Michael Lenz, former co-campaign manager for the Hoboken mayoral candidate Carol Marsh has moved on. While he likely still feels the sting of the runoff loss that saw Incumbent Mayor David Roberts reelected, Lenz taken up employment as the chairman for a new campaign, one that is called A Citizen’s Campaign organized by the Center for Civic Responsibly.
This not for profit organization is right up Lenz’ political ally, since its goal is to empower regular citizens to take an active role in their own local governments.
“There are a lot of ways we do this,” Lenz said.
Among these are helping people learn to advance progressive ordinances in the towns in which the live, teaching people how to run for party committee seats which would give their an even more direct role in how candidates are selected, and sponsoring training sessions for people in these areas or training teachers to teach other people.
“These lessons deal with what people’s rights are and what the centers of power are in the local community,” he said.
Although the center is based in Metuchen, its influence reaches across the state, one of the key differences between his role in Hoboken and what is he doing now.
“This has a much wider horizon,” Lenz said. “We’re talking nothing less than transforming politics in the entire state of New Jersey. We believe that the democratic system has gotten to the point where it is not serving individual voters. They are out the loop. We’re determined to get individual voters back into the loop by creating a climate of involvement across the state.”
This empowerment will force politicians out of the current mode of money-influenced politics into responding to the needs of the constituents. This move comes at the right time because people across the state are starting to recognize the issues.
“Five years ago, nobody was talking about pay to play,” Lenz said, referring to the concept that contractors must donate to specific campaigns in exchange for contracts with the government.
Issues like political bosses and big money influence on how government is run was not yet questioned. Yet now, partly because of organizations like The Center for Civic Responsibly, these are the issues being discussed.
“We need to go beyond just defining the agenda,” Lenz said. “We need to get muscle to make that agenda happen.”
The Citizens Campaign, he said it designed to do that, operating on various levels including in the schools where a different sort of civics is now a requirement, civics that deals with how to get involved with the local community and how local government works.
Lenz said the Center for Civic Responsibility will also serve as an information resource for activists, a place to which groups can turn to get advice on how to make things happen in their own community or to seek information on how to get things done on various levels.
In the very near future, the Citizen Campaign will be naming two chair people in every county, volunteers who will serve as a conduit to the Center and as the local contact for activists.
The Citizens Campaign, Lenz said, is expected to have a big impact on the Governor’s race later this year, forcing candidates to be more specific about what they stand for and how they will go about dismantling the old corrupt way of business politics has engaged in previously.
Still on an even higher plain, the Citizens Campaign expects to have an impact on the national level, due to the fact that the state moved up its primary to February, and that a big part of the discussion in the primary will be on the impact money has on politics and government.
Does Sires have his bags packed for Congress?
If there is a deal between U.S. Senator Jon Corzine to name Acting Gov. Richard Codey to the U.S. Senate if and when Corzine is elected governor, somebody needs to tell Assembly Speaker and West New York Mayor Albio Sires, who has already packed his bags for his trip to the House of Representatives.
A Codey appointment would have voided the arrangement that would have allowed Rep. Bob Menendez to take Corzine’s place in the U.S. Senate, making room for Sires to take Menendez’s seat, and allowed Freeholder Chairman Sal Vega to take possibly both Sires’ mayoral and assembly seat.
Reports from people in the know last week said Sires is on the right track and that Codey will likely return to the state Senate where he will once more become Senate President. This, of course, leads to speculation as to why U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie did not seek the Republican nomination for governor to face off with Corzine. Most people in the know believe Christie would have swept into the Republican nomination with no challenge.
“There is a reason why the President (George W. Bush) is sending in big names in the national Republican Party to campaign or Forrester,” said one prominent local political observer. “They aren’t here to get Forrester elected but to set the stage for a fight for the U.S. Senate seat next year.”
Under this theory, President Bush asked Christie – who served as Bush’s New Jersey Campaign Manager for the 2000 election – to back off on the governor’s race and wait for the Senate race.
“The President would want to retain the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate and would love to take one of the seats in New Jersey away from the Democrats,” this observer said.
William Palatucci, a GOP political consultant and lobbyist who founded the lobby practice of law firm Dughi Hewit & Palatucci, the firm to which Christie belonged prior to taking on the job as U.S. Attorney in 2001, said “While Chris’ future is unlimited, myself and the rest of the Republican Party here and in DC are supporting Sen. Tom Kean Jr.” for the nomination for U.S. Senate if and when Menendez is forced to defend it in a special election next year.
Related to all of this was the report that Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner would be getting a post in the state government if Corzine wins in November, thus leaving his mayoral post. While not declaring his candidacy yet, Turner said, “It is my intention to run for reelection next May, and if I run and win, I will stay for the full term.”