Clifford Minor

Newark Mayor Cory Booker on Election Day, 2008

Standing in the vanguard of opposing parties makes Gov.-elect Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker obvious political adversaries - a relationship made more intriguing by their agreeable history and the crisis demands on both of them to deliver reforms in their respective spheres of power - but whatever the dynamics of their personal and professional relations, allies of both men expect a coming collision between Newark and New Jersey.

Don't count Booker among them.

"I know people want to turn this into a rivalry but when you consider the monumental challenges we are up against right now, he is my greatest ally," Booker said of Christie, the Republican who on Nov. 3rd defeated Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. "To characterize us as rivals would be like saying Democrats and Republicans were the chief antagonists during World War II. We're in a crisis."

"I would also say - and I use this word because it is accurate - that Chris Christie is my friend. We have been friends for three years and he can assume credit for things we have accomplished here these past three years."

Booker knows the buzz about how he's the Democratic Party's most likely nominee for governor in 2013, to which he gives the only politic response: he's focused on the city's crime problem.

Prodded on politics and Christie, he adds, "I'm focused on next year's mayoral election and on electing the Booker Team (of council candidates)."

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, left, is introduced at a Newark Pride alliance event at the Newark Public Library earlier this week by Newark activist Darnell Moore.

BELLEVILLE - Notwithstanding a mistaken reference at one point to "Corky Booker," Newark Mayor Cory Booker's New Jersey political peers paid tribute Wednesday night to their rock-star-in-residence, who tonight is scheduled to sit down on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien in a mock-up mano-a-mano for their now weeks-long national news spat. 

"I wonder if New Jerseyans are going to be watching Conan and Cory or Corzine and Christie," cracked Gov. Jon Corzine, a day before heading into pre-debate seclusion in preparation for his William Paterson University gubernatorial showdown with GOP rival Chris Christie and independent Chris Daggett, which also airs tonight.  

Booker two nights ago headlined the Nanina's in the Park fundraiser held by Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin, who called the motor-mouthed metaphor generating mayor now racing to have more Twitter friends than Ashton Kutcher and locked in a playful back and forth with O'Brien over the late night talk show hosts disparaging remarks about Newark, "global." 

"Conan and I could have a fun and very substantive conversation on Friday," Booker tweeted on Tuesday to 836,795 followers, whose cyberspace Hollywood rival, Kutcher, this week observed to his his 3,830,305 followers that "arts education in our pubic schools is important."

Booker challenger Clifford Minor

Newark Mayoral candidate Clifford Minor lost his campaign communications manager this week.

"I have resigned from the campaign due to contractual and strategic differences between the candidate and I," said Keith Royster. "I wish Cliff all the best in his efforts moving forward."

Running in next year's May election against Mayor Cory Booker, attorney Minor is a former Newark Police Officer and muncipal judge. He has no campaign manager.

Clifford Minor

In a statement he sent to PolitickerNJ.com this weekend, Newark Mayoral candidate Clifford Minor slammed Mayor Cory Booker for twittering a reaction to three shooting fatalities in the city on July 20, a response Minor called "insensitive." 

"At a time when Newark reels from the murders of three people and several others maimed by gunfire, citizens look to their elected officials for guidance and strength," wrote Minor. "In the immediate aftermath of this violence, what did Newark get that would reassure its grief-stricken citizens? A message from the mayor. On Twitter. Mayor Cory Booker condemned the violence through his Twitter account, calling the violence “outrageous” and “unacceptable”. Yes, and water is wet."
 
Already irritated by a Time Magazine feature story on Booker that depicts the youthful mayor as a Batman-like superhero, Minor unleashed his own image of Booker as a press hungry, caped evader. 

Newark Mayor Cory Booker

NEWARK – Television star Oprah Winfrey’s decision this month to drop a $500,000 gift on Steve Adubato’s North Ward Center effectively stamps out the fuse on a standoff between the North Ward Democratic leader and Winfrey confidante Mayor Cory Booker, in a resolution that underscores the political strengths of the two main combatants.

If Adubato, native Newarker and a grizzled guru now in his seventies, proved his relevance by waging a war in the streets and alleys he has known since childhood, Booker the Bergen County outsider turned Newark activist and statewide star, proved his manna from Heaven connections. 

And the community won in the end, according to sources from both camps, as Adubato’s Blue Ribbon charter school, the Robert Treat Academy - whose students consistently rate higher math and science test scores than students in schools in all of urban New Jersey and all of Essex County - stands to get an unprecedented infusion of funds.

The contribution came with a back story.  

For almost as long as Booker’s been in office, Adubato poked, prodded, cajoled, and chest-thumped in the face of the young star’s particular power, and now sources close to the North Ward leader say he intends to endorse the first term mayor for reelection next year.

It’s been an odd relationship.

South Ward Councilman Oscar James II in headquarters.

NEWARK- Oscar James II doesn’t know if he can win this primary fight down here in Newark’s South Ward, but if he can hold Lautenberg to a stand-off, and other ground-level Andrews allies in northern New Jersey can do the same, maybe South Jersey can deliver big for the underdog.

That’s the plan anyway.

In the meantime, there’s another war he’s fighting.

A two-year councilman representing the most sprawling ward in the city, James knows U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) is a longshot in his challenge of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). But as the Booker Team leader in the south, James wants to help bust apart the Payne family machine that has long controlled ward politics.

Lionel Leach and Jackie Teel, working the phones in Clinton HQ in NewarkWhen Sen. Ronald Rice and North Ward Democratic Party boss Steve Adubato find themselves in the same political foxhole, something is either amiss, or it’s a presidential election year.

In certain company, the lead-up to Tuesday’s historic Democratic Primary contest looks like some incidental skirmish in Newark with here-today, gone-tomorrow alliances, played out as a backdrop to that more fervent chess war between local rivals angling for the real epic of some area city council and freeholder races later this year.

Lionel Leach, Rice’s former campaign field director, serves as spokesman for Sen. Hillary Clinton in her campaign’s week-and-a-half old Broad Street headquarters, even as North Ward Democratic Organization campaign firebrand Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz continues to steel the Latino vote for Clinton in rallies statewide. On the heels of his own family fight with Adubato, U.S. Rep. Donald Payne also intends to do some campaigning for Clinton this weekend.