Test books tell us that all politics is organized.
This means that elections involve groups of people getting together to support individual candidates, and that by a collective effort, those candidates get elected.
But if you believe campaign ads that have cropped up over the last few days two races, organized takes on a new meaning and politics has sunken to new lows.
In Bayonne, where Incumbent Mayor Joseph Doria is fending off a challenge from retired Municipal Judge Patrick Conaghan, ghosts from the early 1980s cropped up in regards to who really is behind the Conaghan container port proposal.
Advertisements from the Doria camp have blasted Conaghan by attempting to tie him to organized crime, showing a link to one of the port proposals to organized crime families in Staten Island.
The Doria campaign points to a recent union endorsement as evidence to their claim, a claim quickly countered by Conaghan people who claim the same union backed Doria in previous elections.
This comes at a time when Conaghan has modified his container port proposal, saying that he would revert back to the plan originally backed by Doria to use one portion of the former Military Ocean Terminal for container port activities.
This move is expected to win Conaghan the endorsement of independent Councilman Anthony Chiappone and councilman-elect Gary LaPelusa.
The Doria campaign has a lot to be concerned about since its voter polling shows the race is too close to call. Doria, who won the four-way May 9 municipal election with 44 percent of the vote, has slipped to 40 percent in the recent poll, while Conaghan’s numbers rose from 32 to 37 percent. The polls showed 23 percent of voters were still undecided.
Although the Doria team has centered its campaign on development of the former Military Ocean Terminal, only 9 percent of those polled considered it the most important issue. Of those polled, 62 percent said taxes were the most important issue in the Bayonne election, followed by crime, school concerns, development and parking.
While Doria has won the endorsement of former Mayoral candidate Vincent Militello, most of those polled said they were not inclined to follow Militello’s request. On the other hand, 58 percent of those supporting Chiappone said they would most likely follow his lead in an endorsement with another 12 percent saying they were somewhat inclined in that direction. This could mean the difference in the June 13 run off if percentages remain unchanged.
The polls conflict
Politicians often dispute unfavorable polling numbers claiming the only poll that counts happens in the voting booth.
Assemblyman and West New York Mayor Albio Sires, who is running for the 13th District House of Representatives seat against Assemblyman and Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas, disputed a Vas poll that showed Vas has pulled ahead by two or three percentage points of Sires district-wide.
“That was his poll,” Sires said. “My poll shows we well ahead.”
Sires is convinced that his lead in West New York is insurmountable. Vas seems to believe the support in North Hudson is less solid than Sires would like, and if some shots in Weehawken (which have Sires signs outside and Vas signs inside) are any indication, Vas may be right. While Sires says he has a double-digit percentage lead in Bayonne and Vas says the polls shows Sires slightly behind, Sires’ fate may be tied to Doria’s as Chiappone and LaPelusa campaign for Vas.
Sires, of course, has completely ignored Jersey City where most of the districts fall into Ward F where Sandra Cunningham has endorsed Vas. Cunningham’s getting out her vote for Vas could affect the primary’s outcome. Vas has also won the endorsement of Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop.
New lows in campaigning?
The Sires/Vas campaign has also reached new lows in the week closing in on the Democratic Primary on June 6, with Sires ads claiming Vas helped get a drug addict and a child molester out of jail. This is a bit deceiving since it was Vas’s brother, a bail bondsman that got the drug addict sprung. Vas said the other ad had some validity since he had requested leniency from the court for the son of a personal friend – who court appointed counselors claimed was no risk to society.
Vas ads, however, play the corruption card, cleverly seeking to connect Sires to long time personal friend and contributor Rene Abreu. Abreu was convicted several years ago in a North Hudson corruption probe with the expectation that the threads would lead back to Sires. But no charges were ever filed against Sires. But truth has hardly been an obstacle to campaigning and the ads – written well enough to keep Vas safe from a libel suit — air frequently on cable TV.
Roberts captains The Titanic?
Some political observers in Hoboken compare the city’s efforts to purchase and later operate St. Mary’s Hospital to the maiden voyage of The Titanic, predicting the sinking of the municipal economy as well as several political careers.
And oddly enough, much of the talk comes from those who have in the past professed to be supporters of Mayor Dave Roberts.
Lately, kinder words have come from former opponents of Roberts than those whom he once counted on as friends.
Meanwhile, State Senator Bernard Kenny – perhaps Robert’s most reliable ally – faces is own woes with the recent debacles of Assemblyman Charles Epps, whose expenses for a trip to London might have been upheld by the Jersey City Board of Education, have left many of his supporters fleeing his sinking political ship.
Kenny remained silent for so long some believed he might be sinking, too, since Assemblyman and Union City Mayor Brian Stack joined the thong of officials asking Epps to pay something back.
Kenny, of course, is of an old school politically in which leadership works out these problems behind the scenes, not in public. But the political landscape is changing, threatening to leave Kenny and the old school adrift in seas of outraged public opinion.
In some ways, Stack’s public statement on Epps may have been the first volley in his seeking to unseat Kenny as state Senator in the 2007 Democratic Primary. If this is the case, Assemblyman Louis Manzo – who also went public on Epps – may be a significant ally in a realignment of the Democratic Party in Hudson County.