Toni Ricigliano

Dislodged from his seat of power and relegated now to a halfway house in Newark, former Middlesex County Democratic Party Chairman John Lynch sits in a landscape in which this gubernatorial contest unfolds and the candidate from his party fights for political survival.

Indicted for failing to report income by former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (now the Republican nominee for governor), convicted and sentenced in 2006 to three years and three months in prison, Gov. Jim McGreevey's political genii and hard-nosed boss of the Raritan River rustbelt occupies political no man's land while Corzine flails and discord punctuates much of the sprawling county he once ruled.

"We need John Lynch," one Middlesex County Democratic Party insider moaned a coupled of weeks ago at the issuance of yet another poll showing incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine struggling to get his chin over 40% and eight points behind Christie.

"He's a missed leader in Middlesex," County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Spicuzzo said of his party forbearer. "He had his own style and it was successful. I talk to him once a week. He's doing fine and will get out around Nov. 13th."

GOP mayoral candidate Dennis Pipala

Edison Councilwoman Toni Ricigliano went after her Republican opponent and lame duck Mayor Jun Choi in one stroke today, suggesting an alliance between businessman Dennis Pipala and Choi.

“The next mayor will be left to clean up the mess from all the hasty financial decisions that the Choi Administration is now making,” said the Democrats' candidate for mayor, who criticized Choi's summertime promotion of three new police sergeants, and asked Pipala to “show good faith, good judgment and join my request to end all wasteful spending.”

Pipala, Ricigliano said in a release, has been “a close advisor and political ally of Mayor Choi for years. It makes good business sense for Dennis to ask the mayor to be more financially responsible now.”

Pipala fired back this afternoon.

State Sen. Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) today in New Brunswick.

NEW BRUNSWICK -  State Sen. Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) believes local contests will drive Democratic Party turnout in Middlesex County and improve Gov. Jon Corzine's opportunity for victory, particularly local fights in Woodbridge and New Brunswick.

"I'm on the hustings every night, and I can feel the momentum turning our way," said Smith, appearing with Corzine at an event to promote the governor's Return to Work program.

But talk to Democrats privately about the gubernatorial race and their worry inevitably runs to Middlesex, where Corzine scored 67% in the Democratic Primary, and where Republican Chris Christie signs make front lawn statements everywhere in the sprawl of blue collar towns here.

Sensing opportunity, Christie and his running mate, Kim Guadagno, campaigned avidly in Middlesex this summer, hitting the fairgrounds and street parades in places like Edison and Sayreville and generally stirring more enthusiasm for their candidate than a comparatively moribund Democratic Party effort.

Councilwoman Toni Ricgliano

At the center of Gov. Jon Corzine's turmoil in Middlesex County stands Edison, the biggest town of 25 Middlesex towns, and home to the most registered Democrats, where for Corzine, a civil war primary has bled dangerously into the general election.

On paper - 24,579 registered Democrats to 6,012 Republicans - Edison should be a steamroll win for Democrats, but the town's 17,842 undeclared voters typically don't let mayoral contests pass without a fight. Given the unholy alliances emblematic of Edison politics, the last four general elections here have been close. Top of the ticketwise, Corzine won Edison by single digits in 2005, the same year Mayor Jun Choi pulled out a squeaker against independent Bill Stephens.

Now the fact that Choi, beaten in the June primary, 6,582 to 6,204 votes, does not intend to endorse his Democratic Party conqueror, Councilwoman Antonia "Toni" Ricigliano, creates an especially troubling wrinkle for Team Corzine, who had hoped Choi would call on his troops to unify behind the Democratic ticket and mitigate any independent voter stampede away from Corzine.

GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Kim Guadagno - with Assemblyman Sam Thompson (R-Old Bridge) - waves atop Chris Christie's float in Edison today.

EDISON - It was a parade march that kept coming, and for a brief time Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno walked at the head of it with some other dignitaries, before she circled back to the "Chris Christie" float, jumped aboard, and waved atop that perch as she rolled eastward on Oak Tree Road through the same crowd.

"You're double-dipping!" someone cried across the roil of Indian flag waving up and down the street and the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor laughed in return and rolled onward. 

Right behind her in this march honoring India's 63rd year of independence from Great Britain rolled the float of Peter Kothari, overhung with signs proclaiming him a "fearless leader who can deliver change that we can believe in" - and one half of the Republican ticket in the 19th District, a mosh of Middlesex towns anchored by Kothari's hometown of Woodbridge.

Kothari's doubled back himself a million times on this road that leads him again and again to 1990, when the real estate agent moved into his new office on Oak Tree in 1990 and somebody promptly smashed out the windows. 

When he went to the police department to complain, he says they shrugged in his face and said: "Call the insurance company."

Kothari did that - but he also reached back to his student organizing days in India to become more political. 

There's some buzz that Edison Mayor Jun Choi might try to run for as a Republican now that the GOP has lost their candidate, but the idea is a non-starter.

Reached by PolitickerNJ.com, Choi, who lost the Democratic primary earlier this month, pointed out that that the state's "sore loser" law bars him from running in the general after losing the primary.

Choi is correct.  Even though the law does not apply to legislators, freeholders, and even municipal council members, mayors are barred from running again.  But a Democrat allied with Choi could switch parties and become the GOP candidate against Democrat Toni Ricigliano.

The law was challenged in 2005, when the late Albert McWilliams, then mayor of Plainfield, lost the Democratic primary to Sharon Robinson-Briggs.  McWilliams tried to run as a Republican, but County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi wouldn't let him on the ballot.  After a court challenge, Union County Superior Court Judge Walter Barisonek ruled the law unconstitutional, but his decision was overturned on appeal.

Mayor Donald Cresitello, left, and Zoning Board Chairman Tim Dougherty at their debate the week before Election Day.

Certainly, someone running for re-election this year might be comforted by special case asterisks in those contests where challengers upset sitting mayors or council people.

But consider the name politicians who lost over the course of May and June municipal cycles, or found the terrain too tough to run again, or barely won re-election, and it looks like treacherous territory for incumbents in a gubernatorial election year.

Two of last week's losers - Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello (buried by Tim Dougherty, 62.46 to 37.48%) and Edison Mayor Jun Choi (who lost, 50.70 to 47.79% contest to Councilwoman Toni Ricigliano) - arrived at their re-election bids with their own particular challenges.

In or around elected office for over 30 years, Cresitello possesses institutional knowledge and insider connections that helped as he kept Morristown's tax rate stable over the course of his most recent four-year term. But he also asked for pay raises for himself, which the council refused, targeted undocumented workers in his crackdown of apartment house stacking, and considered placing a public works' garage in Ward 2, which empowered his opponent to build on a base of residents who felt disrespected.

Edison Mayor Jun Choi

EDISON - Mayor Jun Choi figured he needed about 5,000 votes to win tonight and he mobilized more than that number, but Councilwoman Toni Ricigliano still out-dueled him in this Democratic Primary, 50.70% to 47.79%, or 6,582 to 6,204, according to the Middlesex County Clerk's Office.

"The movement does not end, and we feel good about not having compromised," said Choi, who ran and lost off the line in his bid for a second term in office.

"We never compromised our principles," said the mayor, who said the Police Benevolent Association aligned with his opponent launched negative attacks against him during the final days of the campaign, which proved the difference, in his view.

Choi does not know if he will support Ricigliano in her general election contest against Republican Raymond Koperwhats, who secured 1,645 votes or 98.39% in his uncontested primary election.

Worth watching on Tuesday: Democratic mayoral primaris in Edison, Englewood, Morristown,  Atlantic City, Plainfield, Camden and East Orange, and Republican intra-party fights in Bergen, Gloucester and Passaic counties.

The Thomas Alva Edison bust at Town Hall.

In their WCTC radio debate broadcast live this morning, Edison Mayor Jun Choi battled Councilwoman Toni Ricigliano, blunting Ricigliano’s complaints about his fulltime salary by repeatedly depicting her as a creature of local unions and the local Democratic Party machine. 

The councilwoman strenuously resisted the characterization, noting her work for Edison as an independent agent on the council who bucked former Mayor George Spadoro.

If elected, “I would take a pay cut,” said Ricigliano, who voted unsuccessfully to stop Choi from giving himself a fulltime, $75,000 salary. “I think you have to lead by example. Union contracts are renegotiated. How do you tell others to tighten belt if you’re unwilling to do that yourself?”

A baffled Choi - who said the $75,000 represents the lowest mayor's salary earned by an executive serving any of New Jersey's top ten sized towns - went after Ricigliano’s record, both in her role as an apologist for the local old or, in his view, an ineffective opponent of the old order. 

“Her record doesn’t match her rhetoric,” said Choi. “She has not shown courage and an example to protect taxpayers. She has authorized a contract that pays 95% of our police more than $100,000 in total compensation. How can you give away this contract and yet criticize me? We have taken on tough fights. …She is receiving major police union support 77% of her individual campaign contributions are from police support. I received zero.”