John McCormac

U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), center, in the crowd today with Assemblyman Joe Egan (D-New Brunswick), left, and Middlesex County Freeholder H. James Polos.

EDISON - Against a landscape of Middlesex County Democratic Party strife, Vice President Joe Biden this afternoon stumped for Gov. Jon Corzine, arguing the international context of the recession, which he said Republican candidate Chris Christie has tried to pin solely on Corzine.

"Jon has said he governed in tough times," said the vice president. "Let's give him the chance to govern in good times."

Deadlocked with Christie, according to most polls, Corzine's handlers want him to repeat a double-barrel message from here until Election Day two weeks from now: remind people that he acted early to blunt the impact of the recession, and that the pro-unon, pro-choice, anti-gun incumbent shares the values of most New Jersey voters. 

Biden was here to amplify that two-pronged argument.

"Isn't it great we have Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House?" Corzine asked the crowd. "Their values are our values, right?"

Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac

Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac confirmed that he had two summertime meetings with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) about the possibility of challenging freshman U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-Clinton) in 2010, but told the DCCC late last month he won't run.

"I was flattered to be considered but i have the job I've always loved and I'm only halfway through my first term," said McCormac. "I made a commitment to the people of Woodbridge."

A former state treasurer, McCormac said he had one meeting with the DCCC in Woodbridge in early June. Later the same month he went to Washington, D.C. for more talks.

"I told them sometime in the last month I wouldn't be a candidate for consideration," McCormac said.

State Sen. Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) today in New Brunswick.

NEW BRUNSWICK -  State Sen. Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) believes local contests will drive Democratic Party turnout in Middlesex County and improve Gov. Jon Corzine's opportunity for victory, particularly local fights in Woodbridge and New Brunswick.

"I'm on the hustings every night, and I can feel the momentum turning our way," said Smith, appearing with Corzine at an event to promote the governor's Return to Work program.

But talk to Democrats privately about the gubernatorial race and their worry inevitably runs to Middlesex, where Corzine scored 67% in the Democratic Primary, and where Republican Chris Christie signs make front lawn statements everywhere in the sprawl of blue collar towns here.

Sensing opportunity, Christie and his running mate, Kim Guadagno, campaigned avidly in Middlesex this summer, hitting the fairgrounds and street parades in places like Edison and Sayreville and generally stirring more enthusiasm for their candidate than a comparatively moribund Democratic Party effort.

WOODBRIDGE - Born in South Amboy to a factory worker father who worked at the Perth Amboy Chevron company, a resident of Woodbridge with family in all of the towns over here, Craig Coughlin considers himself a diehard blue collar creation of the 19th District. 

"I think I know the district as well as anyone can," said Coughlin, 51, who's heading into a special convention showdown next Wednesday with retired Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez of Perth Amboy to earn the right as a Democratic candidate in the 19th.

"I don't think Judge Rodriguez knows the district as well as I do," said Coughlin, who's lived in the district's biggest town, Woodbridge, since 1993. "I have friends and family in every community. I know the district. I know what matters. People want a good educational system, protection for seniors and people-centered legislation. I have experience in the judiciary and on the political side."

He lives here in the 19th, and works here.

Peter Kothari's float earlier this month at the Indian Independence Day Parade in Edison.

WOODBRIDGE - As Democrats continue to wage a low-grade civil war in the 19th District, Republicans Richard Piatkowski and Peter Kothari have struggled to stay in tandem and are now mutually feeling party pressure to get out of the race, depending on what happens at Wednesday's special convention, where Democrats seek a successor to embattled South Amboy Mayor John T. O'Leary.

Again they're having a hard time agreeing on a strategy.

Kothari says he would consider backing down for the good of the Republican cause, while Piatkowski says he's intent on being the candidate from Perth Amboy.

"Whatever the party wants, I can do it," said the former, when asked if he's heard rumors about the Republican Party dumping him for a candidate with potentially better name ID, strategic import and more resources to take advantage of rival party blunders.

"I will definitely consider it," the GOP Assembly candidate from Woodbridge said when asked if he could leave the contest. "My priority is getting Chris Christie elected as our next governor. We also have to reclaim the 19th District. If the party wants to put someone here it believes would make our chances more strong, then I'm ready to fight for that candidate."

Who will run with Wisniewski?

SAYREVILLE - The special Middlesex Democratic County Committee convention candidacy of former Edison Municipal Judge Craig Coughlin of Woodbridge in the 19th Legislative District received a boost this afternoon as veteran Woodbridge Councilman Charles Kenny aborted his run and threw his support to Coughlin in a maneuver apparently designed to do more than simply upset the candidacy of retired Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez of Perth Amboy.

"Today I am withdrawing my name for consideration as a candidate for the 19th Legislative District Assembly seat," Kenny said. "In withdrawing my name from consideration, I offer my support and endorsement to former Edison Municipal Court Judge Craig Coughlin in his bid to represent the citizens of the 19th District."

Certainly the move makes it more difficult for Rodriguez - who's running with the backing of neophyte Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz and who at one point appeared to be the favorite - to win, despite what his allies today insisted is a stepped-up speed dial effort six days before the convention.

In what has become Coughlin versus Rodriguez, the municipal judge against the superior court judge, (Woodbridge healthcare professional Jean Pierce is also running but most Middlesex County insiders don't expect her to be a factor), Coughlin now has the decided edge, according to sources, as the three Democratic Party candidates trying to run alongside incumbent Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) made their individual pitches to county committee members tonight at party headquarters.

Sources say Woodbridge Councilman Charles Kenny plans today to drop his bid to represent the Democratic Party as a candidate for the vacant 19 Legislative District seat.

Kenny and fellow Woodbridge resident Craig Coughlin, a recently retired Edison Muncipal Judge, met this morning at the office of Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac - a meeting sources say resulted in Kenny backing down from his intentions of running.

Kenny earlier this week told PolitickerNJ.com that he anticipated prevailing on Coughlin to back him so that Woodbridge could go united into next Wednesday's special convention held by the Middlesex County Democratic Organization.  

Kenny's departure leaves Coughlin - resident of the town holding the most county committee votes - retired Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez of Perth Amboy, and health care professional Jean Pierce, who's also of Woodbridge but lacks Coughlin and Rodriguez's political ties.

South Amboy

Four candidates have emerged as likely contenders for an empty seat in the 19th Legislative District a week in front of a special Democratic Party convention to choose a successor to South Amboy Mayor Jack O'Leary.

O'Leary aborted his candidacy a week ago after failing to get in front of rolling headlines about his insurance business. He was the second candidate fielded by the Democrats this year, coming on the heels of Assemblyman Joe Vas (D-Perth Amboy), who nixed his reelection bid to focus on a slew of federal and state corruption charges leveled against him.

Now, seven days before the special convention on Sept. 2nd, it's a contest among former Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez, Vas partisan Arlene Acosta of Perth Amboy, healthcare advocate Jean Pierce of Woodbridge, and Woodbridge Councilman Charles Kenny.

Mayor Wilda Diaz, center, with her sisters, Lourdes O'Donnell, left, and Nancy Diaz.

PERTH AMBOY - There were days over the course of her first year in office in which Mayor Wilda Diaz wondered whether she could run Perth Amboy for a full four years.

She began to get a deepening sense that the problems were too entrenched, the solutions too troublesome and, in some cases, too hurtful to the people.  

Her 2008 grassroots take-down of City Hall fixture Mayor/Assemblyman Joe Vas proved to be but the beginning of an ongoing and intensifying drama in which Diaz and her administration uncovered an inherited $10.6 million budget shortfall and helped state and federal authorities pull together a corruption case against Vas.

"On this stage last July I could never have envisioned that we would discover a financial crisis so deep, or a web of tangled deals so wide," Diaz said tonight in her first state of the city address at Perth Amboy High School, where she attended school and graduated.

Once running and now continuing to insist on honest and open government, the new mayor in this first year enacted unpoplar measures to reverse course on a local miasma made doubly injurious on residents here by a national recession. Her policies have included a 26% tax increase, water rate increases, wage freezes and layoffs of municipal employees.

Ask yourself what the CWA and the NJEA would say if a Republican Governor in his or her re-election year proposed a State Budget that reduced the annual payment to the Teachers Pension and Annuity Fund by more than $500 million, from almost $700 million the previous year, to only $120 million?  

How long would it take for an NJEA Rally to be organized at the Statehouse to protest this policy?

The unions' silence and acquiescence in Governor Corzine's plan to do just this, and their assent to legislation permitting towns to defer local pension payments, are strong evidence that Governor Corzine's senior staff and political team have not rolled over and played dead in the face of severe public backlash over his budget and recent devastating independent polls.

That the union leadership has either agreed or been cowed into silence in the face of these proposals demonstrates a surprising degree of skill and tact from the Governor's senior advisors, which some observers say had been lacking in the front office for several years.

The question is - Is this new group of advisors, while perhaps short on "flash," long enough on smarts to help the Governor recover from his current image problems?