Local Races

Rivals: School Board President Vincent Capuana, left, and Acting Mayor/Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic)

PASSAIC – Opposing forces converge on School No. 3 in the Third Ward, the local political base of Acting Mayor/Assemblyman Gary Schaer.

Schaer and his ally, mayoral candidate Dr. Alex Blanco, greet people in front of the school as they head in to vote.

A car door slams and a slender man jumps the curb.

It’s School Board President Vincent Capuana, one of Blanco’s rivals in the mayors’ contest.

“We’ve been here in Gary’s base since this morning,” confides one of Capuana’s backers. “He moves, we move.”

PASSAIC – Among Dr. Alex Blanco’s street presence in the city on Election Day walks Paterson City At Large Councilman Rigo Rodriguez, who’s excited about his fellow Dominican American and his chances here today in the special mayoral contest.

“He’s a good candidate, and I believe he would be the right person to fight corruption in City Hall, which has been very bad here in Passaic,” said Rodriguez.

The councilman had success in his hometown in the last municipal election, as he sent an ally head-to-head with Mayor Jose “Joey” Torres’s candidate, Councilman Juan Torres.

Carl Sharif

NEWARK – The man Mayor Cory Booker calls his political sensei came out of the South Ward today and made a statement.

Power broker Carl Sharif laughed off the suggestion that because he’s funding Mary Rone’s Central Ward Council campaign, it means Rone is toiling as a mole for Sharif’s old ally and political acolyte, Booker.

The argument on the street is that Rone’s campaigning in those areas or at least among those populations where Booker antagonist Charles Bell is strong, in order to divide the vote and enable Osborne to win.

Booker emerges from voting booth at University High School.

Newark – There’s a big show of Booker force in the Central Ward that even has hardened campaign veterans backing former Councilman Charles Bell doing an early gutcheck .

“It’s David and Goliath,”’ says Central Ward Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Brown, watching the fusion of unions working for Mayor Cory Booker’s candidate and their fellow Laborer, Eddie Osborne, overrun the giant Central Ward, pop. 58,000.

“Their forces outnumber us, 10-1,” says Brown. “And they’ve got a drag operation going, hoping new Obama voters are going to drag down the ballot to vote for Osborne. I’ve been telling people not to confront them. Just stay in your spots. We can’t win if we confront them. They’re too many of them.”

Eddie Osborne, foreground

NEWARK – Thanksgiving came early in the Central Ward as Eddie Osborne and company hit the streets with turkeys for seniors, while the same lone, apparently paid, sentinel stood at the corner of McCarter Highway and Market Street with a sign dissing Charles Bell.

The whole ward is wired with candidates but it’s Bell versus Osborne overtime.

To look at the cityscape on its face, Osborne has the edge, for here in the city’s most populous ward there are Osborne signs, Osborne television ads, Osborne organizational muscle, vans mounted with megaphones and high visibility t-shirted LIUNA union workers passing out, yes, turkeys.

Dr. Alex Blanco

PASSAIC – It’s bleak on Monday.  The sky never disgorges the rain and people stand around in the streets and talk about what’s going to go down here tomorrow.

There’s one day left in this five-man race for a seat left vacant by a man in federal prison, and most have a good idea about who’s wearing wires and where the money’s coming from, but no one knows who’s going to win.

Not if they’re telling the truth.

Campaign headquarters are almost up to full strength several hours before real estate developer Jose Sandoval, physician Alex Blanco, code enforcement inspector/School Board President Vinny Capuana, bail bondsman Carl Ellen and landlord/City Councilman Joe Garcia head to the local Baptist Church for a final collective prayer on the eve of Election Day.

Somerset County Democratic Chair Peg Schaffer, local races

MARTINSVILLE – It looks like a joke at first or at least an appropriate back burner relegation for the Somerset County Democratic Party, which sits under a pizza parlor facing away from the road.

They don’t dominate here, haven’t for years, and that’s an understatement, but the little storefront plastered over with Democratic Party campaign signs belies the internal workings of what new party chair Peg Schaffer sees as a movement.

“I forgot how to practice law,” says Schaffer, sporting a “McBush” button and gulping coffee as she surveys headquarters where two dozen campaign workers stay on the phones.