With the June 5 Democratic Primary looming in Hudson County, it may be difficult for voters to make up their minds about just which candidates acted the silliest.
For some, the events that led up to this Democratic civil war might have challenged even the great philosopher Aristotle to determine if this play is a tragedy or comedy.
Perhaps the most tragic of characters in this political drama was state Sen. Bernard Kenny, who can be only partly blamed for the political combat that now divides former allies and threatens to create lasting feuds among the county’s elite.
Kenny refused to step aside when Assemblyman and Union City Mayor Brian Stack wanted to move up to the state Senate in the 33rd District.
Kenny might well be compared to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in that he could not make up his mind, and held out so long that lack of clear leadership caused other lesser princes of Hudson County to begin plotting to seize power. Jersey City Councilman Bill Gaughan, for instance, began to eye the state Assembly seat held by Assemblywoman Joan Quigley, and only the intervention of the very powerful prince of North Bergen, Sen. and Mayor Nicholas Sacco in the 32nd District, did he keep this plot from taking place.
Kenny, of course, is part of a different era of political power, when a few powerbrokers ruled the roost. He inherited a changing political landscape while the 12 municipal mayors grew more powerful. The 1990s saw the last of the very powerful political bosses, Bruce Walters, Anthony DeFino, and even Robert Janiszewski, who eventually went to jail.
With former Rep. Robert Menendez becoming U.S. Senator last year, the last levy broke. In some ways, Menendez was the one person powerful enough to hold the fractured pieces of the party together. With his new role as U.S. Senator, Menendez decided to step back from local politics.
This left Kenny, one of Menendez’s strongest allies, vulnerable to what some have called “The Stack attack” Now the political powerbrokers are competing for a piece of the great patronage pie, and we have factions fighting each other, often without ideology.
“The cork is out, and all the animosities that were brewing for years are being acted out,” said one political observer. “What we are seeing are personal battles being waged. Sacco hates Stack. Stack hates Sacco. Kenny hates everybody.”
Everybody is out for himself
Strange new alliances have formed. But at best, these are fragile alliances, destined to survive only until the primary. The coalitions will fracture again and reform in new combinations.
Some coalitions didn’t even last until the primary.
Once seen as an invincible force in Bayonne, State Sen. and Mayor Joseph Doria withdrew from seeking re-election largely because of the behind-the-scenes antics of Jersey City Mayor Jeremiah Healy – who seems to be playing out the role of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Healy tried his best to keep any of possible challengers for the Jersey City mayoral seat in 2009 from getting elected to other offices this year.
Doria, who wanted Assemblyman Louis Manzo and former Jersey City Council President L. Harvey Smith on his ticket in the 31st District, found himself being saddled with no-name candidates. When Doria withdrew, Healy wound up supporting Smith and Sandra Cunningham against Manzo, thus creating havoc among his potential rivals.
Doria, apparently trying to keep his options alive, decided to throw his support to County Executive Tom DeGise, who is on the HDCO ticket, and against Cunningham, and has created road map for voters who need to switch balloting lines not once, but three or four times. Normally, voters are asked to vote up and down on the voting machines, for all the candidates in line A or line B. For voters in the 31st district, they may need OnStar satellite tracking to make sense of this year’s ballot.
Doria as HCDO chairman?
All this behind-the-scenes manipulation may come back to haunt Healy, since a deal appears to be in the works between DeGise and Sacco to deny Healy chairmanship of the Hudson County Democratic Organization and give it to Doria later in June.
Kenny, who is currently chairman of the HCDO, has largely abdicated his responsibilities to others. While he has come to realize he cannot hold onto power, he sulks Hamlet-like in the background as the party falls apart. Most of his former allies abandoned him to take sides in the new race. Hoboken Mayor Dave Roberts, himself a lame duck with two years left to serve, is among the few who remained loyal to Kenny.
West New York Mayor Sal Vega stepped into the middle of the fray by taking up Kenny’s mantle in a pointless attempt to stop Stack. The logic behind this is that Stack had the backing of only two mayors of the 12 in Hudson County, so Vega should be able to beat Stack.
Unfortunately, Vega self-destructed in a different way, a kind of Othello character, who started out with an intensely negative campaign against Stack and ended up doing politically foolish things, making him look more like a court jester than a legitimate candidate. Vega will most likely be remembered as the man who tried to stop the Cuban parade, not for his rich history as the chairman of the freeholder board.
Primary could forecast future Hoboken elections
Vega, unfortunately, threatens to take down with him in flames the political hopes of Hoboken’s Carol Marsh, a former councilwoman there who is running for state Assembly on Vega’s ticket. The one redeeming light in this has to do with the Hoboken reform movement. Marsh, by removing herself as a council candidate in this year’s municipal election, allowed Beth Mason to get elected as a councilwoman in Hoboken’s northwest section uptown.
Although Marsh stands a strong chance of losing her Assembly bid, the primary results could well forecast her potential as a Hoboken mayoral candidate. Pitted against Hoboken Councilman Ruben Ramos for the Assembly, the results should show the strengths and weakness of both candidates in advance of the the 2009 mayoral. A strong vote for Marsh in Hoboken on June 5 may well position her the mayoral run later.