Steve Adubato

North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato, left, welcomes U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews to Newark. 

NEWARK - U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) today said he has so far heard no response from the campaign of Sen. Frank Lautenberg in response to his seven-debate challenge.

"I don’t think he has an obligation to me," said Andrews. "I think he has an obligation to the people of the state to do that, so we can have a real test of ideas and so we can see what people want to do."

Newark Mayor Cory Booker 

NEWARK - Since Mayor Cory Booker beat Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) for mayor, he has gone 0-2 against the maverick West Ward lawmaker.

First there was Rice’s re-election victory last year over Freeholder Bilal Beasely. Over the weekend, it was Rice staffer Rufus Johnson who won the party’s endorsement for a vacant freeholder seat over Booker staffer Terrance Bankston.

U.S. Rep. Donald Payne speaks for Lautenberg at Newark City Hall with Sen. Richard Codey, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and others 

NEWARK - Standing on the steps of Newark City Hall in a city where the largest single political machine backs another candidate, an alliance of elected officials from Essex County today announced their support for Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, state Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex), Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), Mayor Robert Bowser of East Orange, Mayor Ray McCarthy of Bloomfield, freeholders, and council people joined forces to highlight the endorsements of 34 Essex officials for Lautenberg.

Steve Adubato’s alliance with South Jersey Democrats against the rest of the Democratic party leadership in the 2008 U.S. Senate race is ironic, considering he dumped Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo for doing essentially the same thing in 2006.

Rob Andrews was endorsed by Newark Democratic leader Steve Adubato today, and sources say a screaming match between Adubato and four-term Sen. Frank Lautenberg resulted in Adubato telling the 84-year-old Senator that it was time to call it quits.  More endorsements for Andrews are expected today, as is Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero's announcement that he will back Lautenberg.

Powerful Newark political leader Steve Adubato has endorsed Rob Andrews for U.S. Senate.  Adubato, the Executive Director of the North Ward Cultural Center, has reportedly informed Sen. Frank Lautenberg that it is time to retire.

IRVINGTON - Council President John Sowell and Councilman David Lyons stepped up their attacks on each other this week, as each aggressively backs a candidate in the other’s ward in the upcoming Irvington Council race.

Sowell, an eight-year veteran of the council and friend of Mayor Wayne Smith, hopes Gene Etchison bumps Lyons off the council in north Irvington.

“Some people are tired of Lyons being condescending,” Sowell said of the 12-year council veteran. “His service is a combination of demagoguery, bad attendance and an inconsistent, contradictory voting record. I can’t tell you the number of people I meet who ask me, ‘When is this guy going to stop complaining?’”

Its geography just above Newark's North Ward makes Belleville look like a natural complement to the political kingdom of Steve Adubato, who nevertheless denies he's personally backing anyone in nonpartisan municipal races in this hardscrabble town, with a population that hovers around 34,000.

"Belleville's always worried about me going over there," said the North Ward Democratic leader. "I was looking for a place for a charter school once. I went over to Belleville. That would have been great for Belleville, but they weren't interested."

The specter of Adubato in Belleville's May 13th elections comes in part as a result of Assemblyman (and Freeholder) Ralph Caputo's support of three candidates who have teamed up to try to unseat Mayor Ray Kimble's slate. Adubato and Caputo go way back, to when the latter lived in Newark before moving to Belleville. And, of course, it was Caputo who was part of the district 28 ticket that last year ousted Sen. Ron Rice's running mates, Oadline Truitt and Craig Stanley.

"Change is in the air," mused the new assemblyman, consciously invoking the clear-the-decks campaign slogan currently most associated with presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

Lionel Leach and Jackie Teel, working the phones in Clinton HQ in NewarkWhen Sen. Ronald Rice and North Ward Democratic Party boss Steve Adubato find themselves in the same political foxhole, something is either amiss, or it’s a presidential election year.

In certain company, the lead-up to Tuesday’s historic Democratic Primary contest looks like some incidental skirmish in Newark with here-today, gone-tomorrow alliances, played out as a backdrop to that more fervent chess war between local rivals angling for the real epic of some area city council and freeholder races later this year.

Lionel Leach, Rice’s former campaign field director, serves as spokesman for Sen. Hillary Clinton in her campaign’s week-and-a-half old Broad Street headquarters, even as North Ward Democratic Organization campaign firebrand Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz continues to steel the Latino vote for Clinton in rallies statewide. On the heels of his own family fight with Adubato, U.S. Rep. Donald Payne also intends to do some campaigning for Clinton this weekend.

Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968

Working guard duty at Fort Dix in 1968, 22-year-old government issue Ray Lesniak counted himself a fortunate one because he didn't get shipped off to Vietnam.

"Even though I ain't no senator's son," said the senator, 40 years later now, quoting the Creedence Clearwater Revivial song lyrics from the older era.

He was into politics even then, and he liked Sen. Robert Kennedy for president.

"I was a huge supporter," he said.

For insiders like Lesniak who have been immersed in Democratic Party stand-offs for decades, the primary rumble between senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama bears traces of that 1968 match-up between establishment warhorse Hubert Humphrey and tousle-headed rock star Kennedy.