Charles Wowkanech

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."

Patrick Kennedy, a Congressman from Rhode Island and the son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, will stump for Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election on Friday night at a labor rally at the IBEW Local 164 in Paramus.  AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech, Building Trades Council Bill Mullen, and IBEW Local 164 President Richard "Buzzy" Dressel will join them.

Saturday street corner in Newark's Central Ward.

NEWARK - Stunned by an ongoing state investigation into the absentee ballot operations of the North Ward Democratic Organization and up against the reality of a Democratic incumbent governor who doesn't send pulses racing, Newark operatives are counting on the GOTV power of a ginned-up labor movement here - as elsewhere.

"What the union effort does is supplement what's there on the ground," said Assemblyman Thomas Giblin (D-Montclair), president of the Essex-West Hudson Central Labor Council.

"The resurgence of the Democratic Party in New Jersey is a direct consequence of the unpaid union effort, with different labor organizations carving up the city (Newark) and taking different assignments by ward to get a lot of mundane, nitty-gritty jobs done," Giblin added.

To date, the gubernatorial ground game has looked grim for Democrats in Newark, where party members outnumber Republicans, 64,822 to 3,413, but where a state Attorney General's Office investigation into state Sen. Teresa Ruiz's (D-Newark) 2007 senate campaign - run by the city's most powerful political operation - has so far resulted in five indictments and unnerved political street people.

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."

A day after John McCain Republicans pulled the curtain off their campaign headquarters in working class Woodbridge, the national AFL-CIO endorsed Barack Obama for president and the state organization’s chief reaffirmed support for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

"At our convention we unanimously adopted a recommendation to endorse Obama," said newly re-elected AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech. "Our program is up and running. We’re doing voter registration projects and getting information out to job sites.".

McCain’s New Jersey supporters are targeting what they describe as "Reagan Democrats," or working and middle class voters, including primary election supporters of Hillary Clinton.

There is considerable speculation that New Jersey Building Trades Council President Bill Mullen is weighing a bid for New Jersey AFL-CIO President against longtime incumbent Charles Wowkanech. Wowkanech has been feuding with a substantial wing of the state Democratic Party since last year after he backed some Republican legislative candidates in some hotly contested races. Mullen is viewed as a potentially strong challenger to Wowkanech, if he decides to make the race.

The New Jersey AFL-CIO, which said today that they are neutral in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, is not expected to make any endorsement before the June 3 primary because neither Frank Lautenberg nor Rob Andrews can get the two-thirds majority needed to win the formal backing of the union.  This reflects poorly on the state AFL-CIO President, Charles Wowkanech, who prematurely announced support of Lautenberg yesterday. 

The AFL-CIO today issued a release pledging to remain neutral in the Democratic Primary contest between U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg and U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews.

The office of AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech said the labor organization's executive board delivered a vote of overwhelming support for Lautenberg when Lautenberg was matched against prospective candidate Tom Byrne.

That was before Andrews entered the race last night.

AFL-CIO president Charles Wowkanech backs Lautenberg over Andrews.

As south and north Jersey locals today sparred with statements of support for either U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg or potential challenger U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, AFL-CIO President Charlie Wowkanech said he backs Lautenberg.

"I polled my executive board of 40 members and the level of support was overwhelmingly for Lautenberg," said the head of New Jersey's one million-strong labor organization.