Kibili Tayari

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.

Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968

Working guard duty at Fort Dix in 1968, 22-year-old government issue Ray Lesniak counted himself a fortunate one because he didn't get shipped off to Vietnam.

"Even though I ain't no senator's son," said the senator, 40 years later now, quoting the Creedence Clearwater Revivial song lyrics from the older era.

He was into politics even then, and he liked Sen. Robert Kennedy for president.

"I was a huge supporter," he said.

For insiders like Lesniak who have been immersed in Democratic Party stand-offs for decades, the primary rumble between senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama bears traces of that 1968 match-up between establishment warhorse Hubert Humphrey and tousle-headed rock star Kennedy.