Incumbent Bayonne Councilman Gary La Pelusa knows he has a battle ahead in the June 15 run off election if he is to retain his 3rd Ward seat.
“I was really surprised at the outcome,” he said this week, as he gears up his campaign against Ray Greaves – who is being supported by Mayor Mark Smith. “A few days before the election, people were congratulating me, saying I was ahead.”
When the polls closed on May 11, however, La Pelusa was behind, and managed to get into the runoff election because Greaves was about 130 votes shy of the necessary 50 percent to win outright.
“It is very difficult for incumbents to make up votes in this anti-incumbent atmosphere,” said one political observer.
La Pelusa is the victim of one of the largest mayoral victories in Bayonne history, as Smith won his election over Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone and retired police officer, Leonard Kantor, by taking 67 percent of the total vote.
Heading a ticket that critics jokingly called “the no-name ticket” because of how few of the five candidates had much name recognition, Smith carried nearly all of them to victory.
Cotter, in the 1st Ward – like La Pelusa – managed to hold off Smith-backed Agnes Gillespie. But Cotter also has a chore if he wants to fill the seat vacated by outgoing incumbent Councilman Ted Connolly.
“I’m really hoping Gary and I both can win,” Cotter said. “Otherwise, most council meetings will become ‘Kick around Cotter’ nights,” Cotter said.
Both La Pelusa and Cotter ran in the May 11 election as independents, meaning they were attached to no ticket. While this may seem like an advantage in a year when outsiders are considered admirable in most voters opinions, elections are rarely won on personality alone.
Former state Senator Bernard Kenny once noted that every campaign has two parts, the campaign leading up to election day and election day itself. Candidates try to sway voters during the first part, but the second part is won by getting people out to the polls.
While anyone can promise you anything before the election, Smith campaign workers found a way to know if people they spoke to during the first campaign actually showed up at the polls. Kids the campaign hired gave people pieces of paper which got turned in outside the polls.
Secaucus primary
Although no one is officially running as a Republican in the Secaucus primary for town council, a write-in vote could change this – and some people are debating whether or not to vote for Board of Education Trustee Tom Troyer in the 2nd Ward. Troyer said he is happy where he is, but would not discourage people if they chose him.
Meanwhile, one reader of this column took exception to the fact that Mark Buscino was listed as a Democratic candidate, put on the line by Municipal Chairman Vinnie Prieto as the official Democratic choice in the primary.
“You seem to have got it mixed up in Secaucus. Mark Buscino was actually Gonnelli’s choice,” this reader said. “That was the deal he made with Prieto. Sue Pirro, unbeknownst to her, is the sacrificial lamb.”
Mayor Mike Gonnelli has selected Susan Pirro as his 3rd Ward candidate in the November election. Buscino faces a primary challenge from Mike Makarski, who said he believes voters deserve another choice.
Buscino is one of those people courted by several sides in last year’s election. A former Board of Education member, he was courted by former Mayor Dennis Elwell and Gonnelli.
Pirro ran for 3rd Ward in the 2009 primary as a member of a ticket headed by Peter Weiner, but was once an Elwell candidate when she served on the Board of Education.
Stack has Christie’s attention
You have to admire Republican Governor Christopher Christie for his audacity, making repeated visits to Hudson County, first to visit with Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, and then several visits to state Senator and Union City Mayor Brian Stack.
A door to door vacuum cleaner salesman could not be more persistent. But what is Christie selling in Hudson County by meeting with political figures that are outside the usual Democratic political loop?
You might think Christie is taunting his arch rival, Democratic U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, first by meeting with Zimmer – who has ruffled Menendez’s feathers – and then meeting with Stack, who Menendez himself is trying to court into becoming the next chairman of the Hudson County Democratic Organization, which seems unlikely, leaving Bayonne’s Mayor Smith as the frontrunner.
Christie’s poll numbers have plummeted as a result of his attempts to reform state and municipal government, and he’s been forced to relent on a few of his proposals such as those concerning the state’s senior citizen population. But people who know Christie best say he won’t back down in his attack on the state’s unions, regardless of how many people they send to Trenton to protest.
Christie is, however, forcing municipalities to make hard choices for the first time, choices towns resisted making in the past as long as they had state aide they could rely on. The problem politically is that Christie may not be helping Republicans take back the legislature with his “spread the suffering” approach to balancing the state budget.