George Norcross

CHERRY HILL - "Machine, what machine?" deadpans retiring Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden), shuffling into Camden County Democratic Committee headquarters amid hundreds of bodies pushing toward the back door and the rally under a blue sky.

"There is no such thing as a machine."

Camden County Democratic Party leader George Norcross III is in the crowd, but his younger brother, Donald, is running the program.

President of the Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO Central Labor Council and assistant business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 351, Donald Norcross is also a candidate for the Assembly in the 5th District.

The union men and women on the pavement cheer heartily when Building and Trades chief Bill Mullen pays his respects to the labor leader who helped elect almost 200 union people since he took over the Southern Labor Council.

Donald Norcross was endorsed for State Assembly by the Courier-Post.

The Courier-Post today endorsed South Jersey AFL-CIO President Donald Norcross for State Assembly in the fifth district, saying that Norcross is well versed on state issues and "would be able to hit the ground running in Trenton" even though he'll be a freshman. 

The Courier-Post also endorsed Norcross' running mate, Camden City Council President Angel Fuentes.  The two are seeking to replace Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) and Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez (D-Camden).  Neither are seeking re-election.

But the Gloucester County Times declined to back Norcross, instead supporting Fuentes and Republican Stepfanie Velez-Gentry, who has attracted national attention because she owns a company that sells sex toys to women

Norcross, the Camden County Democratic Co-Chairman and the brother of Democratic leader George Norcross, set a record this month for the single biggest fundraising event for a first-time candidate: he raised a reported $350,000. 

"Norcross has been a union leader, yet he understands that things cannot be the same for future government workers as they have been and are for current ones in terms of pay and benefits. He sees that Trenton can't afford to keep handing out fat pensions and loads of other expensive benefits and remain solvent," the editorial said.  "While Norcross and Fuentes likely won't be as independent from party-line politics as we'd like, in this race, they're clearly the best choices."

Norcross, according to the Courier-Post, would not deny that he'll quickly move up to the Senate after State Sen. Dana Redd (D-Camden) wins her race for Mayor of Camden.

Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford), left, and Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo Wednesday night at Durkin's fundraiser.

BELLEVILLE - It was fitting that the main man at the microphone tonight at Nanina's in the Park was County Clerk Chris Durkin, a walking hybrid of two opposing political camps, which 20 days before a gubernatorial election can already see the delineations of a county executive battle in 2010.

"Dick Codey was ready to lead when he became governor and he made us all so proud to live, work and play in this state," Durkin said of the former governor and sitting senate president, in the next breath noting of his boss, the Essex County Executive, "Joe DiVincenzo has made Essex County the envy not only of the state but of the country. He is the taxpayers' best friend, and a bureaucrat's worst nightmare."

If it sounded like homage paid to opposing warlords, Durkin is indeed ensconced in the administration of the powerful county executive, but his mother, Joan, is a Codey, cousin of Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland), who last month was unofficially forced off the senate throne in a north-south Jersey Democratic Party coup that hinged on DiVincenzo backing Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) as the new senate president.

Tonight, Durkin - an amiable presence belying a torturous Codey v. DiVincenzo undercurrent - greeted guests to his $150-a-plate fundraiser, including headlining speaker Newark Mayor Cory Booker and the governor himself, who posed for pictures with Durkin before ascending a staircase where South Jerseyan Sweeney stood in a milling, hors d'oeuvres munching crowd with DiVincenzo. 

This year's Most Interesting Job for an Assembly Candidate Award goes to District 5 Republican Stepfanie Velez-Gentry, who runs a business specializing in... well, what amounts to naughty Tupper Ware parties.

Velez-Gentry, who's running against South Jersey power broker George Norcross's brother, Donald Norcross, runs Nookie Parties LLC, which organizes "adult romance parties for women & couples." 

Velez-Gentry's company, which she founded in 2007, sells sex toys, lingerie, games and other erotic knickknacks at customers' home parties.  The company's Web site lists dozens of representatives all over the country, and features pictures of Velez-Gentry modeling a couple of her products.

Velez-Gentry said that her company has helped save marriages and that "when the moms and dads are happy, the whole family is happy."  

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland), right, with legendary Main Events trainer Lou Duva and state Sen. John Girgenti (D-Hawthorne), left.

PATERSON - If Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland) endorses Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) for speaker, he wouldn't see the move as a self-destruct button on his own leadership chair.
 
"I'm saying it's not the end of the world if we had a senate president and a speaker from Essex County," said Codey, to stories suggesting Essex County fracture between Codey, who's trying to protect his senate presidency; and County Executive Joe Divincenzo, who supports Oliver for speaker and South Jersey Senate Majority Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) as part of a North-South Jersey leadership trade-off.
 
Trying to succeed retiring Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden) as the face of South Jersey leadership in Trenton, Sweeney has enough (14 of 23) votes in the Democratic caucus to extract Codey from the rostrum roost Codey has owned for six years. But Codey still hopes to build cross-the-aisle support in the Republican caucus to block his South Jersey rival and hold onto the senate presidency.
 
And he doesn't believe he needs to fight Oliver in the process, as he envisions an all-Essex leadership team - for two years.
 
"Who's the Speaker of the House?"
 
"Nancy Pelosi," was the answer.
 
"Who leads the U.S. Senate?"
 
A mind blurred over with Jersey political personages failed to immediately dredge the name of Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), but Codey made his point anyway.

Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) at her fundraiser tonight in Paterson.

PATERSON - The guests came and kept coming, happily bellying up to the bar and spilling into the overflow rooms here at the Brownstone for a Sheila Oliver fundraiser even as Essex County Democratic Party Chairman Phil Thigpen upped the confidence decibel level with a release that all of the Assembly people from his powerful county delegation would back the East Orange Assemblywoman for speaker.

The email missive carried the latest piece of bad news for Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland), who's fighting to remain in his chair of power without a majority of the majority in his Democratic caucus and now with the lower house members from his home county throwing in with Oliver.

Poised to become the first African American woman speaker, Oliver is generally seen as a North Jersey counterweight to South Jersey state Sen. Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford), who has the Democratic Party votes in the senate to take Codey's job. The more support she builds, the tougher it becomes for Codey to justify sticking around as a double dose of Essex in both the speaker's and Senate president's chairs.

The Rev. Reginald Jackson, the Executive Director of the Black Ministers' Council of New Jersey, has endorsed Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) for Assembly Speaker, according to a Star-Ledger report.  The only other candidate in the race is Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), who is also African American.

At a news conference to announce his support, Oliver denied that there was any deal that linked her candidacy for Speaker to the campaign of Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford) for Senate President.

"The Senate does what the Senate does and the General Assembly does what the General Assembly does. There is no trade-off," the Star-Ledger reported Oliver as saying.

And Jackson denied speculation that Oliver was a pawn in a political chess game being played by George Norcross, Stephen Adubato and other state Democratic leaders.

"We have heard rumors that she will be controlled by other folk.  The Sheila Oliver that we know will not be controlled or told what to do, but will do what is best for the citizens of New Jersey, Jackson said.

Last week, Oliver told PolitickerNJ.com that she is the "most independent person ever elected."

Newark Mayor Cory Booker needed to do some damage control yesterday after taking heat for his endorsement of Richard Codey (D-Roseland) in the race for Senate President.  Booker, at the urging of two lawyers who advise him, Elnardo Webster and Paul Fader, backed Codey after Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford) had already announced he had a majority of the Democratic Senate Caucus on his side.   That caused some Democrats close to Sweeney - especially George Norcross - to offer Booker a bit of friendly guidance.  (It's fair to assume that the advice included strategic assumptions for the 2013 Democratic gubernatorial primary.)  Booker, realizing Webster and Fader might have screwed up a bit, put out a statement late in the day acknowledging Sweeney's victory over Codey, and endorsing Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) for Speaker.  That probably made Norcross happy, but it won't be any consolation to Codey, who thought announcing a Booker endorsement a few hours earlier might be his salvation.

Raymond Zane, left, spent 28 years in the State Senate before losing his seat to Stephen Sweeney, right, in 2001.

Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford), who announced yesterday that he has the votes to depose Richard Codey (D-Roseland) as Senate President, went to the Senate eight years ago after prevailing in an internal political war in South Jersey.

The Inside Edge first reported political unrest in a deeply divided Gloucester County Democratic organization in early 2000 amidst a feud between Democratic County Chairman Michael Angelini and eight-term State Sen. Raymond Zane (D-Woodbury).  Angelini was backing former Gov. Jim Florio in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senator, while Zane was supporting a political newcomer, a mega millionaire Wall Streeter named Jon Corzine.

The feud between Angelini and Zane began during the 1999 general election.  Democrats were angry with Zane's refusal to back Paulsboro Mayor John Burzichelli in his campaign to oust two Republican Assemblymen: Speaker Jack Collins (R-Elmer) and Gary Stuhltrager (R-East Greenwich).  Political observers had long believed that an informal arrangement existed between the three District 3 legislators; they have not become involved in campaigns against the other for several years.

In retaliation for Zane's actions, some Gloucester County municipalities stripped the Senator of more than $100,000 worth of legal work, and Zane's son, Gloucester County Freeholder Raymond Zane III lost his position as Freeholder Vice President.

The split between the two widened in 2000 when Zane attempted to switch local party organizations from Florio, a former South Jersey Congressman, to Corzine. Zane was heavily criticized when Salem County Democratic Chairman Thomas Pankok went public with allegations that Zane offered campaign contributions to Salem Democrats on behalf of Corzine in exchange for dropping their support of Florio.

Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange)

ORANGE - Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver's (D-East Orange) first foray into Essex County politics was as a kamikaze freeholder candidate in the 1990s running on a line with renegade state Sen. Richard Codey (D-Roseland).

Codey won and Oliver lost, and now years later it looks as though Senate President Codey's headed for a leadership defeat in his caucus as Oliver musters support on top of support in her quest to be the first African American woman speaker of the Assembly, but in the process faces a home county in which a Codey defeat could mean civil war.

Oliver has yet to announce the support of any assembly people from Essex County, but she's working on it, while also respecting, she says, political protocol and the reality that Essex County Democratic Chairman Phil Thigpen still stands with Codey.

"I am attempting to ameliorate Essex County; I believe Chairman Thigpen will avert a civil war and at the end of the day Essex County will be together," she insisted, speaking to the stunning news this morning that Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford) summoned enough Democratic caucus backing to beat Senate President Codey when the senate reconvenes after the gubernatorial election on Nov. 3rd.

Among the fourteen backers (including Sweeney himself), two senators declaring their support for South Jerseyan Sweeney over Essex County's own Codey are county employees, state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark) and state Sen. Nia Gill (D-Montclair).

The fact that Oliver also works for the county as an assistant county administrator sent waves of anxiety through those Codey forces concerned with the concentration of too much power in the office of County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo. seeking a third term next year - probably not without a fight at this point.

Now with the real threat of a Codey retaliation against DiVincenzo, Oliver said the boss factor - namely DiVincenzo's closeness to North Ward Leader Steve Adubato and Adubato's alliance with South Jersey Democratic leader (and Sweeney-backer) George Norcross III - is a non-issue.

"I am the most independent person ever elected," said the assemblywoman from East Orange whose five and a half years in the legislature make her the second longest-serving assemblyperson from the Essex delegation after Assemblyman John McKeon (D-West Orange).