Jun Choi

Frank Lautenberg’s team got caught off guard yesterday by some major endorsements for Rob Andrews in Middlesex County, where there is a serious move afoot to essentially rescind the party organization’s endorsement of the incumbent and have both candidates run in an open primary.  Now that the Lautenberg operation has had a chance to focus on Middlesex, there are reports that some of the local officials who had been expected to support Andrews are now wavering – including Edison Mayor Jun Choi.

Rob Andrews appears to be entering the race for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, even though a DSCC poll shows him 35-points behind incumbent Frank Lautenberg. The ten-term Congressman from South Jersey had a rough day yesterday after expected endorsements from Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero and State Sens. Raymond Lesniak and Brian Stack failed to materialize (Ferriero, under considerable pressure, is now backing Lautenberg), but he’s staged a comeback with support from Newark powerhouse Steve Adubato, Jr., labor leaders Ray Pocino and Frank Spencer, three State Senators from Middlesex County, and State Sen. Paul Sarlo, a close Ferriero ally, who will back Andrews after an official announcement of candidacy.  Look for Stack and Lesniak to move to Andrews now that they have some cover, as well as Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, Edison Mayor Jun Choi and more local officials from Middlesex.

Three big town Mayors supported Barack Obama for President: Cory Booker delivered a huge plurality for Obama in Newark (57%), and Jerramiah Healy helped Obama win Jersey City by a narrow margin.  But in Edison, where Jun Choi was an early backer, Hillary Clinton won 60% of the vote. 

As news stations projected Sen. Hillary Clinton beating Sen. Barack Obama in New Jersey, Obama supporters at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in West Orange tried to fight off their disappointment.

U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman praised Obama's gutsy performance and reminded the candidate's supporters that few gave the Illinois senator a chance when he began his campaign.

"We had a huge turnout in Jersey City," said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who questioned the performance of new voting machines in his city.

Senate President Richard Codey at the Wilshire Grand Hotel todayAfter getting one question cleared up in the affirmative with Sen. Barack Obama, Senate President and former Governor Richard Codey today officially endorsed Obama for president at a press conference in his hometown of West Orange.

"What’s the skinny on the fact that you’re part Irish?" Codey said he asked Obama in a 10 minute conversation with the presidential candidate this morning, six days before the Feb. 5 primary.

"I am," Obama told him.

"Is that on your father’s side?" Codey cracked.

"It’s O’bama," Senator Loretta Weinberg informed the Senate President.

Former Sen. Bill Bradley is making a rare public appearance in New Jersey on Thursday
Former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley will host a Rally for Change in support of Barack Obama's campaign for President tomorrow, Thursday, January 31, at Trayes Hall in the Douglass Campus Center.

Pre-Iowa, they thought it was going to be a cakewalk, but supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton insist that initial jolt of dread between Iowa and New Hampshire has turned into excitement, while the supporters of Sen. Barack Obama say they are excited - and on guard for truth-twisting.

Obama’s victory in South Carolina last night - his second in the process so far - made the Clinton machine in New Jersey change gears again as they get ready to try to roll over Obama’s grassroots operations on Feb. 5.

"Obviously, we got a late start because people were taking some things for granted," said Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes, who in the lead-up to Obama’s win gathered about 25 people at the Ewing Township Library on Saturday to help prepare them for phone-banking duties on behalf of the Clinton campaign.

Speaking in the Edison Family Restaurant on Saturday, Edison Mayor Jun Choi uses a hometown hero as a reference point.

Edison Mayor Jun Choi, Assemblyman Neil Cohen, Susan Weir, Vanessa Delago, Lakshmi Sankar, Gail Jones, Julie Diaz 

Catapulted by the news out of Iowa, Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters rallied across the state of New Jersey on Saturday, from Trenton to Newark and points in between, bolstering troops and adding new numbers to their ranks.

Speaking to a juked crowd packed into the Edison Family Restaurant, Mayor Jun Choi used the proximity of his town’s Menlo Park section to draw a link between Obama and the ultimate Jersey tech-head, Thomas Alva Edison.

"For seven years, he patented more than 400 technologies that revolutionized the world," the mayor said of the Menlo Park wizard. "We can honestly say this township is the birthplace of the technological revolution because he started the technological revolution."

Boom. He’s here.

That was the way Barack Obama’s New Jersey State Director, Mark Alexander, described tonight’s low-dollar Obama fundraiser at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. About 1,300 people turned out for the event, where students paid $15 for admission, while everyone else paid $25.