Ron Rice

Councilman David LyonsIRVINGTON - North Ward Councilman David Lyons and Gene Etchison started out as friends and political allies, with Etchison drawn to the older man’s fireball activism.

As president of the local tenants association, Lyons didn’t care who he offended in his drive for better housing, and he took that attitude into a run for City Council in 1996.

"We used to go door to door together," recalled Etchison of Lyons’ first campaign. "I was like his little brother."

That didn’t last.

Lyons won. But though he successfully backed Etchison for district leader, Etchison then ran against Lyons with the muscle of South Ward boss D. Bilal Beasley and Team Irvington behind him.Challenger Gene Etchison

The councilman took the challenge as a betrayal.

"When I see him around, we don’t talk, said Lyons. "I lost respect for him after that."

A police officer and Marine Corps veteran who is the godson of Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker, Etchison said it was only political inevitability that propelled him into the arena against a man he once admired, but whom he came to see as a chronic naysayer.

Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, one of the sponsors of the Assembly version of paid family leave, which came out of committee today. 

The lobbyists' feeding frenzy continued in Trenton today as representatives from both the business and labor communities zeroed in on lawmakers in the hallways of power and attempted to elicit the promise of a yes or no vote on the issue of paid family leave.

The measure would extend state liability insurance to employees for up to six weeks, enabling workers to care for themselves, a newborn or a sick relative. Funding would come from the workers contributing on average a dollar a week from their salaries.

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.

Newark Mayor Cory BookerAfter M. Teresa Ruiz won her general election senate race, Steve Adubato finally let Cory Booker know what he thought about the mayor’s primary election efforts on behalf of Bilal Beasley in the 28th district.

Adubato, lifelong political warrior and Newark native, frankly wasn’t impressed.

Beasley, with Booker’s so called muscle behind him, had failed to beat the always independent and hard-to-gauge Sen. Ronald Rice, perennial west ward cowboy and activist, and a mutual bane to Adubato and Booker.

Adubato’s telephone tongue-lashing awakened another old frustration for the mayor.

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."

Dispelling rumors that have persisted since he came into office, West Ward Councilman Ron Rice, Jr., on Wednesday said he would not challenge 10-term U.S. Rep. Donald Payne in 2008.

"I have a great deal of respect for U.S. Rep. Payne and I think he’s an outstanding congressman," said Rice, who has served a year and a half in office on the Newark City Council.

They hear it on the streets of Newark.

But on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, members of the City Council can be sure to receive a barrage of complaints from residents who are worried not only about the murders and gangs but about the cost of living and the threat of corporate interests upending local concerns.

"You're supposed to be standing up and fighting for us," the poet Amiri Baraka cried during the public comment forum of a meeting. "Until I see you fighting, then you're not a good council."

"You're giving tax abatements to developers," cried resident Frank Hertz. "You'd better justify this tax abatement."

And always there is the complaint about the scarcity of jobs.

Hillary Clinton's New Jersey campaign co-chair, John F.X. GrahamI walked into Pal's Cabin, that West Orange watering hole where the Irishmen who run the state go when they want to tie one on.

On this particular summer night, John F. X. Graham was at the front of a room full of heavyweight Hillary Clinton supporters, some of whom, however weighed down with gold bars, were evidently still in the throes of John Kerry fatigue.

"Hillary's a winner," Graham assured the group. "She's a centrist, and the Democratic Party wins with centrists."

While state Senator Ron Rice, Sr. is not supporting the Democratic candidate for the 29th district state Senate seat, Dick Codey is not fuming about it.

“I understand the dynamics involved. I understand the feelings,” said the state Senate President.

Already through the assembly, a bill banning dual office holding passed in the state senate on Thursday, 33-2.

Upset that the bill grandfathers legislators who currently hold two or more offices, the GOP was circling in the senate chamber, taking bites at the bill when an infuriated Sen. Ron Rice let them have it.