Tom DeGise

At a news conference today held at the corner of 6th and Jackson, former Hoboken Councilman Chris Campos wanted to make sure that he had his own ward appear behind him – a housing project, not the relatively new and up-market apartment building across the street in the neighboring ward.

“That’s my ward, that’s what I represent,” he told the cameraman, pointing to the drab brick building.

The point was obvious. Campos, who grew up in a housing project nearby, was a home town guy. Now, after losing a runoff election against Hoboken newcomer Dawn Zimmer, who moved here five years ago, he’s facing her for a third time after she agreed to step aside and run again rather than battle Campos’s in court. Now Campos is clawing his way back to the seat that he thinks is rightfully his.

It was a coronation in a divided Kingdom.

Tonight Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy officially took the throne – or podium, as it were -- as Chairman of the Hudson County Democratic Organization.

“I want to thank all the mayors who ran behind me and all the candidates who ran last Tuesday, because without their help, I certainly wouldn’t be here,’ said Healy.

Brian P. Stack won 77% of the vote in his bid to succeed Bernard Kenny in the State Senate
Three Hudson County mayors won last night, one of them posthumously.

And in the minds of voters, the legacy of the late Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham abides, with his wife triumphing in her district 31 State Senate contest.

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.”

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.

Hudson County Executive Thomas DeGise had "no comment" when asked about the presence of a convicted child molester in the Sandra Bolden Cunningham’s campaign for the Democratic State Senate nomination.

"I’m not even going to go there," said DeGise, who is running for re-election on a ticket that in the 31st district includes Cunningham, Bayonne Councilman Anthony Chiappone and former Jersey City Councilman L. Harvey Smith.

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez won’t pick a horse in the Hudson County Democratic primaries. But the Senator was in Jersey City today with Tom DeGise to tour the new St. Joseph’s School for the Blind facility, and he had some kind words for the Hudson County executive.

Menendez praised DeGise’s use of federal Community Development Block Grants to help build new facilities like the one he toured today.

Hudson County filed a $26.8 million civil lawsuit against former County Executive Robert Janiszewski in an effort to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of corruption. Assemblyman Richard Merkt says that Attorney General-designate Stuart Rabner should follow Tom DeGise's lead and file a similar civil suit against John Lynch. DeGise, who now holds Janiszewski's old job, filed similar suits against two corrupt ex-Hudson County Freeholders.

"Why should an admitted crook like Lynch get to keep the ill-gotten gains he obtained by betraying those he was supposedly serving? A civil suit to recover stolen booty should be an automatic response any time a public official gets caught with his hand in the public cookie jar," said Merkt.