Louis Manzo

In their State Senate contest, Sandra Bolden Cunningham’s people and Assemblyman Louis Manzo’s forces see the race coming down to which side can amass more votes in their respective monster wards: Cunningham in the predominantly African-American Ward F and Manzo in the white blue collar burgh of Bayonne.

By 1 p.m., 1,165 voters had hit the polls in Ward F, and 1,500 voters had punched in in Bayonne, according to the Manzo people. Cunningham spokesman Dominic Santana disputed those numbers, and says more voters are showing up in Ward F, and fewer in Bayonne.

Shelia Newton-Moses campaigns at the Colonette Diner in Jersey City
It's a long life in public service versus a life of fiesty private enterprise in this district 31 undercard where veteran former Jersey City Mayor, State Senator and Council President L. Harvey Smith will fight today with businesswoman and private school educator Shelia Newton Moses for votes in Jersey City and Bayonne.

Both candidates expect to pull votes in Ward F, which is about 85 percent African-American. Wards A and B also contain a large percentage of the district’s African American voters, particularly A, where Smith is banking on his reputation with his base, and Newton-Moses hopes her community activism and vitality count for some votes.

William Ayala, former chief of staff to the late Mayor Glenn Cunningham and a former candidate for the Assembly, has endorsed Assemblyman Louis Manzo for state Senate in district 31, the opponent of the mayor's widow, Sandra Bolden Cunningham.

While their tickets wage war, Hudson County Clerk candidates Mary Jane Desmond and Barbara Netchert are unfailingly polite to each other.

“I ran into (Netchert). I went right up to her when she was coming up the steps and said ‘this may be awkward over the next couple months but I prefer that it not be,” said Acting County Clerk Mary Jane Desmond, a former Bayonne City Councilwoman and one time Republican . “I sat at her table for 20 minutes talking to her. This is not personal.”

With the exception of a courtroom squabble over signatures, the contest for state Senate in district 31 proved mild in May until both sides popped the manhole covers on JFK Boulevard and snorkeled straight to the lower depths of Hudson County for an all-out mud-fest.

Examine recent campaign flyers from both camps.

The Sandra Bolden Cunningham/Hudson County Democratic Organization glossies show pictures of former Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann interposed with shots of state Senate candidate (and Assemblyman) Louis Manzo. A close-up of McCann in one of these mailings brings to mind all of the fearful malevolence of Peter Lorre in a low budget horror flick, while the pic of Manzo suggests a wannabe desperado spitting sand out of his face after getting bucked off his charge.

Republican Senate Primary - Distrtict 24

STEVE OROHO
Raised: $ 266,480
Spent: $ 62,812
Cash-on-Hand: $ 213,667

GUY GREGG
Raised: $ 218,336
Spent: $ 83,875
Cash-on-Hand: $ 134,661

Republican Assembly Primary - District 26

ALEX DECROCE
Raised: $ 363,922
Spent: $ 226,536
Cash-on-Hand: $ 137,386

LARRY CASHA
Raised: $ 250,798
Spent: $ 179,873
Cash-on-Hand: $ 70,925

JAY WEBBER
Raised: $ 93,422
Spent: $ 44,494
Cash-on-Hand: $ 48,927

Democratic Senate Primary - District 28

RONALD RICE
Raised: $ 273,252
Spent: $ 281,381
Cash-on-Hand: $ 32,830

BILAL BEASLEY
Raised: $ 99,400
Spent: $ 29,156
Cash-on-Hand: $ 67,243

Democratic Senate Primary - District 31

SANDRA CUNNINGHAM
Raised: $ 69,605
Spent: $ 47,797
Cash-on-Hand: $ 21,807

LOUIS MANZO
Not available

Democratic Senate Primary - District 33

BRIAN STACK
Raised: $ 81,426
Spent: $ 67,825
Cash-on-Hand: $ 13,600

SAL VEGA
Not available

Republican Senate Primary - District 40

KEVIN O'TOOLE
Raised: $ 185,463
Spent: $ 88,649
Cash-on-Hand: $ 96,713

TODD CALIGUIRE
Raised: $ 46,407
Spent: $ 14,255
Cash-on-Hand: $ 31,925

Source: New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission

The political problems of State Senate candidate Sandra Bolden Cunningham continue to increase. The Jersey Journal is reporting that the foundation she runs has used just $17,000 for charitable purposes, while spending $93,784 on operating and administrative costs. Cunningham and her late husband formed the Glenn D. and Sandra Cunningham Foundation after Glenn Cunningham's election as Mayor of Jersey City in 2001. After his death, Sandra Cunningham became the salaried Executive Director.

Sandra Cunningham has spent the last week on defense after published reports that Russell Wallace, a convicted sex offender, was working on her campaign. Among Wallace's repsonsibilities was circulating petitions door-to-door. The Cunningham campaign initially defended Wallace, but backed off this week.

In the sea of Hudson County politics, all of those beleaguered sailors set adrift out there in the face of June 5th, Election Day, depending on their loyalties either fear or embrace the perfect storm, envisioned by that upstart pirate skipper Brian P. Stack.

Stack, the mayor of Union City and an Assemblyman, jumped out in front of the Hudson County Democratic Organization when he announced his intentions of supplanting State Sen. Bernie Kenny, who later said formally he would retire.

Now Stack is favored to win the Democratic Primary in the 33rd District, which includes Union City, West New York, Weehawken, Hoboken, Guttenberg and part of Jersey City. He already has an ally in Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner. The candidate’s also pumped money into the municipal re-election bids of the young Turks in Hoboken, who are restlessly jockeying for position to succeed Mayor David Roberts.

Louis Manzo
31st District State Senate candidate

What’s at stake: Viewed as a Kucinich-like longshot from the moment he stood beneath a statue of Honest Abe and quoted the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Manzo winning in southern Hudson County would shift the balance of power away from the organization to a Stack-Manzo duopoly.

What makes him tick: His critics depict Manzo as a wild-man, but no one criticizes his surgeon-like dissection of public policy. Then there’s another dimension to Manzo that makes him a difficult opponent. While some public policy nerds prefer a snifter of brandy and a pipe by the fireside, Manzo remains to the core a Jersey City scrapper and campaign fiend, who takes to constituent hands like a seal at a sushi bar.

Liability: The Stack-Manzo alliance professes public pride in being a Robin Hood-Little John outfit, which solemnly looks out for the little guy. But the candidates are also standing guard over lucrative contracts in Union City, which means fat city for Manzo, whose Metro Insurance receives an annual $200,000 check from the school district.

X Factor: The Cunningham campaign is waiting for a Howard Dean meltdown from Manzo.

Best quote of the campaign: On his plan to shift the funding source for schools away from property taxes, Manzo said, "You tax the top 1 % of income earners who are not paying their fair share by a long shot. That’s where you get your money. It’s a no-brainer."

Conventional Wisdom: Receiving the endorsement of popular Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop on Wednesday bolstered Manzo’s improbable march, but he still hasn’t faced the wrath of Swibinski, who so far has treated the assemblyman as a gnat while focusing total attention on Stack. That could change if Manzo opponent Sandra Bolden Cunningham can’t get out of damage control city, and if it does change and the campaigns amp up to all-out ugly mode, Manzo could find himself in a brawl. But he remains a longshot in the face of Cunningham, DeGise, and former Council President L. Harvey Smith.

Sandra Bolden Cunningham
31st District State Senate candidate

What’s at stake: Ever since Lee J. Cobb yanked down his collar and showed the knife scar he had on his neck in "On the Waterfront," the wharf rats who replenish the coffers here have operated under the grim assumption that Hudson County is a man’s game. To Cunningham’s defenders, the old boys network of Hudson County needs a shake-up, and if her husband was the first African-American mayor of Jersey City, she will make history of her own by becoming the first woman senator to represent the district.

What makes her tick: If there are politicians who project all of the sweaty self-doubt of having to fulfill a master’s edicts, Cunningham comes across conversely as a proud, dignified legacy-bearer, who answers to her husband’s memory only. In many ways she’s the anti-Hudson County candidate, unnerving to her critics who call her the ultimate diva. If the object is to go for the kneecaps here and act as though that’s simply the way it’s done, Cunningham is the master of projecting incredulous disgust over the whole business.

Liability: Cruising almost on auto pilot for weeks, the Cunningham campaign hit choppy weather with Randall Wallace, a convicted sex offender who served time for raping a 13-year old, and who collected signatures for the campaign. Wallace bowed out of campaign work this week, according to The Jersey Journal, but not before sending the Cunningham airbus into a nosedive.

X Factor: Cunningham received a sustained pounding in the local press for refusing to step up and debate Manzo. First she disapproved of the debate formats, and then said she simply wouldn’t be able to stand in the same room with her opponent. But on Tuesday, facing a scrutiny-surge over the Wallace affair, she debated Manzo in a forum that will be televised this weekend. If she holds her own against the assemblyman, it could buck up the troops.

Best quote of the campaign: Responding to former Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann’s charge that she’s so aloof from political campaigning he bets she doesn’t even own a pair of tennis shoes, Cunningham blasted back: "Not only do I own a pair of tennis shoes, but I’m training to run the New York Marathon in November. It’s 26 miles, and I don’t think Gerry McCann is going to join me."

Conventional Wisdom: The Wallace connection has hurt the campaign, and infuriated those who believe Cunningham should have strongly denounced Wallace and admitted a mistake in initially keeping him on board. But the fast-striding Cunningham stopped long enough at least to debate Manzo this week, and with the big money backing from the organization, the name of a beloved late mayor who enjoyed overwhelming support, and at least two former big name enemies conspicuously on her side, she can pull numbers in Jersey City, and remains the favorite.