DNCC

DENVER -- As one of the younger faces in the New Jersey delegation, Jun Choi, 37, insists this year will be different: instead of paying lip service to the Democratic candidate, young people will actually come out to vote for Barack Obama. 

More than they came out for Bill Clinton in 1992.  And certainly more than the lackluster youth vote for John Kerry in 2004. 

“The difference between Obama and past candidates is that Barack’s leadership inspired a movement that has excited a whole new generation of young people to get involved in politics,” said Choi while attending a party sponsored by a lobbying/public relations firm. 

State Party Chairman Joseph Cryan: Politicker photo

DENVER - It’s a few hours until Hillary’s close-up and the New Jersey delegation - both the Obama originals and the baby boom Clintonistas still nursing stubbed toes from the primary campaign, are imbibing heavily at the Palm’s in downtown Denver.

"This is a party that I’ve thrown for the delegation and friends of mine from all over the country," says party fundraiser Michael Kempner, head of MWW.

It is perhaps appropriate that Kempner is hosting this mixer a few hours before Clinton speaks. Kempner, after all, was a fierce Clinton partisan during the primary. Then he broke through the hurt feelings of the Group to become the earliest Obama backer among the Democratic Party fundraising elite.

Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden): Politicker photo 

DENVER - Foreign policy: advantage Republicans. Domestic policy: advantage Democrats.

It’s the old dichotomy Democrats have accepted ever since the assassination of Cold Warrior John Fitzgerald and the party’s implosion in the jungles of South East Asia.

For Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden), that old, dependable FDR battle cry of economic justice for all is what will bind the Dems in common cause coming out of this Democratic National Convention.

Joined by eight Congressional candidates, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) took the stage tonight in Denver and told Democrats that it's not enough to support U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). "For the change we need, we not only need to elect Barack Obama as our next president, we need to give him a robust Democratic majority in Congress," he said.

He then introduced the eight Democrats to the country, including state Sen. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill), who he called "a fighter for the middle class."

South Ward Councilman Oscar James II (center) confers with Booker staffers Terrance Bankston and Bari Mattes.: Politicker photo 

DENVER - A core member of the Booker Team, South Ward Councilman Oscar James II exulted in the speech delivered last night by Michelle Obama, even as he noted the persistent gloom of some Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) supporters in the New Jersey delegation.

"It makes me a little nervous because we have to be united," said James.

Widely hailed as a homerun by the New Jersey delegation, the speech by the wife of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee did not go too heavy on family values to the detriment of hard, urban issues, in James’s view.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker with audience member Meena Harris of San Francisco.: Politicker photo

DENVER - No one ever said Newark wouldn’t be tough.

But despite the Brick City ground wars juxtaposed with the lure of a more glamorous national platform, Mayor Cory Booker insists he intends "unequivocally" to pursue a second term as Newark’s chief executive come 2010 - and with the same cast who now comprise the Newark City Council.

"Write it down, unequivocally," says the mayor, seated in the back of Baurs bar in downtown Denver after participating in a Time-Warner panel on the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.).

He even waved off the Hanoi helicopter scenario, should a President Barack Obama attempt to airlift his New Jersey campaign co-chair from New Jersey into a cabinet or ceremonial appointment.

What if Obama offered him a job as head of Housing and Urban Development, or ambassador to the Court of St. James, or national drug czar?

State Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, and Obama Campaign senior advisor Mark Alexander: Politicker photo 

DENVER - There persists a quiet agony among Hillary Clinton supporters who sit at the DNC events but pick at their food and squirm with a perpetual sense of loss, as thoughts of a Clinton coronation still dance vainly in their heads.

Don’t count Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) among that crowd, insists the 30-something Latina, who represents the City of Newark.

Schooled as a precinct captain in the North Ward before launching her own career as an elected official in 2007, Ruiz supported Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in the Democratic Primary.

But Ruiz is very clear about her long-term pride in the candidacy of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

With a primary challenge from Joe Ferriero’s Bergen County Democratic Organization (BCDO) always looming for Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, he announced earlier this week that he would resign from the Englewood City Council in March.

Although Johnson belongs to a slate of Democrats that has protested the practice of dual office-holding and voted to ban it, he has held an Englewood City Council since defeating a Ferriero ally, Rev. Vernon Walton, in a primary in 2006 (Walton is now a freeholder).

Ferriero allies have called Johnson’s hold on two offices hypocrisy, even if Johnson pledged not to seek another term.

State Democratic Committee spokesman Richard McGrath: Politicker photo 

DENVER - The appearance at the Democratic National Convention last night of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) had more than a few of the members of New Jersey’s delegation swallowing hard and wiping away tears.

One was Richard McGrath, spokesman of the State Democratic Committee, who watched Kennedy’s short, but almost full-circle speech in the Spotted Dog bar in the basement of the Inverness Hotel.

It was a little personal for the Democratic Party operative, who shared his family’s own Kennedy story.

"My dad grew up in the same congressional district as Kennedy, only on the other side of the tracks," said McGrath.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen): Politicker photo

DENVER - Hours before Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) delivers her runner-up address to the Democratic National Convention, state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) praised the former first lady, whose politics Weinberg questioned on the campaign trail last year.

A hardcore Obama backer, Weinberg’s chief complaint about Clinton on the presidential primary campaign trail was regarding her record. Clinton essentially stayed under the radar during the Bush years, in Weinberg’s judgment.