Even before voters get to choose two new council-at-large candidates in this November’s special election in Jersey City, infighting is apparently underway behind the scenes in anticipation of the 2013 election for mayor.
Apparently there is a serious push to get state Sen. Sandra Cunningham to commit to a mayoral run, and a power struggle in her camp to determine who will replace her chief of staff Joe Cardwell, who is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 7 for his role in Bid Rig II (the 2009 federal sting operation into political corruption).
Report suggest that Elnardo Webster, attorney for Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and state Sen. Ray Lesniak (a close ally of Cunningham) are trying to muscle out Cardwell as Cunningham’s chief advisor. Most believe that Cardwell will be serving some jail time.
With Booker apparently planning to run for the U.S. Senate, Lesniak and company may be seeking to keep control of one of the major urban centers.
Lesniak, who barely won reelection to the state Senate, owed Booker for his endorsement, and the payback appears to be a contract to Webster’s firm for legal work involving the sale of the Hoboken University Medical Center. Booker and Lesniak seem to be counting on the support of Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer and Cunningham in Booker’s bid for U.S. Senate.
In a recent poll pitting Councilman Steven Fulop, Mayor Jerramiah Healy, and Cunningham against each other for Jersey City mayor (and in a separate poll, Council President Peter Brennan Fulop appears to have an early lead over Cunningham, possibly by as much as 8 percent, with Healy reported as a distant third.
Healy’s advantage in the past was his ability to raise more money than his opponents, something that may not be true in this campaign, since Fulop reportedly has already raised a half million dollars towards the 2013 election.
Doria cleared by feds
It’s lucky for Joseph Doria that Gov. Christopher Christie decided not to run for president – otherwise Doria might have had to wait another two years before he could clear his good name.
Doria was caught up in Christie’s political campaign road show that the feds like to call Bid Rig II, which, combined with suspects in Brooklyn busted for selling human body parts and other atrocities, netted in the first sweep about 44 people, many of whom were Hudson County political figures accused of accepting bribes from cooperating federal witness Solomon Dwek.
For the most part, those arrested were minor political figures in the Democratic political machine, with the exception of Deputy Jersey City Mayor Leona Beldini, who was later found guilty; Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, who was found not guilty; Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, whose conviction on one of three charges is currently under appeal, and of course, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, whom the feds had to wait until he actually took office to arrest, and is due for release from jail shortly.
Doria would have been the big fish in this catch since he was then Commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs, arguably the second most powerful position in state government after the governor, at a time when Christie was running against Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine.
Tagging Doria – who was never charged, although FBI agents allegedly removed boxes of documents from his house (which later reports claim were empty boxes) – connected the scandal to the State House, and more or less guaranteed a Christie victory over Corzine the following November.
For two years, Doria lingered in this strange legal limbo that was finally resolved last week when the feds publicly sent a letter saying he was no longer the subject of an investigation.