Dawn Zimmer

Newark Councilman Anibal Ramos

North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato, Newark North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, attorney Elnardo Webster and others are set to host a fundraiser for Hoboken mayoral candidate Peter Cammarano in Newark on May 27th at the Maize Restaurant.

It is at least the second such fundraiser Ramos has spearheaded on behalf of Cammarano, who first became friends when the latter did some work for Ramos as an elections lawyer. Newark West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice has also backed Cammarano from the start of his campaign for mayor of the mile-square city.

Moreover, at his annual Italian-Irish awards ceremony this year, Ramos-backer, North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato honored Cammarano’s boss, elections lawyer Angelo Genova.

Cammarano is waging a contest against 4th Ward Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer in Hoboken’s June 9th runoff election.

HCDO Chairman Jerramiah Healy

HOBOKEN – Although Hudson County Democratic Chairman Jerramiah Healy says he doesn’t want to intrude in the Hoboken mayoral runoff between At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano and 4th Ward Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer, the party’s presence in the mile-square city may be larger than even Healy’s considerable machine capabilities.

“We’re not going to do a damn thing,” said the county party chairman, who just won re-election as mayor of Jersey City. “You won’t see me in there. I don’t know that we’d help either candidate if we went in there. I’ve certainly known Pete longer than Dawn, but we’re just not doing it. I’m conflicted because Carol Marsh is on the other team, and we have a decent relationship. All things considered, it makes sense to stay out.”

But sources in the state party say the chance to land Cammarano the job as mayor may be too tantalizing to resist in a gubernatorial election year, particularly when his opponent is scrambling to replenish her campaign coffers for their June 9th face-off.

If Healy won’t actually leap up onto a stage to endorse Cammarano, the state party is positioned to engage on the councilman’s behalf. Sources say Cammarano will be able to count on bodies, money and resources from the state party’s apparatus.

Attorney Ravi Bhalla

The day after terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, a bearded man in a turban on the New York subway wore around his neck a laminated card with the following words printed in bold letters: “Proud to be an American and a Sikh.”

Connected to a monotheistic religious tradition of Punjab, India, requiring him to wear the turban and beard, this man knew his appearance alone could be misconstrued in the aftermath of the attack.

He wanted those around him to have no doubt about his origins and his loyalties.

Ravi Bhalla felt the same way. Born in Passaic and raised in West Paterson as a soccer player and son of a typically diehard soccer mom, 9/11 brought forth for him a double tragedy.

“First, there was the unspeakable loss of 2,000 Americans, and then there was the difficulty at times of walking down the street with people yelling racial epithets at me and people mistakenly believing that we had some role,” said Bhalla.

The polls might have had Councilwoman Beth Mason as the front-runner in Hoboken, but the mistakes she made with bad political calculations and bad alliances did her in at the voting booth this past Tuesday.  While Mason was talking about bridging the gap between Old Hoboken and New Hoboken, Councilman Peter Cammarano was actually doing it.

Cammarano, a protégé of Angelo Genova at the politically-connected firm of Genova, Burns and Vernoia, had been executing a plan for the past two years with the help of a mix of new and old political hands - including former Hudson County Freeholder Maurice Fitzgibbons, Hoboken street politics veteran Perry Belfiore, and consultants Joshua Henne and Scott Shields of White Horse Strategies.

This is one of those state the obvious things, like the person who gets the most votes on Election Day will win the election: they key players in the Hoboken mayoral runoff next month are the people who voted for Beth Mason.  Mason voters will decide if Dawn Zimmer or Peter Cammarano becomes the next Mayor. 

In yesterday's voting, Zimmer led Cammarano by 212 votes, 3,614 (36%) to 3,402 (34%).  Mason received 2,330 votes (23%), with the remaining 7% split between three other candidates.

At Large Councilman Peter Cammarano made the June 9th runoff by amassing 3,755 votes to Dawn Zimmer's 3,671. Beth Mason trailed with 2,541 votes.

HOBOKEN – Beth Mason’s Washington Street campaign headquarters was a scene of anguish as supporters desperately tried to figure out what happened Tuesday night to their candidate, the frontrunner in at least two early polls and the designated big money player headed into Election Day.

“We’ll take the next couple of days to assess the situation,” said Jake Stuiver, Mason’s campaign manager, helmsman of what even in the most charitable terms can only be characterized as a colossal meltdown.

Stuiver stood on the sidewalk in darkness amid figures clutching each other in devastation, trying to find or provide some comfort.

The losing candidate wasn’t ready to make an official statement but sources close to her say she feared a deepening divide in her city on learning of the results tonight. Repeatedly castigated by both the Cammarano and Zimmer camps for abandoning her reformer roots to assemble a slate of old school Hobokonites, Mason argued that she didn’t have to agree with her running mates on every issue in order to feel comfortable running with them.

But her efforts to forge her 2nd Ward supporters with the remnants of the Anthony Russo era proved politically hazardous. 

Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer, her husband, their children, and her parents, campaign near the PATH station this evening.

HOBOKEN – With two hours to go and the candidates working it as the ferries and trains arrive under the Clock Tower overloaded with potential voters, a storm comes up suddenly and threatens to short circuit the final lap of this campaign.

People walk with their hands over their eyes to protect themselves from the dust kicked into the air and it’s shocking to anyone who never thought bad weather would be a factor, even if everything else would be in play.

Whoever planned to go vote on the way home surely now has only an overriding desire to get indoors as fast as possible and to stay there, but then a few minutes later, the threat of a storm is over, and everyone reverts to the earlier get-out-the-vote game plan.

2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason campaigns near the ferry. Mike Novak, a candidate for the city council on a slate with At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano, works a street corner in the 4th Ward.

A Cammarano fan on Washington Street.

HOBOKEN – Here it is at midday in the Hoboken mayor’s contest and no one looks like he or she has broken a cellphone yet in despair as all three of the big ticket players’ operations appear competive.

The campaign headquarters of Beth Mason and Peter Cammarano look particularly active. 

At Cammarano central on Washington Street, there’s a room in the back and phone bankers sit at tables and go through their call lists. Out front, Cammarano soldiers in white t-shirts ask passersby if they’ve voted.

“He’s worked all his life for this,” the at-large councilman’s mother says of her son. She’s in from Vermont to help her son get elected.  

Next door at a sidewalk café, three green-shirted workers for the Zimmer Team are feeding quietly. When they finish and walk past, they don’t exchange words with Cammarano’s people.

Hoboken Clerk Jimmy Farina poses with some of his memorablia at City Hall.

HOBOKEN – The streets have slowed here since this morning but one man keeps on the move: City Clerk Jimmy Farina, who is as analogous to Hoboken on Election Day as was Dino to Ol' Blue Eyes.   

“I’ve been working mayoral elections since 1984, when I started this job,” said Farina. “So far, even this morning, I didn’t get the sense that turnout was high. A little after 4 p.m. I’ll take a reading on where we are in terms of voter turnout but right now, based on what I saw down at the Firehouse early, turn out’s comparatively low.”

Six candidates are running for mayor of the mile-square city” At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano, 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason, 4th Ward Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer, tech head Tom Vincent, financial consultant Ryn Melberg, and broker Frank Orsini.

Ravi Bhalla

The race for the mayor of Hoboken features a field of six candidates, three of whom have received the most press attention owing to their continuing brawls on the council amid the ruins of this city’s finances.

At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano put together a slate of teammates that hit all the requisite chords given the temper of the times – a Latino (Union City cop Angel Alicia), a financial expert (Mike Novak), and a School Board member who presumably cares about kids in a town where the number of drunken revelers on a Friday night is outdone only by the number of baby carriages on Saturday morning (Francis Rhodes-Kearns).

Cammarano, an elections lawyer who learned his trade in the school of old pro Angelo Genova, has financial support from key Democratic Party fundraisers and is the candidate most likely to entice the backing of the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) in the event that outfit secures the re-election of its chief, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy – and in the event that Cammarano makes the runoff.