One of the most famous lines from The Watergate era was “follow the money.”
While this is true of political high drama, such as the investigation of Richard Nixon’s involvement in the break-in of the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate Hotel, the same line usually works for politics in general.
If you want to know if someone is running for office, or is gearing up for a political war, just see if he or she is holding campaign fundraisers.
Not all fundraisers are geared for future wars. In some cases, a past election so drained a candidate that he or she needs to raise money to pay off old debt.
But with the flurry of fundraisers taking place currently or in the near future, there is a clear indication that something big is up.
State Sen. and Union City Mayor Brian Stack just held an event that drew hundreds of supporters. Yes, he is running for mayor in May, but he is unopposed.
While Stack has campaign debt from last year, it is believed he is helping raise money for the on-going political war for control of the county.
His event last week drew more than 2,000 people, one of whom was Gov. Phil Murphy. But this may not be an endorsement of the effort led by Stack and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop to unseat the county executive in 2019. Murphy may be trying to stay out of the fray.
Stack, Fulop, West New York Mayor Felix Roque, and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla would like to unseat County Executive Tom DeGise. This has put a lot of political allies at odds with each other.
“Everybody is trying to stay low,” one North Hudson official said.
This isn’t possible, especially with U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez seeking reelection in a year when Republicans believe they might be able to unseat him.
A source close to Menendez said he is trying to get Stack to have a sit-down talk with U.S. Sen. and North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco (a DeGise ally).
Menendez apparently has threatened to run off the official Democratic line with Rep. Albio Sires on the ballot as a protest.
“Bob wants Stack and Sacco to talk,” this source said. “But Fulop is dead to him.”
To make this point, as of 5:30 p.m. on March 27 Fulop did not get an invitation to the kickoff of Menendez’s campaign in Union City on March 28.
Fulop showed up anyway. But it is unclear if he crashed the party or Menendez had a change of heart. The former is most likely, since it appeared local officials scrambled to find him a seat among the dignitaries.
While Menendez is reluctant to take a side in the Democratic civil war, he made it clear he is supporting Sires against a reported challenge by Union City Freeholder Tilo Rivas. Menendez held a fundraiser for Sires at the Liberty House in Jersey City on March 26, which drew several hundred people.
Party chair at stake
To unseat DeGise, the Stack will have to first win chairmanship of the Hudson County Democratic Organization. This requires every committee person in the county to vote at the reorganization meeting in June.
Depending on who you talk to, Stack and Fulop either have a slight lead in the committee votes they need or are more than 100 votes behind. You can bet that arms are being twisted on both sides.
The not-so-secret meeting in Hoboken in which Bhalla called together committee people in an effort to bring them onto the rebels’ side may well have been a waste of time. Hoboken committee people are divided. But bringing 3rd Ward councilman Michael Russo into the Bhalla camp does help.
Russo, a master of playing both political sides in Hoboken over the years, seems to have worked out a deal with Bhalla.
Russo will swing the committee seats he controls to the rebels, and Bhalla will let Russo run unopposed in the 2019 council election.
But Bhalla apparently intends to run a full slate of candidates in all six Hoboken wards. So a deal with Russo might have Russo running on Bhalla’s ticket, a shocking development since Bhalla supporters (formerly supporters of Mayor Dawn Zimmer) have in the past painted Russo as the anti-Christ, one of the icons of old Hoboken and of corruption.
A move like this would strip Bhalla of his membership in the reform movement, since Russo is the only councilperson who has never run as a reformer.
Such a move would give plenty of ammunition to Council members Tiffanie Fisher, Peter Cunningham, and Jennifer Giattino to anoint themselves as the true leaders of the reform movement in Hoboken.
Most likely, Bhalla will either create a straw candidate – someone too weak to actually win against Russo – or claim he could not find a candidate as an excuse to let Russo run unopposed.
Bayonne polls show Davis ahead – or do they?
Political campaigns like to spoonfeed media with the results of polls that show their candidate will inevitably win.
This appears to be true in regards to the Bayonne mayoral election.
The Davis campaign released results that showed Mayor Jimmy Davis far out in front in the upcoming race against challengers Jason O’Donnell and Mitchell Brown.
But when you actually listen to the poll, you realize that the questions were framed to make O’Donnell seem less favorable. This is called a push poll, where negative information is stated concerning a particular candidate, prior to asking which candidate the potential voter would select.
Davis supporters have defended the poll, noting that the numbers in this recent poll paid for by the Davis campaign jibe with a poll done late last year by O’Donnell.
This is true, the O’Donnell camp admits. But they also point out that the O’Donnell poll was conducted prior to O’Donnell’s actual announcement of his run for mayor.
The O’Donnell campaign has currently concluded a poll of its own and is expected to release the results within a week.
O’Donnell has been pushing Davis to debate. But to this point, Davis has not committed to anything.
Hudson Media Group has scheduled a live TV debate for April 26 at 7 p.m. which will also be broadcast via social media and will be replayed later. Pat O’Melia is going to moderate the debate, and said he’s already refused to set limits to the debate.
“Everything is on the table,” he said.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.
