PLAINFIELD – Get it right in four years or you’re gone. 

That’s the message the voters consistently deliver in the Union County city of Plainfield, and looking at past results, most of their elected leaders get it wrong. 

In 125 years of political wrangling, only one mayor won reelection here. 

That was the late Al McWilliams, a self-professed New Democrat who in 2005 failed to get over a rising crime wave and lost his bid for a third term to machine Democrat Sharon Robinson-Briggs by 325 votes, 2,713 to 2,388.

Now Robinson-Briggs, 49, Plainfield’s first woman to serve as mayor, readies for her reelection campaign next year in what will likely be a hard fought Plainfield contest with once and future councilman Adrian Mapp, a McWilliams ally and now leader of the New Democrats, who’s energized by his successful return to local politics.

The Courier News has endorsed challenger Frank DelCore for Hillsborough Township Committee and Plainfield City Councilman Cory Storch for re-election.  READ