Joe DiVincenzo

Faced with Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland) allies fingering him as the culprit behind Codey's imminent leadership downfall and months away from an election that most observers thought would be a walkover for him, Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo hit back tonight.

Codey's people say the presence of state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark) and state Sen. Nia Gill (D-Montclair) on a 14-member roster backing Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) bid for Senate President against Codey prove DiVincenzo wants Codey gone and was only too willing to lend a shoulder to the South Jersey gang-up. 

DiVincenzo says no way.

"If Dick Codey had the votes, we would have been with Dick Codey - we would have supported him," said the county executive. "He didn't have the votes! Dick's done a good job, but he doesn't have the support of what? - his colleagues."

East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser and Essex County Executive Joe Divincenzo with Gov. Jon Corzine in August.

Running for reelection this year in pursuit of a fourth term in what amounts to a walk-over Nov. 3rd election for him in his heavily Democratic city, East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser didn't rule out running again next year, for a different office, though - against Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo.

News today that DiVincenzo's county employee underlings - state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark) and state Sen. Nia Gill (D-Montclair) - plan to back South Jersey product, Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford), in his challenge of Codey, thereby swinging the balance of senate power to South Jersey, rankled Bowser.

"I think Joe DiVincenzo has his priorities twisted," said Bowser. "He should be supporting Dick Codey.

"Nothing against Sheila Oliver," Bowser added of the Assemblywoman who ran against him in a 1997 mayoral primary and lost by 51 votes, who now stands to be Speaker of the Assembly as an Essex County counterweight to Sweeney's upper house ascension. 

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).

IRVINGTON - They bellowed a lot of praise down on Gov. Jon Corzine from the pulpit of Christian Love Baptist Church on Wednesday night but the signature hymn, "Your struggle is over," sung with deep feeling and a full chorus on high volume, hardly projected a Biblical battle cry as the governor faces eight weeks more of hard-slog campaign season before Election Day.

When the big baskets appeared and it was collection time, Pastor Ron Christian made sure Corzine knew the drill.

"You never know when he might leave," joked the reverend, host for the governor, an altar filled with other emissaries of ecumenism, among them the Rev. Pastor Reginald Jackson of St. Matthew AME Church - and other public officials all gathered to salute law enforcement officers and firemen on the eighth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

There was a lot of love for Corzine throughout the course of the ceremony, which Christian stoked even as he deflected any of the praise directed at himself and his thriving Irvington church by reminding the congegation - to growing applause - that he's just a simple sinner - a former corrections officer turned thief, in fact, turned repentant minister.

North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato, left, and Gov. Jon Corzine last year.

NEWARK - It was a day of celebration in the Central Ward for North Ward stalwart Steve Adubato, who personally cut the ribbon on the Robert Treat Academy-Central on William Street for kindergarteners and first graders.

Adubato nearly a year ago read in Barack Obama's presidential victory a macrocosm of his own efforts citywide.

The way the North Warder figured, if Obama as an African American could secure entire white voter towns, then why should Adubato as a white feel trepidatious about going full bore in areas where black voters dominate; areas like the Central Ward, for example, where the end of the Mayor Sharpe James era left a political crater that both Adubato and James successor Mayor Cory Booker both eagerly tried to fill.

Newark is composed of five wards, and although a phys ed teacher by trade, James knew math well enough to know that if he controlled three wards, he could maintain control of his domain, and he did: the West, the South and the Central.

His departure from the scene two years ago tilted more South Ward power into the hands of Payne family, and enabled state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) to consolidate power in the West.

Gov. Jon Corzine meets up with state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) in erona.

VERONA - Selling his record on healthcare today with the latest poll showing him trailing his opponent by nine points in a head-to-head, Gov. Jon Corzine said back chatter about a ham-handed reelection campaign encumbered by too many chiefs is a "non-story."   

"Maggie Moran and Tom Shea are running the campaign," said the governor, where he appeared at a park in Verona with lieutenant governor candidate Loretta Weinberg.

Corzine has brought in former Bergen County Democratic Organization (BCDO) spokesman Bill Maer and Democratic Party strategist Jamie Fox, but the governor insisted the upper eschelon hierarchy of the campaign remains unchanged.

Gov. Jon Corzine flanked by Attorney General Anne Milgram, East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser, Jose Cordero of the AG's Office, and Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo

EAST ORANGE - As New Jersey's media and political classes focus on corruption and former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie stands astride the backwash of arrests from nearly two weeks ago selling a message of change as the Republican candidate for governor, Gov. Jon Corzine redirected the public spotlight to violent crime and murders with numbers from the state Attorney General's Office that show a reduction in both.

“We are winning important battles in the war against violent criminals and gangs,” said Corzine, standing in Memorial Park with Mayor Robert Bowser; Attorney General Anne Milgram; Jose Cordero, New Jersey's first statewide director of gangs, guns and violent crime and the former police director of East Orange; Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo; Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow and a buttressing platoon of law enforcement officials.

“Thanks to the efforts of Attorney General (Anne) Milgram and the New Jersey law enforcement community, county task forces, police departments, and partner agencies, more than  4,200 offenders have been arrested for crimes including murder, assault with a firearm, armed robbery, and gun and drug trafficking," added the Democratic Party incumbent. "We know more work remains.  Even one act of violence against a New Jersey citizen is one too many.”

Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, center, greets state Sen. Joe Kyrillos (R-Middletown), now chair of the Christie campaign, with Steve Adubato, Jr., left, and Christie confidante Bill Palatucci at last year's North Ward Center party at the Breakers.

Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo officially scratched himself off a shortening - and then lengthening - and now indeterminate lieutenant governor gossip sheet tonight, saying he wouldn't take the job if Gov. Jon Corzine offered. 

"I'm going to be running for Essex County Executive next year," said DiVincenzo, who is seeking his third term. "The more successful I am as county executive, people are interested in me wanting to run for lieutenant governor. But I'm not interested.

"I'm running for re-election," he added. "Jon knows I'm going to work very hard to get him re-elected."

DiVincenzo said he heard the LG rumors kick in about him on Friday, and he dismissed them. Today, The Inside Edge wrote a piece acknowledging the backchatter.

"I never talked to the governor, he never called me about this, I just want to put the rumor to rest," DiVincenzo told PolitickerNJ.com.

State Sen. Dana Redd (D-Camden)

Sources close to Gov. Jon Corzine have said for months now that he won't pick a white male for lieutenant governor.

Not enough balance.

A week ago three names seemed fairly solid in a firmament that nevertheless shifts daily: state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) and Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells.

If the first two were white, they were women, at least. But the fact that they weren't males wasn't the only obvious jump-off-the-page quality they shared.

Both women had reputations as elected officials who wouldn't easily get pushed around. 

Weinberg earned a rep - and endeared herself in the process to Corzine - as an enemy of the Bergen County Democratic Organization, while Buono aggressively sought the budget chairmanship despite efforts by leadership to install somebody more pliant.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, left, and Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo (photo courtesy of the Booker Administration)

Newark Mayor Cory Booker today officially endorsed Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo for re-election to a third term.

“The mayor supports Joe. D,” Booker spokeswoman Desiree Peterkin Bell told PolitickerNJ.com after speaking with Booker this afternoon.

DiVincenzo runs next year for county executive, while Booker, who has ruled out running for lieutenant governor desite entreaties by sources close to Gov. Jon Corzine, intends to pursue a second term as mayor.