Jersey gubernatorial races since a Democrat won in Abraham Lincoln's mid-term election.

The last five gubernatorial elections went that way: Republicans lost in 1989 (George H.W. Bush), 2001 and 2005 (George W. Bush), and Democrats lost in 1993 and 1997 (Bill Clinton). But in the seven contests before that, the party of the sitting president went 6-1: Republicans won in 1969 (Richard Nixon), 1981, and 1985 (Ronald Reagan), and Democrats won in 1961 (John Kennedy), 1965 (Lyndon Johnson), and 1977 (Jimmy Carter); Republicans lost in 1973, after the incumbent was defeated in the primary and in an election that was held under the backdrop of the Watergate scandal.

None those twelve campaigns influenced the outcomes of the next presidential campaign, either nationally or in pursuit of New Jersey's electoral votes - although the 1973 results were a harbinger of the 1974 Democratic landslide.  By 1976, New Jersey was supporting a Republican presidential candidate.

Democrats won both gubernatorial elections held during Dwight Eisenhower's presidency, and Republicans won both governors' races held while Harry Truman was president.  During the four campaigns for governor that occurred during Franklin Roosevelt's tenure in the White House, Democrats won two (1937 and 1940) and lost two (1934 and 1943).  Eisenhower carried New Jersey twice, and Roosevelt won the state four times.

President Barack Obama, who will campaign for Gov. Jon Corzine in Camden and Newark on Sunday, has a split 47%-45% approval rating in New Jersey, according to a new survey conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP), a North Carolina-based firm that works primarily for Democrats.

Essex and Camden counties look to be the right place for Obama to tout Corzine's re-election.  The poll shows Corzine with 67% of the Black vote and 53% of the Latino vote; Democrats in New Jersey typically receive substantially higher numbers from these two critical components of their base vote.  And Corzine is only getting 66% of New Jerseyans who say they voted for Obama last year; 16% are going to Christopher Daggett, and 12% to Christopher Christie.  (Christie is getting 77% of John McCain's votes, with 9% to Daggett and 7% to Corzine.)

The two major party candidates for Lt. Governor will campaign at Bergenfield senior centers tomorrow, five days after a jury found former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero guilty of depriving Bergenfield residents of the "honest services" of their borough attorney.   State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), who represents Bergenfield in the State Senate, will be there in the morning; Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno, the GOP candidate, will be there at 2PM. 

Democrats are willing to give campaign workers a few hours off on Sunday so they can attend one of two campaign rallies featuring President Obama, even though it means taking bodies away from phone banks and door knocking two days before Election Day in a race that most pollsters say is too close to call.

Obama will speak at rallies for Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election campaign at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden and the Prudential Center in Newark.

Whatever Democrats may lose for a few hours in the way of mechanical operations will more than be made up for in getting energized by close proximity to the President, say some Corzine supporters.

"You can't help but getting excited," said Michele Jaker, executive director of the Planned Parenthood of New Jersey Action Committee. "I'm a hardened vet, yet there I was yelling screaming at the last Obama rally. If I get excited, our college students and volunteers will certainly get excited. They will be that much more energized for Monday and Tuesday. I know twenty people off the top of my head that are planning to go."

Charlie Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey AFL-CIO, said his organization is so big and so operationally sound, that Obama's presence here won't change the GOTV flow for Corzine.

"Obviously our labor campaign is in full force final week, and will continue to be through Election Day," Wowkanech said. "We're working every day and every night this week, and we will have people there to see President Obama, as well as ample volunteers on Saturday and Sunday. We have a million members in the labor movement here. The Prudential Center only holds 17,000 people. We'll have people inside, and plenty more in the streets."

With Corzine at 64% approval among Democrats and Obama at 87%, according to a recent Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll, the upside in Obama inspiration is enough incentive for team Corzine to bring the president in for the second time in as many weeks as part of an effort to lift the Democratic incumbent past GOP challenger Christopher Christie and independent Christopher Daggett.

"Corzine has enough money to get bodies in the streets," said Patrick Murray, director of polling at Monmouth University. "Even if some of those people who might otherwise be phone-banking or campaigning (are in the Prudential Center or in the Susquehanna Center for a few hours on Sunday), at the end of the day, the Obama presence is going to inspire those people knocking on doors and making phone calls and energize the core of support that's critical for GOTV on Monday and Tuesday. If they can't get excited about Jon Corzine, Democrats will get excited about Barack Obama."