For Theresa Castellano, who is running for her fourth term to the Hoboken Council, the retiring of Councilman Richard DelBacchio leaves a void that will be hard to fill.
“He was a stabilizing force in this council,” she said, noting a sharp change of direction for Hoboken. “We no longer have leadership we need.”
For Castellano, disputes on the council, must be resolved through building coalitions, and while she said this is still possible, DelBacchio played a critical role in making many of these happen.
“He will be missed,” she said.
Her comments, this week came as a sidebar to her declaration that she will be supporting the Stack team in the upcoming Democratic Primary.
The Hoboken election, slated for May 8 is intimately connected to the primary on June 5 partly because Hoboken politicos play a key role in state larger Democratic civil war, with past opponents in Hoboken suddenly taking their place in the larger conflict.
Castellano, who recently opened her political campaign office on Washington Street, is expected to offer one of her buildings to the Stack campaign to run its slate of candidates for county executive, county clerk, county sheriff, and state senate and assembly seats in the 32nd District.
Hoboken’s politicos are choosing sides in the dispute that will decide just who will control the Democratic Party in Hudson County in the future.
Is the HCDO a reform organization?
While state Assemblyman and Union City Mayor Brian Stack is a mounting a countywide to challenge the dominance of the Hudson County Democratic Organization, many political observers claim this is a bit deceptive since the Stack ticket seems to better represent the old guard than the HDCO does.
As Stack tickets claim to represent a new vision for Democrats, in many ways some of the stalwarts of the old HCDO have simply changed hats and now try to pass themselves off as reformer under the Stack political banner. Behind Stack are some of the former leaders of the HCDO such as Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner, Rep. Albio Sires, and less obvious, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, while the HCDO appears to be throwing open its doors to those it previously rejected such as reformer Carol Marsh in Hoboken, Bayonne Councilman Anthony Chiappone, and Sandra Cunningham in Jersey City.
This view of HCDO is a little too naive of course, since behind the scenes hard hitting negotiations for support have given new meaning to political back stabbing.
Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy has proven his political savvy by eliminating many of those who would challenge him for mayor in 2009, or forcing contenders for his seat to fight over other seats in the state assembly or state senate district fights.
Cunningham and her advisors have spent so many hours in smoke filled back rooms, they may well qualify as a cigar club.
While the HCDO was “welcoming” outcasts with one hand, it appears to have stabbed other outcasts with the other hand such as freeholders Bill O’Dea and Jeff Dublin.
Stack isn’t strong enough to run for governor
Recent speculation as to why federal authorities found Stack so worthy of investigation drew a curious mix of responses.
First of all, several key political figures flatly refuted any chance that Stack would ever run for Governor of New Jersey, and thus voided the theory that U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie might be using his office to clear a future political path to the state house.
Stack, according to some sources, lacks strength outside Union City and Weehawken, and has almost no support in the 32nd District. His base may be able to secure him the state Senate seat, but his reach is limited.
This lack of strength may be seen most evidently in the scramble to put slates together in three districts in order to challenge the HCDO countywide.
The strongest candidates on Stack’s proposed tickets are Assemblyman Louis Manzo who is running for state Senate in the 31st District, Stack in the 33 rd district, Sheriff Joe Cassidy running for re-election, and Mary Jane Desmond running for county clerk.
Most observers believe the primary battle with produced a split decision that will leave most of the newly formulated HCDO ticket intact, and isolate Stack as a state Senator. The bad feelings generated in this primary will reverberate for years making governing in the county even more untenable.
Stack, too, could lose, and would be forced to run back to the safety of Union City with his tail between his legs. This would leave Sires and Turner isolated as well.
Turner recently opened a Stack ticket headquarters in the Pathmark shopping center in Weehawken, accompanied by Hoboken Councilman Rubin Ramos, who is running for the state Assembly on the Stack ticket, and Hoboken Councilman Michael Russo is supporting Stack.
Manzo needed to lead the ticket
While some believe the Stack ticket would have been better off running Manzo against Incumbent Tom DeGise for county executive, the line up on the ballot may explain why this wouldn’t work.
The ballot in Hudson County’s three districts will have the state Senate on top, so it is imperative for each slate to have their most recognizable name on top with the presumption that loyal voters will simply vote straight down the line.
With Sandra Cunningham’s name on the top of the HCDO ticket line in the 31st District, the Stack ticket had to have Manzo’s name on top as well.
Reports suggested that the Stack team tried to get Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop to run for county executive but failed to bring enough to the negotiations such as a promise to back him for mayor of Jersey City if he loses to DeGise. Fulop, although young, has a good grasp of local politics, and may not want to cut ties to Cunningham, whose political fortunes seem to be on the rise again.
Selected enforcement of sign laws?
Meanwhile, former Jersey City Mayor Gerry McCann was acquitted of charges that he violated municipal rules by putting up campaign signs on public property. McCann is running for the Board of Education in Jersey City.
“I didn’t put them up and yet I got a summons,” he said.
But in his defense, McCann showed photographs of the area and noted that numerous other public office seekers had signs posted in the area and that none of them had been summons as well, most notably campaign signs for President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
“I asked if President Bush and Vice President Cheney had received summons, too,” McCann said.