Phil Alagia

County Executive Joe DiVincenzoNEWARK - The Essex County Executive and Newark’s senior senator today both panned a proposal by North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato and a few others to dump County Chairman Phil Thigpen in favor of a longtime member of Adubato’s inner circle.

County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) pledged their full support for Thigpen, and denounced Adubato’s attempted power play to deliver the chairmanship to his friend, Adrianne Davis.

"Steve’s a guy who wants his epitaph to be, ‘I controlled everything in my life,’ but he’s just a guy with a big ego, who wants everyone to kiss his behind like we’re out here picking a bunch of cotton bales, black, white and Latino, all of us," Rice said. "To hell with Steve."

Himself a longtime Adubato ally who came up out of the North Ward, DiVincenzo stopped short of Rice’s all-out assault on his friend and political mentor, but was clear in his disapproval.

Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzoMidway through his second term, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo is gearing up for whatever fight comes his way as he plans for a third term in office.

"Joe is looking ahead to running, and serving, to complete the execution of his vision for Essex County," said chief-of-staff Phil Alagia.

To that end, DiVincenzo today is holding a $300-a head celebration in West Orange.

An ally of North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato, Sr., who supports U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) for U.S. Senate over incumbent U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, DiVincenzo to date has remained neutral in the U.S. Senate primary.

Terrance Bankston, an aide to Newark Mayor Cory Booker, says he'll run for Freeholder in 2008
The 25-year-old Constituent Services Director for the city of Newark has formed a committee to explore a potential bid for Essex County Freeholder At-Large.

Terrance Bankston, a native Newarker who ran Mayor Cory Booker’s south ward campaign operations for the 2006 election, says he offers youth, education and experience.

Donald Payne will have Joe DiVincenzo's backing in 2008 Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo says he will back Donald Payne for re-election to an 11th term in Congress next year.

Some Democrats say that 74-year-old Payne could face a challenge in the 2008 primary after his refusal to support the Democratic nominee for State Senate in Newark's 29th district this year.

Payne supported his brother, Assemblyman William Payne, who ran unsuccessfully as an Independent candidate for Senate against the party choice, Teresa Ruiz. Ruiz works for DiVincenzo and has the backing of power broker Steve Adubato and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

In the 29th district, independent state Senate candidates Assemblyman William Payne and At-Large Councilman Luis Quintana this afternoon were making the most of their ground games against the favorite, M. Teresa Ruiz, who enjoys the mammoth machinery of the North Ward Democratic Organization.

Ruiz and her team have the line up here in Newark in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, which they're hoping will prove a key difference-maker in putting down the Payne-Quintana insurrection.

Assemblyman Mims Hackett says he will resign his seat in the New Jersey State Assembly and will withdraw his bid for re-election to a fourth term.  His announcement comes two days after his arrest in bribery charges, and one day after state Democratic leaders asked him to step down.

He will remain as the Mayor of Orange.

Members of the Essex County Democratic Committee from the 27th district will meet to hold two contests: a special election convention to fill the remaining four months of Hackett's current Assembly term, and to nominate a new candidate to run in the November general election.  While they could pick separate candidates in each race, Democrats are expected to give their candidate the advantage of incumbency.

Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo has nailed down the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, and is using pictures of himself with Payne in campaign literature as he fights the power structure that spit him out after he bucked the bosses last year.

"He told me he didn’t believe he could sit on the sidelines, and he thought my record and my tenure made my re-election important," said Caraballo, speaker pro tempore in the Assembly. "He made it a very personal thing."