Beth Mason

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(HOBOKEN, November 2) – Steve Forbes – New Jersey native, CEO of Forbes, Inc., editor in chief of Forbes magazine, and co-author of the 30 percent income tax cut plan offered by Christie Todd Whitman in her successful 1993 run for New Jersey Governor – today endorsed Nathan Brinkman for Mayor of Hoboken.

A day before a local rally with Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, Second Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason became the only candidate in the Hoboken mayor's race to formally endorse Corzine's re-election.

"As a resident of the second ward, Jon is a constituent of mine and I know him well," Mason said in a statement. "It's clear that he's the best choice for the future of Hoboken. The key issues that he has fought for in Trenton are deeply meaningful to myself and many others in the city."

Acting Mayor/Council President Dawn Zimmer, second from right, with her family on Election Day last May.

Observers see the challengers damaging one another in Hoboken, making Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer the front-running favorite, but regardless of who they back, Hobokenites have been struck by the serious intentions of longtime 3rd Ward work horse Frank Raia. 

If it were a contest with run-off potential, it would be different - more obviously competive. But this is a race where the top vote-getter wins, and sources say Zimmer's base is mostly intact as she tries to stare down 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason, retired municipal judge Kimberly Glatt and supermarket owner Raia, among others, including Republican Nathan Brinkman. 

As was the case when she ran for mayor in May, Mason has dumped the biggest expenditures into this contest - $220,250 and counting, according to the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC).

But Raia's not far behind, shoveling more than $200,000 into his own effort, killing the stalking horse talk that trailed him at the start of the campaign.

A late starter in the race, Glatt has raised $33,300 to Zimmer's $35,864, but their filings were made earlier in the month than Mason's and Raia's.

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(HOBOKEN, October 13) – Hoboken Mayoral candidate Nathan Brinkman, at an afternoon press conference, today rolled out a four-point transparency proposal designed to restore accountability to city government spending, as he released his income tax returns and challenged his rivals for the Mayor’s Office to do the same.

Kimberly Glatt in front of her Hoboken headquarters on Tuesday evening.

HOBOKEN - Tired of sending their mayors here in front of judges, the voters should simply save a lot of people - 40,500, or roughly the population of Hoboken - a lot of trouble and heartache and simply make a judge mayor, or at least that's what the backers of Kimberly Glatt believe. 

The 44-year-old mayoral candidate opened her campaign headquarters this evening at Washington and Sixth Street as a late-start challenger to Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who became the chief elected official here after Peter Cammarano resigned amid federal corruption charges.

Zimmer doesn't impress Glatt, who served in her native city of Hoboken for 14 years before retiring just before the September deadline to run for mayor.

"I had a chance to work in City Hall for six weeks under this mayor, and I don't sense any focus - from the top down," said Glatt. "An example? I spent 14 years creating a security plan for the city, and without even asking me about it, it was undone."

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Since its inception, The New Jersey Conservative Party has been inspired by the words of Ronald Reagan, who said: "In this present crisis, Government is not the solution to our problems. Government IS the problem".

In the wake of its current mayoral scandal, it is clear that an uncorrupted & unbossed face is needed to bring about the change necessary to transform Hoboken once more into a "shining city on a hill".

The New Jersey Conservative Party is therefore proud to endorse Nathan Brinkman as a candidate for Mayor of Hoboken.

Dawn Zimmer, sworn into office as Acting Mayor on the day Peter Cammarano resigned.

Power and how to wield it is a conversational topic that might have faraway associations in a more quaint setting, but it generally arises with a fiercer kind of immediacy and urgency in a place where two of a town's last three mayors endured the clamp of handcuffs - a place, for example, like Hoboken.

Starting from City Hall, photographer turned Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer commands the power projection platform in a race in which the self-styled reformer mayor faces a challenge from no fewer than seven opponents - including 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason, retired Judge Kimberly Glatt and businessman Frank "Pupie" Raia, who all believe Zimmer doesn't have the temperament to wield a mayor's power.
 
Whatever their private agonies about Zimmer and their public ambitions, that many people trying to elbow one another out of the way in a play for voters' attention in a short time-frame election, makes the contest ostensibly Zimmer v. Mason, according to most observers - with the strong edge going to Zimmer early as the incumbent who has her own built-in, green T-shirted base of support.
 
But sources say Glatt and Raia intend to talk this week to ascertain whether it would be better for one of the two born-and-raised candidates - traditionally a plus in this parochial Hudson River burgh - to exit the race and back the other in the name of consolidating an alternative to Zimmer and Zimmer's financially-well connected arch-rival Mason, neither of whom has Hoboken roots.

Don't count on Raia leaving the contest.

"I am running to win," the owner of the Hoboken Shop Rite told PolitickerNJ.com. "I feel I'm the only candidate who can deal with old and new Hoboken."

It's not likely that the courts will toss Dawn Zimmer or Beth Mason off the ballot just because they were a little late filing their petitions for the Hoboken mayoral special election.  The whole concept of strict interpretations of election law were pretty much thrown out seven years ago when the New Jersey Supreme Court, citing voter choice, allowed Democrats to switch U.S. Senate candidates long after the deadline had passed.  Ironically, the candidate who had no problem filing petitions was Nathan Brinkman, who is running as a Republican in this heavily Democratic city.  Brinkman's political consultant is Bill Pascoe, who was Douglas Forrester's campaign manager in 2002 when Robert Torricelli ended his re-election bid and was replaced on the ballot by Frank Lautenberg.  The big question is why Zimmer, the Acting Mayor, and Mason, a Councilwoman, needed to push the deadline.

(HOBOKEN, September 16) – Hoboken Mayoral candidate Nathan Brinkman – responding to news reports indicating that Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer and 2nd Ward City Council member Beth Mason have had difficulties filing their qualifying petitions in a timely manner – this evening issued the following statement:

 “Dawn Zimmer and Beth Mason should both be qualified for the ballot immediately. Both are serious candidates, and each represents a significant segment of our community.

Hudson sources say the two likely leading candidates for mayor of Hoboken both had trouble with their petitions this afternoon on the filing deadline.

Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer initially handed in incomplete petitions, which her allies say she later rectified before the deadline, while 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason didn't make the deadline.

Mason spokesman Paul Swibinski said Mason's situation was purely accidental.

"Beth was in this new county building long before the deadline," said Swibinski. "She was sent to the wrong room three times and trapped in a non-working elevator that maintenance people tried to operate. We have a number of witnesses, including public safety personnel, to confirm all of this.  A conspiracy theorist would think that Hudson County set up a gauntlet for Beth to overcome, but we believe that this was just a ridiculous set of circumstances. Dawn Zimmer on the other hand appears to have a much more serious legal problem.”