Ralph Caputo

BELLEVILLE - A day after P.J. Mac Donald beat one of FreeholderAssemblyman/Freeholder Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville) Ralph Caputo’s three vanquished candidates to fill a vacated 3rd Ward seat, Mac Donald campaign signs on his Washington Avenue headquarters came down.

In their place now stand Bob Russo for Freeholder signs.

"Ralph Caputo’s school board candidates got wiped out, and now his council candidates got blown out," said Russo campaign manager Gary Iacobacci. "What happened last night means Bob can actually win Belleville. It’s a dire situation for the incumbent."

A defiant Caputo said the Russo people are mistaken if they believe Elvin Pereira’s 70-vote margin loss to Mac Donald in the 3rd Ward demonstrates Caputo’s weakness in the 5th district, which includes Belleville, Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, Montclair and Nutley.

Ward Two Councilman Steve Rovell 

BELLEVILLE - Less than a week before Election Day, both sides open up with everything they’ve got, and the resulting facial expressions and body language indicate that some of the shots have landed.

A glossy mail piece hits the tightknit blue collar neighborhoods off Franklin Avenue that run up against the Parkway on the other side. The man whose face appears in unflattering photos on those mailers storms to the microphone at a rally for him and his running mates.

"It’s pure and utter B.S.," cries Ward Two Councilman Steve Rovell, referring to challenger Mario Drozdz’s charges that Rovell was part of a team that increased taxes $10 million in thee years, indulged in political favoritism and hired nearly a million dollar’s worth of town employees who don’t live in Belleville.

Ward Three Council candidate Paul "P.J." Mac Donald, right, with his ally, Belleville Mayor Ray Kimble. 

BELLEVILLE - All over town, the headquarters of candidates are shuttered on a Monday afternoon, with the exception of Paul "P.J." Mac Donald’s campaign digs on Washington Avenue.

The mood is grimly combative in this roomful of politicians and former cops as Mac Donald recounts what led him to this point, eight days before the May 13 election.

"There was an empty seat and some friends asked me if I’d be interested in running," he says. "I went down to the mayor’s office and sought his support. I called every public official and every one of them gave me his blessing.

"Then I called Caputo."

The retirement this year of Johnny Jones from the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders left a vacancy, which Newark Mayor Cory Booker wanted to fill with long time South Ward ally Terrance Bankston. 

On Saturday, however, the party selected Rufus Johnson - chief of staff to Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), the man Booker defeated for mayor in 2006.

Johnson will run on the line with incumbent freeholders Ralph Caputo, Linda Cavanaugh, Carol Clark, Blonnie Watson, Bilal Beasley, Patricia Sebold, Samuel Gonzalez and Donald Payne, Jr.

Assemblyman- elect Ralph Caputo last served in the Legislature from 1968 to 1972.Newark and the political arena were a lot different when 27-year-old Ralph Caputo was first elected to the State Assembly in 1967.

The city had just seen its infamous race riots the summer before the election, and Caputo, a Republican from the then Italian-American North Ward, was elected to serve in district 11-C -- made up predominantly of working class whites.

Now, at age 66, Caputo will again be an Assemblyman – this time as a Democrat – returning to Trenton after a 36 year hiatus.

Assemblyman Craig Stanley will appear in Superior Court on September 11th to contest the results of the June Democratic primary in the 28th district. He lost to Cleopatra Tucker, the widow of the late Assemblyman/Newark City Councilman Donald Tucker, by 127 votes.

"We have identified numerous anamolies," Stanley said.