Jun Choi

Obama Campaign State Director Mark Alexander. 

The campaign was about to change.

On Oct, 9, 2007, an announcement came down from Chicago regarding New Jersey operations. 

Mark Alexander, a Seton Hall University law professor and Obama’s senior policy advisor, would be the campaign’s official state director.

"I am grateful that he is going to carry the fight forward to and through the Feb. 5 contests," Obama said of Alexander. "He is a valued and trusted advisor, and at the same time has deep ties in his home of New Jersey that will be invaluable to our efforts. 

"I am proud of the policy work we have done on this campaign and through Mark’s leadership we have built a team of key advisors from the ground up that will continue to offer new and innovative approaches to the challenges this country faces," added the presidential candidate.

A personal friend of Barack and Michelle Obama’s going back a dozen years, Alexander as a child worked on the 1974 Washington, D.C. mayoral campaign of his father, Clifford Alexander, former chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission. Later, he ran Sen. Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign and served as counsel to Cory Booker.

NJ for Obama organizers Julie Diaz and Keith Hovey.

The Obama campaign started small here, with handfuls of coffee house organizers lining up behind a grassroots operation called NJ for Obama in the face of a big party machine backing Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and an unpopular war in Iraq.

Founded in an Edison coffee shop in December of 2006, the group’s leader was Damian Bednarz, 25, a Master’s student in international relations with Seton Hall University’s Whitehead School of Diplomacy.

"Obama has something that Hillary Clinton can’t buy or reproduce, and that’s a sense of inspiration," Bednarz said at the time. "If anything, I’m encouraged by Clinton’s frontrunner status because I know our work is so special."

In the months following, some elected offiicials endorsed the Illinois senator, among them Assemblyman Neil Cohen (D-Union), who came out in favor of Obama in April of 2007, followed by state Sen. John Adler (D-Camden) a couple of weeks later.

"At this time we need someone special... someone who is going to build a bridge brick by brick to peace through negotiation," said Cohen, a graduate of Howard University who arrived at politics through the Civil Rights era.

As news stations projected Sen. Hillary Clinton beating Sen. Barack Obama in New Jersey, Obama supporters at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in West Orange tried to fight off their disappointment.

U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman praised Obama's gutsy performance and reminded the candidate's supporters that few gave the Illinois senator a chance when he began his campaign.

"We had a huge turnout in Jersey City," said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who questioned the performance of new voting machines in his city.

Senate President Richard Codey at the Wilshire Grand Hotel todayAfter getting one question cleared up in the affirmative with Sen. Barack Obama, Senate President and former Governor Richard Codey today officially endorsed Obama for president at a press conference in his hometown of West Orange.

"What’s the skinny on the fact that you’re part Irish?" Codey said he asked Obama in a 10 minute conversation with the presidential candidate this morning, six days before the Feb. 5 primary.

"I am," Obama told him.

"Is that on your father’s side?" Codey cracked.

"It’s O’bama," Senator Loretta Weinberg informed the Senate President.

Former Sen. Bill Bradley is making a rare public appearance in New Jersey on Thursday
Former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley will host a Rally for Change in support of Barack Obama's campaign for President tomorrow, Thursday, January 31, at Trayes Hall in the Douglass Campus Center.

Pre-Iowa, they thought it was going to be a cakewalk, but supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton insist that initial jolt of dread between Iowa and New Hampshire has turned into excitement, while the supporters of Sen. Barack Obama say they are excited - and on guard for truth-twisting.

Obama’s victory in South Carolina last night - his second in the process so far - made the Clinton machine in New Jersey change gears again as they get ready to try to roll over Obama’s grassroots operations on Feb. 5.

"Obviously, we got a late start because people were taking some things for granted," said Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes, who in the lead-up to Obama’s win gathered about 25 people at the Ewing Township Library on Saturday to help prepare them for phone-banking duties on behalf of the Clinton campaign.

Edison Mayor Jun Choi, Assemblyman Neil Cohen, Susan Weir, Vanessa Delago, Lakshmi Sankar, Gail Jones, Julie Diaz 

Catapulted by the news out of Iowa, Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters rallied across the state of New Jersey on Saturday, from Trenton to Newark and points in between, bolstering troops and adding new numbers to their ranks.

Speaking to a juked crowd packed into the Edison Family Restaurant, Mayor Jun Choi used the proximity of his town’s Menlo Park section to draw a link between Obama and the ultimate Jersey tech-head, Thomas Alva Edison.

"For seven years, he patented more than 400 technologies that revolutionized the world," the mayor said of the Menlo Park wizard. "We can honestly say this township is the birthplace of the technological revolution because he started the technological revolution."

Boom. He’s here.

That was the way Barack Obama’s New Jersey State Director, Mark Alexander, described tonight’s low-dollar Obama fundraiser at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. About 1,300 people turned out for the event, where students paid $15 for admission, while everyone else paid $25.

Edison Mayor Jun H. Choi, the Mayor of New Jersey's fifth largest town and a leader in the state's Korean American community, has endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for President.  

"I’ve been leaning Obama for quite some time now," said Choi. "I wanted to see if there was real momentum in the campaign, and there is."

This is Obama’s second New Jersey endorsement this week: Rep. Steven Rothman announced two days ago that he would support the Senator from Illinois.

Menendez endorses Clinton, Assembly passes watered down dual office holding ban, Feds subpoena Coniglio documents, Assembly votes to use sales tax money for property tax relief, Corzine wants Doria for education commissioner, Jun Choi fails to win control of Edison Democratic Party, Clinton and Giuliani top NJ poll.