Cory Booker

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.

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If Democrats dropped Jon Corzine and ran Cory Booker or Frank Pallone, Republican Christopher Christie would still be ahead, according to a poll released today by Public Policy Polling (PPP), a North Carolina-based firm that polls for Democrats.

Christie leads Booker, the Mayor of Newark, by a 41%-33% margin, and has a 20-point lead over Pallone, a twelve-term Congressman, 43%-23%.  A PPP poll released on Tuesday has Christie leading Corzine 44%-35%, with 13% for Independent Christopher Daggett.

"In 2002 when New Jersey Democrats changed their Senate nominee it went from a likely loss to a relatively easy win almost instantly," said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. "But if they tried that this year it looks like they'd continue polling just as poorly as they already are."

Booker has a 41%-20% favorable rating statewide, while Pallone is upside-down at 14%-25%.

PPP surveyed 500 likely New Jersey voters from September 11-14 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.5%.

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In a tweet, Newark City Councilman Ronald Rice is taking on Republican Lt. Governor candidate Kim Guadagno for saying she doesn't feel safe walking across the street in Newark.  From Rice Twitter: U admire our Mayor's anti crime efforts & attack council 4 bodyguards when we vote 4 those efforts and ONLY Mayor has bodyguards.  And do NOT think for one minute that I am not going to now look at your tax payer escorts as Sheriff in your county; glass houses."

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PARAMUS - Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno is sticking to her statement: she knows what it's like to be afraid to walk across the street in Newark. 

"It's not a gaffe. I've been victimized in Newark twice in the last five years because I work in Newark," said Guadagno, the Republican lieutenant governor candidate, about her choice of words that gave Democrats an opening to take a shot at her and gin up their inner city base. 

About six months ago and in 2003, Guadagno said, her car was broken into and her purse and other belongings stolen just outside the Newark campus of Rutgers Law's Newark campus, where she teaches legal research and writing part-time.   She also worked in Newark as a former Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Guadagno's comment last week was met with a quick response by U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-Hoboken) and several Democratic Newark council members, who painted her as an out of touch suburbanite whose comments served to undermine the city's revitalization. 

Rather than backpedal, Guadagno tried to flip the out of touch label onto Corzine. 

"I think that anybody who says that Newark doesn't have a problem with crime isn't living in the world that we're living in," she said.  "Everybody knows that the population of Newark in the last 40 years has virtually been cut in half. That's because we're not paying enough attention to our cities.  The way we're going to do that is to, one, recognize there is a problem.  Clearly Jon Corzine doesn't know there is a problem.  Shame on him."

Christie has taken pains to emphasize his commitment to the state's large cities, attempting to mitigate Corzine's built-in urban turnout by appealing to city residents on education and crime issues. 

Guadagno praised Mayor Cory Booker's anti-crime efforts, but criticized council members for "having drivers and body guards when they go back and forth to work every day - at taxpayers' expense."

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A North Carolina-based Democratic polling is asking Democratic voters if they would prefer Newark Mayor Cory Booker or U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) as their candidate for Governor.  The Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey is expected to be released on Thursday.

A PPP poll has Gov. Jon Corzine trailing Republican Christopher Christie, 44%-35%.

Five weeks before the 2002 general election, Democrats switched their candidate after Republican Douglas Forrester took a commanding lead in the race for United States Senator against the incumbent, Robert Torricelli.  Corzine said in July that he will not get out of the race.

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Brick City, a five-part documentary series on the Sundance channel, will document Mayor Cory Booker's fight to "raise the city out of nearly a half century of violence, poverty and corruption." The series, created by filmmakers Mark Benjamin and Mark Levin, will launch on September 21. "In the five one-hour episodes of Brick City the lives of Mayor Booker, citizens on the front lines, and key figures re-making the city – from developers to gang members and youth mentors - intertwine in a portrait of a city at a critical moment in history," according to their website,. It was filmed during Booker' second full year in office. The safety of Newark has become an issue in the 2009 campaign for Governor. The Republican candidate for Lt. Governor, Kim Guadagno, the Monmouth County Sheriff and a former federal prosecutor, said during the opening of her Newark campaign headquarters that she knows what is like to be afraid to walk down the streets of New Jersey's largest city. U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and members of the Newark City Council have sharply criticized her statement. Read More >

PARAMUS - Republican gubernatorial nominee Christopher Christie today framed the final 55 days this year's election campaign as a choice between Gov. Jon Corzine's tax increases and the state's subsequent loss of jobs and Christie's starkly different view of  a New Jersey government that taxes and spends less in an effort to bring jobs back to New Jersey.

In a 43 minute address dubbed "Countdown to Change" made at the Paramus Elks Lodge, Christie repackaged the campaign themes he's sounded since declaring his candidacy: tax relief, cutting state spending, improving urban education, increasing funding for public universities and rejuvenating the state's major cities -- all while knocking Corzine for increasing taxes to the detriment of the state's business climate.  It was a new speech, but Christie had proposed most of the ideas before. 

Christie vowed to cut state spending, telling the audience that "there will be fights and there will be programs that will be cut that maybe even some of you in here would like," but he did not outline specifics about which state departments he would trim. Christie also criticized Corzine for slashing property tax rebates despite promising to increase them by 40% over his first term during his first campaign for governor.  

"He knew he couldn't do it when he said it.  He said it to get elected, and we should show him the door because of it." he said.

New Jersey's unemployment rate, Christie noted, is higher than its neighbors - despite Corzine's touted private sector job growth last month.  Businesses and residents, he said, are "voting with their feet," opting to move across the Delaware to the lower taxed Pennsylvania. 

Christie, who is trying to eat into Corzine's margins in the state's largest cities, said that  the Governor sees the state's urban areas as places "to go and get votes every four years," while he is committed to bringing their residents' quality of life to the same standards enjoyed in suburban towns like Paramus. 

A new proposal Christie did offer in the speech was to institute a system called "CityTrack," which will track crime and economic development. 

He also dropped the name of the Democratic mayor of the state's largest city - even if he's a Corzine supporter.  .

"In January, 2010 Cory Booker will have that real partner, and his name will be Chris Christie," he said. 

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NEWARK - Republicans Chris Christie and Kim Guadagno today presented themselves as lunch bucket Newarkers, who know the city well enough to walk in it - and enough to be familiar with its tensions.

"I know what it's like to be afraid to walk across the street," Guadagno, the sheriff of Monmouth County who teaches classes twice a week at Rutgers Newark, told a small and enthusiastic crowd at the opening of Christie/Guadagno's Newark campaign HQ.

"My wife will tell you that over the last seven years I spent more time here in Newark than in Morris County," said the GOP nominee for governor, who resides in Mendham Township.

Christie lived the first five years of his life here, and as he did at the start of this campaign when he formally announced his candidacy at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, he reiterated his commitment to urban New Jersey.

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George Branch, a former boxer who served as a Newark City Councilman for sixteen years and then lost his Central Ward seat to Cory Booker in 1998, died yesterday in North Carolina, where he grew up as the son of sharecroppers.  He was 80.

Branch was first elected to the Council in 1982, and was re-elected in 1986, 1990 and 1994.  He lost to Booker by 656 votes.

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