Steve Adubato

Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester)

Although they represent different parts of the state, County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and state Sen. Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney with a few exceptions – the sales tax fight two years ago comes to mind - usually end up on the same side.  

This time, however, it’s not looking as though the two men are going to get eyeball to eyeball on the state pension deferral, which Sweeney opposes and DiVincenzo supports.   

It’s one of those moments when two politicians whose careers have run along parallel lines suddenly veer into each other’s path and create an unmistakable flashpoint.   

DiVincenzo desperately wants the legislature to sign off on Gov. Jon Corzine’s brainchild bill enabling counties, municipalities, and school boards during an economic downturn to defer their state pension payments by 50 percent over a three-year period, which would total $1.3 billion.

Fomer New Jersey and Essex County Democratic Party Chairman Ray Durkin, and his son, Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin

At Mayfair Farms Restaurant in West Orange on Saturday, the St. Patrick’s Guard of Honor of New Jersey hailed Ray Durkin, or the chairman, as they call him here in a nod of respect to his many years of service to the Democratic Party. 

Full-blooded and hybrid and old and new country Irish fathers and their sons - Giblin, Byrne, Stack, Barrett, McCarthy, Baroni, Mac Donald, O’Toole and Codey – for one afternoon absorbed any and all of New Jersey’s other ethnic groups into the arms of Durkin’s Irish-America.  

Durkin, who led the Essex County Democratic Organization from 1980 to 1992 in addition to serving as chair of the state party from 1985 to 1989, was the 68th St. Patrick’s Guard of Honor on a list going back to 1940 that includes President John F. Kennedy, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., and governors Richard J. Hughes, Brendan Byrne and Richard Codey.  

In accepting the award, the former Newark City Firefighter and head of the West Ward Young Democrats who has been lowkey politically over the course of the past 12 years, said he was most proud of his wife and five sons, including Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin, who introduced his father on Saturday.

Chris Christie today in Newark.

NEWARK - Thirteen hours after he strode out of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the last time, a familiar Essex County scene unfolded here on another street in the Central Ward, where Chris Christie stood in front of a bank of microphones in a packed room at the Essex County Hall of Records.

After seven years of fingering corrupt politicians and putting them behind bars, Christie this afternoon allowed friends in that same, often troubled, public profession to shower him with some local love.

In a pull-out-all-the-stops event complete with Bruce Springsteen soundtrack and tears on cheeks as Christie struck a gratified and reflective mood, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and his staff heaped gifts and kind words on the crimebuster - one day after his resignation from office.

Trying to break through the bear-hugging Christie and DiVincenzo after the ceremony, reporters crowded the likely GOP gubernatorial candidate and prodded him about whether he intends to run  against incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine.

Taking a shot at the campaign run against him by the Laborers and the allies of Mayor Cory Booker, Central Ward Councilman Charles Bell at his swearing-on ceremony in City Hall last night noted gratefully that money and turkeys don’t vote.

The crack was a reference to Eddie Osborne campaign’s massive GOTV operation, which included the coordinated distribution to of hundreds of early Thanksgiving turkeys.

Officially assuming the seat left occupied by former Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone, Bell seized the opportunity to instruct the mayor, who was not in attendance.

The new councilman disapproved of the tone of the campaign, expressed in hand and pole signs with the words: “Charles Bell equals corruption and waste.”

Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex)

The unlikely political tag team of state Sen. Ronald L. Rice (D-Essex) and North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato that felled Mayor Cory Booker’s candidate in the Central Ward on Tuesday called for Obama-spirit healing in the city in the aftermath.

“I respect him as the mayor,” Adubato said of Booker. “I predict things are going to get better. Let’s face it; this Obama victory yesterday means anything is possible. We have a lot of hope about America.

“I take that win by Obama in a country where 15 percent of America is black, and say if he can be president, why can’t we all work together? “

Central Ward Council candidate Charles Bell

NEWARK – The demonstration of sheer labor power behind Central Ward council candidate Eddie Osborne sent a tremor through the allies of Charles Bell.

But now that darkness has fallen over the city, Bell says his people command the streets and they’re working hard up until the end.

“All of Eddie’s union help climbed back into their buses and skipped town,” said Bell, a former councilman, who’s running with the support North Ward Councilman Steve Adubato, state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), and former Mayor Sharpe James.

Eddie Osborne, foreground

NEWARK – Thanksgiving came early in the Central Ward as Eddie Osborne and company hit the streets with turkeys for seniors, while the same lone, apparently paid, sentinel stood at the corner of McCarter Highway and Market Street with a sign dissing Charles Bell.

The whole ward is wired with candidates but it’s Bell versus Osborne overtime.

To look at the cityscape on its face, Osborne has the edge, for here in the city’s most populous ward there are Osborne signs, Osborne television ads, Osborne organizational muscle, vans mounted with megaphones and high visibility t-shirted LIUNA union workers passing out, yes, turkeys.

NEWARK – Getting caught in the middle of political theater involving other, bigger antagonists goes with the territory when it comes to the fledgling career of Nakea White, Central Ward council candidate.   

No big deal.

Politics here with all of its intrigue still generally has fewer hard edges than crime.

“The number one issue in our ward is crime, especially with the recent shootings on Boyd, these are the issues affecting people,”  says White, sitting in her gritty, second story campaign headquarters on Springfield Avenue. “People are scared.  A woman told me the other day she’s scared that she might be the next person to get shot.”

Mary Rone, Central Ward council candidate

NEWARK – As the juggernaut campaigns of Charles Bell and Eddie Osborne hit each other at full speed in the Central Ward, Mary Rone mounts a grassroots operation from below that she hopes will knock both of the bigger operations to their knees on Nov. 4th.

“I’m going to win it for the people,” says the community activist, who with her late husband, James Rone, advocated for fair housing in the city going back to the late 1960s. “I’ve had enough of the ring-kissing style of politics, and I know the people of the Central Ward have too.”

She comes at the campaign with an extra burst of motivation.

Thirteen candidates are vying in a special election to fill the seat of Rone’s daughter, former Councilwoman Dana Rone, whom an assignment judge removed in August after determining that the councilwoman used her office to impede the work of Rutgers University cops in a Dec. 2006 traffic incident involving her nephew.

“You could say Dana losing her seat was my fault,” says the older Rone. “I instilled in her what my family instilled in me. If a family member is in distress, you help them. That’s all it was. It’s not about her improperly using her authority. My daughter is very protective, both of her community – and of her own family.”

Eddie Osborne and Newark Mayor Cory Booker today in the Central Ward: Politicker photo 

NEWARK - Mayor Cory Booker today said he stands with Eddie Osborne, business manager of Laborers Local 1153, who’s in a special Nov. 4th contest to succeed ousted Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone.

The money candidate in a 13-person race, Osborne enjoys state and countywide Labor connections, and he smiled happily as a force of orange-shirted Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) volunteers chanted his name: "Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!"

Booker used to be the councilman in this ward, and he remembered Osborne as a humble, hard-working family man.

"I was very blessed when I ran for Central Ward Council and a whole bunch of people stood up for a reform movement that started a decade ago," Booker said, standing with Osborne in a vacant lot slated to become First Street Park.