Glenn Cunningham

GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie and Bergen County Clerk Kathe Donovan talk to former Bergenfield Mayor Roberto Rivas, a Corzine backer.

BERGENFIELD - This was a decidedly Manny Pacquiao crowd here gathered for the Filipino Heritage Festival, where images of the world's pound-for-pound greatest prizefighter abounded.

Although not ostensibly a boxing contest, under the mid-summer hoopla in this precious voter stronghold of Bergen County could be identified two fierce political camps: one in the corner of Gov. Jon Corzine and organized by former Bergenfield Mayor Roberto Rivas and the other backing former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie and bucked up by the Rev. Gaudy Soriano, pastor of Faith Restoration Center Inc. of Jersey City.

Soriano is a big Christie fan going back to when the two men shared a stage at the funeral of the Glenn D. Cunningham, the mayor of Jersey City.

Soriano saw a third speaker, the Rev. Al Sharpton, gearing up to speak on that day, and promptly collared a Cunningman handler and asked that Christie be allowed to talk before Sharpton, lest the lawman's remarks get lost on the other side of the famously flamboyant preacher.

"I think people see him as an everyday man who is upset about the situaton we are facing in New Jersey," the reverend said today as he made the rounds with Christie from one vendor's booth to the next in a town dubbed Bergen's little Manila, home to 15,000 Filipino-Americans.

Burlington County Republicans are saying that they expect Gov. Jon Corzine to nominate State Sen. Philip Haines (R-Springfield) to the Superior Court this month, and that Haines has told party leaders he could be out of the Senate as early as June 25.  Republican sources say that Christopher Myers, a former Medford Mayor who won 48% in a bid for Congress last year, has emerged as the leading candidate to win a July special election convention to fill Haines' seat.

Haines would become the third Senator in recent years to resign from the upper house to become a Superior Court Judge: Garry Furnari (D-Nutley) did it in 2003, clearing the way for Paul Sarlo (D-Wood-Ridge) top move up to the Senate; and later that year, Joseph Charles (D-Jersey City) left the Senate after less than two years to become a Judge.  It was the Charles seat that led to a rancorous primary between then-Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham and the candidate backed by the Hudson County Democratic Organization, then-Jersey City Council President L. Harvey Smith.

If Jerramiah Healy tops the 50% mark today, he will become the first Mayor of Jersey City to win three elections without a runoff since the legendary Frank Hague.

Healy won a 2004 special election 28%-24% over Assemblyman Louis Manzo, with Acting Mayor L. Harvey Smith running a strong third with 22%.  When he ran for re-election in 2005, he won 75% of the vote against former City Councilwoman Melissa Holloway.

Runoffs have been common in Jersey City elections in recent years.  In 2001, former U.S. Marshal Glenn Cunningham led City Council President (now Hudson County Executive) Thomas DeGise 38%-24% in the May election, and won the runoff 53%-47%.  Bret Schundler elected in a nineteen-candidate 1992 special election, won re-election with 68% in 1993.  But in 1997, he fell two votes short of winning 50% and after a court battle, beat Healy 59%-41% in the runoff.

When Dr. Paul Jordan, a reformer who toppled the Jersey City Democratic machine when he won a 1971 special election for Mayor, ran for Governor six years later, City Clerk Thomas F.X. Smith beat Jordan's handpicked successor.  Smith won 50% against William Macchi, the Jersey City Director of Human Resources.  That effectively ended Jordan's gubernatorial campaign and caused the defeat of Jordan allies in the State Senate (Walter Sheil ousted two-term State Sen. James Dugan, the Democratic State Chairman) and Assembly in the primary election a few weeks later.  Smith served one-term and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1981.

Assemblywoman-elect Nancy Munoz (R-Summit) becomes the first widow to directly succeed her husband in the New Jersey Legislature.   She won a special election last night to replace Eric Munoz, who passed away earlier this month at the age of 61.

After Patrick Scanlon died in August 1977, his widow, Mary Scanlon, won a November 1977 election to fill his seat.  But the same day, voters elected Joseph Papasidero to fill the remaining two months of Patrick Scanlon's term.  Mary Scanlon actually succeeded Papasidero.  (Deborah Scanlon, a Union County Freeholder, is the daughter-in-law of Patrick and Mary Scanlon.)

Just to be clear, would-be candidates don't wait until funerals to begin campaigning for open seats.   It took Hudson County Democrats less than an hour to convene conferences following the death of Jersey City Mayor/State Sen. Glenn Cunningham died in 2004.  Campaigns were underway before the funerals of Assemblymen Melvin Cottrell (R-Jackson) and Thomas Smith (R-Asbury Park), and there were political discussions at the funerals of Assemblymen Monroe Lustbader (R-Short Hills) and Alan Augustine (R-Scotch Plains). 

It took less time for Essex Democrats to pick Evelyn Williams (D-Newark) for a State Assembly seat after the death of Donald Tucker (D-Newark) than it did to pick Oadline Truitt (D-Newark) after Williams was arrested for shoplifting days after she took office.

Posturing doesn't always wait for an actual death certificate.  When State Senators Byron Baer (D-Englewood) and Walter Kavanaugh (R-Somerville) became ill, potential successors began to shore up votes in anticipation of a retirement.  And make no mistake: the campaign to succeed 85-year-old U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg has been underway for the last eight months.

If State Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Jersey City) was running for Mayor of Jersey City, then State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) wouldn't have attended Mayor Jerramiah Healy's campaign kickoff last night.

The speculation that State Senator Sandra Cunningham will run for Mayor of Jersey City in 2009 is likely over, even though Cunningham has not yet announced her plans.  The attendance of one of her close friends and political allies, State Senator Raymond Lesniak, at a rally for Mayor Jerramiah Healy last night is a clear signal that Cunningham will not run. 

Hudson County Sheriff Juan Perez wants to succeed Jim Plousis as U.S. Marshal

Hudson County Sheriff Juan Perez is quietly seeking support to become New Jersey’s next U.S. Marshal, but sources with knowledge of the selection process say the career law enforcement official is not on the short list of candidates at this time.  The leading candidates are former Mercer County Sheriff Samuel Plumeri and Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire – both are very much announced candidates and are actively lobbying for the job -- with Bergen County Freeholder Tomas Padilla looming large as a potential contender.

Perez, a former State Police captain and public school teacher, served as Jersey City’s Deputy Police Director before defeating four-term Sheriff Joseph Cassidy in the 2007 Democratic primary.

U.S. Marshal James Plousis, a Republican, is expected to lose his job when Barack Obama becomes President

One campaign certain to get underway soon is the race for U.S. Marshal, a post that will flip from Republican to Democrat next year.  James Plousis, a former Cape May County Sheriff who was named U.S. Marshal by George W. Bush in 2002, is expected to follow tradition and offer his resignation effective with the start of Barack Obama's presidency on January 20, 2009.  Plousis' predecessor was Glen Cunningham, who was a former Jersey City Police Officer and City Councilman before Bill Clinton named him in 1996.  New Jersey's two United States Senators, Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, will effectively pick the next federal marshal.

One Democratic leader close to the senior U.S. Senator suggests that Lautenberg's choice could be Mitchell Sklar, his former Legislative Assistant who is now the Executive Director of the New Jersey Association of Chiefs of Police.  Lautenberg is also backing Paul Fishman, a former Justice Department official in the Clinton administration, for U.S. Attorney.  Menendez has not reportedly not yet focused on this particular position.

Cunningam was the only African American to serve as New Jersey's U.S. Marshal.  All his predecessors where white men.

While the shot list has not yet developed, expect several names to come off quickly: Democratic insiders say it won't be Atantic County Sheriff James McGettigan, who lost his bid for re-election to a sixth term last week and needs a job.  And it is not likely to be Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire, whose ties to indicted Democratic County Chairman Joseph Ferriero won't help his chances (and besides, he wants to run for County Executive in 2010 when Democrats dump Dennis McNerney). 

If Jerramiah Healy wins re-election in 2009, he would become the first Democratic mayor of Jersey City to win a second consecutive four-year term since Thomas Whelan was re-elected in 1969.

DENVER -- State Sen. Sandra B. Cunningham still hasn’t made a decision about whether she’ll run for mayor of Jersey City.  And that’s as much as she’ll say on the subject.

“I don’t know yet,” she said.  “I’d rather not answer any of the stuff relating to that right now.”

Although Cunningham is staying in the same hotel as incumbent Mayor Jerramiah Healy, both said that they had not discussed anything about the mayor’s race during their time at the convention or, for that matter, ever (whether people close to them are talking about it is a different matter).