Jr.

Lautenberg Statement on 40th Anniversary of Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr. says that comments by a senior Democratic legislator, Raymond Lesniak, suggesting that Gov. Jon Corzine’s toll hike plan is dead, means the state should look for a budget that doesn’t rely on revenues from toll increases. 
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“Prominent Democrat Senators have now pronounced as DOA in the Senate any gas tax increase, any toll increases for debt, and now the Governor's ill advised and quite likely unconstitutional PBC. It's clear that the members of his own party are now following of the lead of republicans in the legislature in rejecting the Governor's vision,” Kean said in a statement released today.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. in Passaic on Monday night, flanked by U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, left, and Assemblyman Thomas Giblin.

Arguing that his presidential candidate possesses a unique combination of toughness and persuasive power, Robert Kennedy, Jr. electrified a tent-ful of fellow Hillary Clinton supporters on Monday night at a private home in Passaic.

"I was very skeptical at first because I knew she was coming in under the same charges as my father did, which were that she was a carpetbagger," Kennedy, a Westchester, N.Y. resident, said of Clinton’s appeal to him when she first prepared to run for his father’s old Senate seat.

Kennedy said Clinton faced tremendous hostility, especially in traditionally Republican upstate New York - where a Senate candidate must win if he or she is to win the state, in Kennedy’s words.

Former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley with state Sen. Loretta WeinbergIt was Bobby Kennedy in 1964 who inspired the young Bill Bradley to get into politics.

He would go through his hall of fame basketball career, but as Bradley writes in his latest book, "The New American Story," Kennedy ‘s leadership in the 1960s planted the seed for Bradley's life of public service following his career with the New York Knicks.

On Monday, the day before Election Day, the late Bobby Kennedy’s memory was alive as both sides - the Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama campaigns - appealed to his legacy with the help of his heirs.

Even as Sen. Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy mounted the stage in the Meadowlands Monday to back up Obama, Bobby Kennedy, Jr., was preparing for a campaign appearance in Passaic on behalf of fellow New Yorker Clinton.

Rallying a small crowd in a tent at a home in Passaic on the eve of Election Day, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell predicts that with a big GOTV effort behind her, Sen. Hillary Clinton will produce a "rainbow victory."

Speaking at a pump-up-the-troops event in Passaic tonight, Sen. Hillary Clinton fan Robert Kennedy, Jr., whose father once quoted Aeschylus in memorializing Martin Luther King, Jr., questioned Barack Obama's day-one readiness by suggesting the candidate would substitute poetry for toughness and real political skill.

Selvin White, Jr., a veteran of campaigns with U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, presides over field operations in Sen. Hillary Clinton's Newark/Broad Stree campaign office.

Councilman Ron Rice, Jr., contends he's winning the war in the West Ward.

Council President/Obama delegate candidate Mildred Crump

While the other side dozed strategically in parts of New Jersey’s biggest city, the Obama campaign stood 1,000 volunteers on the pavement of Newark Saturday and mobilized through all five wards.

Two days ago, Zora Menguelti and Peter Geier worked in an otherwise empty room in Obama campaign headquarters on Broad Street, handing out the makeshift literature they had, and waiting for reinforcements and supplies. On Saturday, they stood with two dozen volunteers amid stacks of glossy new Obama fliers and signs.

Obama Campaign State Director Mark Alexander

On the day of the Iowa caucuses, the New Jersey state director of Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has one immediate strategy, win or lose: on the next morning he’s going to stand up volunteers at different locales: the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, Newark Penn Station, Jersey City. They will be out there waving "Obama" signs, staying visible, shouting, working.

"We were always the candidate talking about change, that message hasn’t changed," says Mark Alexander, 41, seated in his West Orange office on Thursday, composed - given the stakes. Obama’s wife said if they didn’t win Iowa, the campaign would be finished.

"Fundamentally," says Alexander, "we are content that we are offering something the American people really want."