The prevailing wisdom leading up to Jersey City’s City Council vote (possibly on Wednesday, June 9) that will make Council President L. Harvey Smith mayor until the November general election is that he will strike quickly and get rid of those most loyal to deceased Mayor Glenn Cunningham.
But some members of Hudson County Democratic Organization are fearful of a betrayal, questioning whether Smith will remain loyal to them.
Smith has always been an uncertain political commodity, someone driven away from the Cunningham camp by his thoughtful positions, but not lockstep support for early Cunningham appointments. Viciously attacked by Cunningham supporters for refusing to follow every dictate issued out of the mayor’s office, Smith drifted into an alliance with the HCDO. He eventually became the HCDO candidate against Cunningham in last year’s state Senate primary and was trounced – learning later that nobody in the HCDO had actually expected him to win. As a further snub at Cunningham, the HCDO then appointed Smith to fill unexpired term of state Senator Joe Charles (whose retiring to become a judge triggered the primary race for senator between Smith and Cunningham) making Smith into an immediate lame duck until Cunningham could be sworn in earlier this year.
Gaughan makes his move?
As Jersey City council president, Smith under law has been named mayor until the council can vote to appoint an interim mayor. Councilman Bill Gaughan, with his position as the chief of staff for County Executive Tom DeGise, wields significant clout in obtaining the necessary votes to acquire the seat for himself – six of the nine council members are county employees and he needs only five votes to become mayor. But alas, Gaughan’s close friendship with former Union City Mayor Raul “Rudy” Garcia may have proved to be his undoing. Rep. Bob Menendez, the powerbroker behind the HCDO, hates Garcia and would never allow Garcia – even by proxy – to regain a political foothold in Hudson County. So Menendez apparently has been bending the ear of two City Council members – most likely Mariano Vega and Junior Maldonado – to keep them from giving Gaughan the vote. Maldonado and Vega both want the mayor’s job, but they cannot likely lock up the necessary votes either. This leaves Smith as the likely HCDO candidate, although one that even the HCDO doesn’t trust
Welcome back, Harvey?
Because key Cunningham people face immediate loss of clout as well as their jobs with the city, Smith may soon find himself being seduced into switching sides – a desperate move that would save the jobs of Cunningham’s loyalists and bring Smith back into the heart of the African-American community.
“I can see people like Gene Drayton orJoe Cardwell warming up to Harvey and telling him how much the African-American community needs him,” one insider said. “It is a strategy that could work.” Even though some top Cunningham staffers have reportedly cleared out their offices, none had been officially fired as of this writing and could still make a deal.
The delay in the vote for interim mayor from the scheduled June 3 special meeting to possibly the regular meeting scheduled on June 9 feeds into HCDO fears.
The HCDO wants Smith to show good faith and begin firing hardcore Cunningham people before a vote is taken. The HCDO fears that Smith may hold out to get the council vote first and then renege on his promise, switching loyalties to the Cunningham people in order to be reaccepted by the African-American community in Jersey City.
Sandra for state Senate?
Assemblyman Lou Manzo – also a potential candidate for mayor – has issued a letter saying Cunningham’s Senate seat should be given to Sandra Bolden Cunningham, Glenn’s widow. This, of course, is a matter that will be decided by a vote of the 31st District committee people on or around June 15, appointing someone to fill the Senate vacancy until the November election.
Theoretically, the Cunningham supporters would simply latch onto the state position, except that the state position offers few patronage positions as mayor of Jersey City does, and to win the senate election in November, the Cunningham team needs to control the Jersey City mayor first.
Unlike the HCDO, the Cunningham team does not have a formal structure, and to win the Senate seat for Cunningham in the 2003 primary and later in the general election, the Cunningham team made liberal use of city workers. Without this work force to get the vote out (not to mention intimidating HDCO workers on the street) a Sandra Cunningham Senate race is next to impossible.
If Smith switches sides from the HCDO to the Cunningham Team, the Cunningham supporters of the past retain their jobs and their political machine. If Smith remains loyal to the HCDO, the Cunningham Team effort will likely evaporate – losing momentum as the memory and pain of Cunningham’s death fades.
Possible slates for November’s mayoral election You can expect mayoral tickets to rise up out of the dust in November, and whoever wins in November is expected repeat the victory during the regularly scheduled mayoral election next May. But there are no guarantees.
Because there is no runoff in the November election, whomever gets the most votes wins the seat – similar to the upset victory Bret Schundler pulled off in November 1992, when he won the seat out of a field of 20 candidates with 18 percent of the vote. In a regular mayoral election, one candidate must win 50 percent or better or face a runoff with the next highest vote-getter.
Although any combination of candidates is possible, including a Schundler attempt to repeat the 1992 upset, the most likely slates – if Smith stays loyal to the HCDO – would pit Sandra Cunningham against Smith, or Assemblyman Lou Manzo backed by Cunningham against Smith.
It is possible that the HCDO will back Smith to lose the way the organization backed his failed candidacy for Senate in last year’s primary. This would allow the HCDO to claim it tried to get an African-American elected, and then back someone else in the May 2005 election – most likely Junior Maldonado or Mariano Vega. In all of this plotting for the mayoral race, an unusual number of clichés have surfaced to describe various political figures, such as for Gaughan’s efforts to get his fifth vote: “He’s pushing the pedal to the metal,” and reflecting the HCDO’s great white hope for the city’s second African-American mayor, “Harvey’s going to be his own man.”