Brian Hughes

Mercer County Executive Brian M. Hughes said he fully supports Gov. Jon Corzine’s re-election and would not run for governor if Corzine went to an Obama administration or abruptly pulled out of his re-election bid.

"I’ve been successful in Mercer, but to move up to governor in a 2009 run would take a lot of work, and I don’t have the recognition to go statewide," said Hughes, son of the late Gov. Richard J. Hughes, who served from 1962 to 1970.

Himself re-elected last year, Hughes said Corzine definitely deserves re-election.

Brian M. Hughes, Mercer County executive: Politicker file photo 

The Murphy-Hughes brothers’ first Democratic National Convention was the last one staged in New Jersey: 1964, Atlantic City.

It was hard to beat for drama when compared to everything that followed, with the exception of Chicago just four years later, which the brothers also both attended.

Staged a year after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and a month after Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 1964 Democratic Convention featured the nomination of Johnson, of course; and a speech by Robert Kennedy, oldest surviving brother of the slain president.

Obama State Director Tricia Mueller: Politicker photo

HAMILTON - Politics and union organizing weld into one for Tricia Mueller, the new state director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Granddaughter of a Local 19 sheet metal worker or "tin knocker" as they're called in building and trades, Mueller first started working campaigns for her father, a telephone installer who served as the youngest mayor of Oaklyn, New Jersey.

"I could read a ward map from the time I was very small," said the 34-year old Camden native and chief political operative for the 17,000-strong New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters, as she sat in a Hamilton coffee shop on Thursday, three days into her tenure as Obama's state director.

"I come from the field," she told PolitickerNJ.com. "I believe voter contact, voter mobilization, and voter education represent civic duty at its finest."

Mercer County executive Brian J. Hughes, a Lautenberg supporter, and his brother, Michael Murphy, campaign chairman for Andrews 

PRINCETON - New Jersey’s Hughes-Murphy alliance has parted company in the big party races lately, with Michael Murphy backing Barack Obama and Rob Andrews, and Brian J. Hughes standing by Hillary Clinton and Frank Lautenberg for president and U.S. Senate respectively.

Murphy and Mercer County Executive Hughes are half-brothers, whose Irish-American families joined forces with the marriage of Elizabeth Murphy to the late Richard Hughes, New Jersey’s governor from 1962 to 1970.

College history professor/author Josh Zeitz has officially joined the race for Congress in the fourth district, and the 33-year-old Democrat is telling party leaders that he’ll raise $200,000 for his race against entrenched GOP Congressman Christopher Smith by June.  Zeitz has a huge network of donors from his work as a political staffer, and his father, Carl Zeitz, is a well-liked former newspaper reporter, casino regulatory, and lobbyist.

Josh Zeitz wants to become Chris Smith's 15th Democratic opponentAmong the Mercer County Democrats who gathered for Saturday's convention were three people who had fought the same fight and lost.

United States Rep. Chris Smith has been beating Democrats in the Fourth Congressional District for 27 years, but the assembled supporters had high hopes for Zeitz.

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-12) introduced the latest Democratic challenger as a “very accomplished scholar and really exciting candidate.”

Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes, Washington Township Municipal Chairman Larry Schneider and Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer) lost to Smith in 1992, 1998 and 2000 respectively.

“I’m celebrating my tenth anniversary this year,” Schneider dead-panned.

Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes, left, and Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer, served as delegates at the party's convention. 

TRENTON - At their standing room only convention in the Masonic Temple on Saturday, Mercer County Democrats selected two full-term candidates for their county freeholder slate in November, and a third to fill the unexpired term of Freeholder Elizabeth Muio. 

The winners were incumbent Freeholder Lucy Walter of Ewing and banker John Cimino of Hamilton for the three-year term seats, and Dan Benson of Hamilton for the unexpired term.

Richard McClellan, who said earlier this month that he would step down as the Mercer County Democratic Chairman, will now remain in office through the county convention next month -- at the request of County Executive Brian Hughes and other local officials.

Next month, two major Democratic county strongholds will see important internal party contests.

Mercer County is set to see a significant turnover during its March 15th county committee convention. Its Democratic Chairman, Richard McClellan, plans to step down shortly. Meanwhile, Freeholder Elizabeth Muoio will resign on March 1st, giving a number of Democratic hopefuls a chance to take over her seat. Failing to win Muoio’s seat, some of those candidates may challenge Democratic incumbents Tony Mack and Lucy Walter, whose terms expire this year.

In neighboring Middlesex County, Freeholder John Pulomena has resigned so that the board can appoint him to a position as county administrator, while Freeholder Camille Fernicola has said that she will not seek another term.

Mercer County Freeholder Elizabeth Muoio will resign her post on March 1 to take a county job, and Mercer County Democrats will hold a special election convention on March 15 to fill her seat.  County Executive Brian Hughes named Muoio, a Freeholder since 2001, to replace Charles Hill as Director of Economic Development and Sustainability.