Valerie Huttle

When Joseph Ferriero wrestled the county chairmanship from Gerald Calabrese in June 1998, Bergen County Republicans had a 7-0 majority on the Board of Freeholders, and Republicans in the offices of County Executive, County Clerk, and Sheriff.  The only countywide Democratic official was Michael Dressler, who had won election as Surrogate in 1996.  Republicans held three of the five State Senate seats, and eight of ten State Assembly seats that included parts of Bergen County.

In a campaign largely engineered through Ferriero's strategic and fundraising skills, Democrats scored an upset victory in November '98.  Joseph Ciccone ousted GOP Acting Sheriff Jay Alpert, and Dennis McNerney and Douglas Bern were elected Freeholder.  (Barbara Chadwick, a Freeholder for twenty years, was re-elected, as was County Executive William "Pat" Schuber, who defeated Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg, and County Clerk Kathleen Donovan.)  Ciccone gave Ferriero some of the patronage he needed to build a county organization. And the Freeholder Board moved from 7-0 to 5-2.

Some Democratic insiders suggest that one casualty of yesterday's indictments of Joseph Ferriero and Dennis Oury will be Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney, who has always been more popular with Ferriero than with local Democratic party leaders.  McNerney has two years left in his second term, and there's a good chance, sources say, that the post-Ferriero Bergen County Democratic Organization will seek a new candidate for County Executive in 2010.

Eight members of the New Jersey State Assembly are in danger of losing party support if they seek re-election in 2009:

In a press release on his new opponent in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, Murray Sabrin called Dick Zimmer a two-time loser.  Sabrin’s statement is both hypocritical and inaccurate.  Sabrin, is a two-time loser: he won 6% of the vote in his 1997 run for Governor as Libertarian, and he received 13% in his fourth-place finish in the 2000 Republican U.S. Senate primary. 

The Winner of this week’s Valerie Huttle Chutzpah Award is the Chris Smith for Congress campaign, which criticized Democratic challenger Josh Zeitz for living and voting outside the district.  Zeitz voted in New York while he was in college, and lived in Massachusetts and in England while he was a college professor at Harvard and Cambridge.  It’s interesting that Smith would even bring up residency as an issue, considering he lives in Virginia.

Which Democratic presidential candidate is the real “agent of change”? 

That was the topic of The Record’s Charles Stile’s column on Tuesday.

In his political column previewing last night’s Hillary Clinton for President fundraiser organized by Bergen County Democrat Chair Joe Ferriero, Stile questioned the legitimacy of Clinton’s reform message.

Hillary Clinton went to Hackensack yesterday to accept Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero’s endorsement – a stop she had to make because Ferriero refused to officially support her unless she came to Bergen County for a public kissing of the ring. So with Ferriero and Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle nearby, Clinton said: "Let's reform the government so it ends the no-bid contracts and the cronyism and the incompetence."

Hillary Clinton campaigns in Hackensack today, where she was endorsed by Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero: Getty Images Photo

In her first public campaign stop in New Jersey since September, Hillary Clinton made an appearance tonight at Bergen County Academies in Hackensack to accept the endorsements of Bergen County Chairman Joe Ferriero and a host of other elected officials from the powerhouse.

The appearance came immediately after Clinton attended a $2,300 per head fundraiser at the Stony Hill Inn across town, and afterwards she was off to another rally to appeal to the Hispanic vote in North Bergen. Earlier today, she was in Pennsylvania to accept the endorsement of Gov. Ed Rendell.

The Hackensack crowd, which Clinton campaign officials estimated at 700 to hear Clinton speak at the school's gymnasium with 1,000 more overflowing into its auditorium, had to wait. Clinton arrived about an hour and a half late, leaving Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire to keep the crowd entertained, adlibbing jokes and poking fun at other elected officials.

Today’s Valerie Huttle Chutzpah Award is Republican Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, who is suddenly against the government borrowing money without taxpayer approval, despite her vote in support of a 1997 $2.75 billion pension bond borrowing plan. Vandervalk has written an Op-Ed criticizing Governor Jon Corzine’s asset monetization plan.

Supporters of marriage equality say they have 19 votes in the Senate and 39 in the Assembly – two votes short of passing a same sex marriage law – and are “thrilled, strategically” that legislative leaders have decided not to post the bill during the lame duck session, according to an e-mail sent by Garden State Equality President Steven Goldstein and obtained by PolitickerNJ.com. Goldstein says his organization’s focus in lame duck is on hate crimes legislation.