That is not a sidewalk Santa Claus you’re seeing when roving the fronts of the Bayonne supermarkets: it is Lou Manzo, former freeholder, and current Assembly candidate in 31st Dist.
And it isn’t spare change Manzo wants, but rather votes.
Yet if you listen closely to the campaign Manzo is waging to win the hearts and minds of the Democratic voters in the upcoming June primary, he sounds a little like Santa Claus, promising to bring state aid back to the 32nd District, which he claims has been hard hit with cuts, and even in the past, never got its fair share of state aid. Manzo, who is running on a ticket that includes Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham for Senate and Bayonne Councilman Anthony Chiappone, is among the hardest working political figures in the county, and even though he is running against candidates backed by the Hudson County Democratic Organization, he can boast having beaten the machine to become freeholder in 1990.
“I’m out there 10 hours a day,” Manzo said, covering a beat that goes from Jersey City deep into the heartland of Bayonne. He works bus stops at rush hours, shopping centers from mid-morning to early afternoon, and then starts knocking on doors.
“My goal is to meet 500 to 700 people a day,” he says.
This is old-style grass roots politics, which includes a voter registration drive.
“We’ve registered 2,300 to 2,500 people in the 31st district already,” he said. “Now the chore will be to get them out to vote.”
Will this grass roots campaign be enough to overcome his opposition? Only the voting booth will tell.
McGreevey favors the machine
Manzo and Company face a serious challenge, too. Although everybody and their mother has been claiming the unspoken support of Gov. Jim McGreevey, the governor ended most speculation as to where he stands in the 31st District races when he paid a visit to Bayonne’s Mercer Park and gave his backing to the HCDO candidates, including incumbent Assembly members Joe Doria and Elba-Perez-Cinciarelli.
“The Hudson County Democratic Organization legislative slate is a team that has a record of producing, both in Trenton and at home for their constituents,” McGreevey said.
State Sen. Bernard Kenny, who serves as HCDO’s chairman, praised the governor for his commitment to Hudson County. Indeed, if anyone looked like Santa Claus this week, McGreevey did, boasting of past gifts to the county in the amount of about $800 million for upgrades of bridges and construction of the light rail. He suggested more would come if voters backed the HCDO. Ah, the power of incumbency!
McGreevey was not cheap with his endorsements, throwing support behind County Executive Tom DeGise and County Clerk Janet Haynes for reelection.
Pulling out all stops, Assembly Speaker and West New York Mayor Albio Sires also joined the Democratic throng to cast his support for the Democrat slates. Sires is running for reelection in the 33rd District with Kenny and the latest Democratic love toy, Freeholder and Union City Mayor Brian Stack. But Albio’s coming to greet the governor also highlighted one of the great ironies of McGreevey’s endorsement of Doria’s reelection. McGreevey opposed Doria’s being named as Assembly Speaker in favor of Sires – despite Doria’s 20 years of experience over Sires’ rookie status. The bad feelings of such a move might be understandable in the light of how Doria served as the Democratic standard bearer under Republican Governor Christine Whitman. When Democrats took control of the Statehouse, they shunted Doria aside. The governor’s endorsement seems to ring a little hollow.
In a side note, DeGise, apparently unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Jersey City/Bayonne border, took a while to find his car for a time after the ceremonies were over.
We hear it’s your birthday, Brian
North Hudson threw a birthday party for Stack in Schuetzen Park this week. Although touted as a get-out-the-vote effort for Stack’s Assembly bid, the affair had three birthday cakes. Union City Commissioner Chris Irizarry showered Stack with so much praise, few observers could possibly doubt his loyalty or the expectation that he might inherit Stack’s freeholder seat.
One tense moment came when Lawrence Gilbert, a spokesperson for the Union City homeless and a one-time homeless man himself, showed up, walked up to the podium, stood for a moment with hands in his pockets, then turned his back on Stack in an apparent snub. Gilbert has an ax to grind with Stack over the handling of some homeless issues in Union City. Stack’s facial expression revealed his concern about the confrontation.
“He looked very scared,” a witness said.
Sires had a less disturbing confrontation this week when he confronted Jose Carlos Munoz outside a West New York park during the annual Mother’s Day picnic. Munoz, who is running against the Sires ticket in the 33rd, was handing out campaign literature on the sidewalk.
A questionable turnout
Candidates’ night at the Hoboken Elks this week was a monumental success or failure, depending upon whom you choose to ask. Ask opposition to the Roberts ticket, and they will tell you only 41 people showed up, half of them candidates, several of them police, and a few higher-level political people.
Maurice Fitzgibbons, freeholder for Hoboken and a supporter of the Roberts ticket, denied this, saying, “There were 300 seats, and all of them were filled.”
Fitzgibbons also predicted five ward runoff elections. We predict six.
But the affair did have competition from Hoboken First Headquarters right across Washington Street, where street campaigners gathered after a hard night of seeking votes. With bullhorns blazing and numerous jeers, they created enough of a racket for people inside the Elks Lodge to hear. One Hoboken First worker even came across the street to offer people exiting the Elks Lodge hot dogs to join the opposition.
Tony Soares, part of a team with Carol Marsh, was down at the PATH station greeting people there.