Bret Schundler

PolitickerNJ.com

Former Assemblyman Lou Manzo

Lou Manzo stepped on familiar ground today by announcing his candidacy for Jersey City mayor.

Manzo, 53, has done this four times before, starting in the wake of former Mayor Gerry McCann’s indictment on fraud charges in 1992 -- a crowded and brutal race that included his brother, which forced Manzo to air a cable advertisement of his mother calling him “the real Manzo.” He expects to hear references to his four previous losses repeated by his opponents throughout the campaign – especially by Mayor Jerramiah Healy.

Manzo said he doesn’t mind hearing about that. In fact, he believes it testifies to his dogged persistence as a public servant, even when he does not hold a public office. In other words, nobody can call Manzo a quitter.

“Those are the naysayers and those are the spinners. Those are the sound bytes they’ve been handed by the political architects of Healy’s organization,” he said. “Those are the same naysayers that can join the long list of people who criticized Lincoln, Edison and others who understand that you’re never beaten until you quit.”

Former Assemblyman Lou Manzo made his candidacy for mayor of the state’s second largest city official today, saying that the upcoming election will likely be the most important one in Jersey City’s storied history.

“This is going to be the most crucial election probably in the city’s history, not only because of the conditions in the city but because of the present national economic crisis and how it’s going to impact cities like Jersey City,” said Manzo. “I believe that the present leadership – not only the mayor but his apparatus – have demonstrated clearly that they have failed the leadership test and are ill-prepared to serve in what are probably going to be crisis times.”

Manzo plans to run on a platform that highlights economic development, job creation, reform in tax abatement policy and alleviating the city’s crime program through unorthodox methods.

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Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop’s announcement that he will not run for mayor breathes new life into a race that has been dormant for months.

Since summer, the field of prospective candidates has remained in stasis, with state Sen. Sandra B. Cunningham’s pending decision on whether or not to run holding up former Assemblyman Lou Manzo’s own candidacy. Former Mayor Bret Schundler has said that he’s going to run, but has yet to make a formal announcement, while Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith has yet to make a decision. Downtown community activist Dan Levin is running as well.

Fulop said that the lack of campaign activity only benefited incumbent Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who he frequently butts heads with.

“It’s to the benefit of the Jersey City residents that it’s going to start the campaign. It has kind of been not moving forward, which doesn’t benefit the dialogue – probably just Jerry Healy,” said Fulop.

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Bob Franks had a 53%-3% favorble rating among Republicans after his 2000 U.S. Senate bid, and lost a primary for Governor six months later by fourteen percentage points

Outgoing U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie has a 42%-1% favorable rating among Republican voters, who by a 67%-4% margin want him to run for Governor in 2009.  In a head to head poll with Democrat Jon Corzine, Republicans back Christie 76%-10%.  Christie also leads Corzine among Independents, 38%-32%.

Over the course of the last month, the Hudson County rumor mill has been rife with talk that Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who’s facing a lawsuit that seeks to remove him from office, is preparing to resign.  

Last night, Healy sought to squelch that talk.   

“I’m not resigning.  Not only am I not resigning, but no way in hell am I resigning because Lou Manzo has brought an absurd application addressed to the Monmouth County prosecutor’s office to remove an elected Hudson county official,” said Healy in a phone interview with PolitickerNJ.  “I’m not only not resigning, I am running for mayor again in seven months.”

If Jerramiah Healy wins re-election in 2009, he would become the first Democratic mayor of Jersey City to win a second consecutive four-year term since Thomas Whelan was re-elected in 1969.

Bret Schundler is mulling another bid for Mayor of Jersey City, his job from 1992 to 2001.
Count former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler as one ally of former Assemblyman Lou Manzo in his quest to force Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy to forfeit his office.

“If what the officer said happened actually happened, then I think Healy should be removed,” he said.

After grand jury testimony surfaced from a police officer alleging that Healy tried to use his political status to “sweep” his 2006 disorderly conduct arrest in Bradley Beach “under the rug,” Manzo filed a lawsuit asking the Monmouth County Prosecutor to look into the matter.

Former Assemblyman Lou Manzo, a potential mayoral candidate in Jersey City next year, filed a petition with Monmouth County Superior Court to ask them to weigh whether Mayor Jerramiah Healy’s conduct during his 2006 Bradley Beach arrest should trigger him to forfeit his office.

No hearing date is set yet, and Manzo can’t release details until all parties have been served.

Healy was convicted of disorderly conduct in Bradley Beach last year, and has sought unsuccessfully to reverse the decision several times. He’s currently appealing it in the state Supreme Court.

But after an Essex County judge ruled that former Newark Councilwoman Dana Rone must forfeit her office earlier this summer, Manzo started digging and hired legal counsel to see whether the same standard should apply to Healy. Healy and Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said it shouldn’t, since Healy never invoked his office during his arrest.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Chicago-based political consultant Bill Pascoe, who ran Bret Schundler’s 2001 and 2005 gubernatorial bids, said that had it not been for the need to feed the media beast, Schundler could have easily won his first gubernatorial bid.

And today, eight years after leaving office as Jersey City mayor, Pascoe believes that not only does Schundler have a good chance to reclaim that seat, but that he’s one of the leading contenders.

Sitting at yesterday's New Jersey delegation breakfast at the Hilton Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, Pascoe flashed back to early 2001. He was managing Schundler’s fledgling campaign for governor, and couldn’t gain any traction with the media. A top statehouse reporter, he said, told him that reporters wouldn’t cover Schundler’s campaign because they were convinced that he was merely positioning himself for his mayoral re-election in May of the same year. So to prove his sincerity, Schundler didn’t file to run for re-election.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Jersey City’s two delegates at the Republican National Convention are not sold on Bret Schundler for mayor.

Schundler, who was mayor between 1992 and 2001, ran for Governor twice as a Republican.  But the May, 2009 municipal elections in Jersey City are non-partisan, and ideology doesn’t necessarily mean much there. 

“At this juncture I haven’t made up my mind yet. As funny as it sounds, it is non-partisan, and I don’t think the whole field has been flushed out,” said delegate Joseph Turula after the delegation breakfast.   “Certainly he’s a fine, smart and honest man, but I haven’t made the decision, and our county chairman said recently that he has to evaluate it.”