Thomas Paterniti

Focused on getting re-elected mayor next year, Edison Mayor Jun Choi won’t entertain questions about a 7th District Congressional run in 2010, or about 2011 legislative redistricting.  

“My only interest right now is Edison,” Choi told PolitickerNJ.com. “My only interest is to improve the quality of life for Edison residents and to complete the job we started in Edison. I am committed to running for re-election.”

Choi bucked the organization line nearly four years ago to win as an independent Democrat. Whether or not the party organization gives him a concerted challenge in 2009 is now a question mark, at least according to party brass.   

EDISON - Diners anchor what’s left of the train-track and warehouseEdison Mayor Jun Choi: Politicker file photo girded countryside in this sprawling town, fifth biggest in New Jersey, where Mayor Jun Choi drinks his coffee on a summer morning in one of the more recognizable roadside haunts called the Plaza Diner.

The suit and tie and modest demeanor belie a man restlessly at work, for if Choi was an enigmatic upstart when he hit the scene three years ago, he has built himself into a surging political force, three-fourths of the way into his first term.

"And I’m running again," he says with a smile.

The Edison-raised kid who came from the inner sanctum of Bill Bradley’s machine-bucking 2000 presidential campaign, former state Department of Education wonk, Choi remains the Democratic Party outsider in a party that still does not know quite what to do with him.

Edison Mayor Jun Choi lost a battle yesterday in a war that is still not over.  One week after his slate of Council candidates ousted incumbents in the Democratic primary -- and two years after Choi, running against the Middlesex County Democratic Organization unseated incumbent Mayor George Spadoro -- Choi lost his bid for Democratic Municipal Chairman.  He won just 36% of the vote in his bid to unseat veteran Chairman (and former State Senator, Assemblyman and Mayor) Thomas Paterniti.