Max Pizarro's blog

Eldridge Hawkins at the opening of Obama HQ in Newark, with Irvington Mayor Wayne Smith (background, left).

ORANGE – In the city a little over a year, young Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., ran as the Obama of Orange – a new messenger intent on change in the wake of another public man’s wreckage.

As he observed his older opponent on Election Day, Hawkins brazenly likened the campaign of At-Large Councilman Donald Page to a shopworn Hillary Clinton, and compared his own to that of the hard-charging, inspirational Barack Obama.

But more than five months into his term of office as mayor, Hawkins’s critics object to what they call the 29-year old executive’s early failure to deliver the city convincingly from the era of Mims Hackett, who’s soon to be serving time in a federal pen for corruption.

A proposed $57.2 million budget is up $3.6 million from last year’s, and residents face a significant tax increase. Meanwhile, even new furnishings at City Hall can’t camouflage an entrenched cast of old regime characters. 

Amy Mallet

Monmouth County Republican Freeholder candidate John Curley just called Amy Mallet to congratulate her on her victory, he told PolitickerNJ.com.

“Having won the votes cast in the voting machines, I have fallen short in provisional and absentee ballots,” said Curley, a former Red Bank councilman who now lives in Middletown.

He also congratulate failed Democratic candidate Glenn Mason and his own running mate, Freeholder Director Lillian Burry, who won re-election on Nov. 4th, praising her as an “honest, capable and hard-working friend.”

“I was honored to carry the banner for the Republican Party, and I thank everybody for their commitment and energy on my behalf - you have buoyed my belief in a great place we call home,”  said the candidate.

Not so fast, says John Curley of Middletown Township.

The GOP’s Monmouth County Freeholder candidate convenes with fellow party members and attorneys this morning to determine if he should contest the results of his close race with Democrat Amy Mallet.

“There has been so much that’s transpired in this election,” says Curley. “We’re going to get some hard evidence and based on that either proceed, or concede.”

Following the provisional ballot count yesterday at the Board of elections office, Mallet unofficially defeated Curley by 343 votes.

Although counting didn’t finish until after 6 p.m. Tuesday, Curley says he climbed into his car at 4:30 p.m. only to hear a radio news report announcing Mallet’s victory.

In a statement issued Wednesday morning, GOP gubernatorial candidate Assemblyman Richard A. Merkt (R-Mendham) called on Republican State Committee Chairman Tom Wilson to resign his post immediately “in the best interests of the party.”

“After years of failure, it is time for the New Jersey State GOP to change horses and look to new leadership if it wants to succeed in 2009,” said Merkt. “Wilson has overseen a series of dismal state campaigns, reducing the Republican party to essential irrelevance in New Jersey state politics.”

 Merkt called Wilson’s handling of the U.S. Senate Primary a “fiasco,” in which the establishment juggled one candidate after another before running with former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer, and getting soundly beaten by U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park).  In particular, the party’s selection of political neophyte and food heir Andy Unanue, whose short-lived candidacy dissolved in jarring headlines about his party boy past, galled Merkt.

Democratic operative Michael Mangan rejoices with Mallet's win.

FREEHOLD - It’s over in Monmouth County.

They're getting final number here, to be certified on Thursday, but barring a recount, Amy Mallet of Fair Haven has defeated John Curley of Middletown in the race for a seat on the Monmouth County Freeholder Board, swinging county control to the Democrats, 3-2.

The final provisional vote tally shows Mallet winning, 964 votes to 654 votes for Curley, extending by 310 her Election Day lead of 18 votes. This tally does not include email and ID-pending votes, which are fewer than 100 and imminent.

"Over the last four years, the Democratic Party has gotten its message of change through to the voters that 23 years of Republican control are enough," says Monmouth County Democratic Party Director Michael Mangan. 

With 328 votes deciding a race in which voters cast over 270,000 countywide, the GOP doesn't give up - not yet.

"We're going to look at the numbers and we're going to speak with John (Curley) and our attorneys and make a decision sometime tomorrow," says county GOP spokesman Mark Duffy.

On Tuesday, it proves a long afternoon of provisional ballot counting that drags into the early evening. The Board of Elections reps slog through the hand count votes in each town.

The Board of Elections and Democratic and Republican Party operatives run down the provisional ballots, town by town, voter by voter.

FREEHOLD –  The vote stands at 694 provisional ballots for Amy Mallet and 476 for John Curley – not including hand counts - with the count for Manalapan ongoing and Marlboro and Long Branch left to go.

That puts the Fair Haven candidate for Monmouth County Freeholder in a position to win the election, as Long Branch is heavily Democratic and Mallet scored well in Manalapan and Marlboro in the regular vote count.

Prior to the provisionals process, Mallet led Curley by 18 votes overall: 135,688 to 135,670, in this county of 53 towns.  If Mallet defeats Curley, county control of this longtime Republican stronghold will favor the Democrats by 3-2.

Now on the tattered, unresolved edge of the Nov. 4th election, operatives from both parties sit with two Board of Elections reps from each party and a representative from the state attorney general's office at a long table. They all pour town by town over the provisional ballots.

Sources say Democratic Monmouth County Freeholder candidate Amy Mallet leads Republican candidate John Curley, 274 to 151 votes as of late yesterday.  

That puts Mallet up by 141 votes at the conclusion of yesterday’s Board of Elections provisional ballot count. 

A clerk of elections spokesperson said the counting should be finished sometime this afternoon. If Mallet wins the race, control of the Freeholder Board would shift to the Democrats, 3-2.

Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio says he'll run for the State Assembly if Mike Doherty moves up to the Senate

Warren County Freeholder Director John DiMaio announced today that he is seeking the 23rd  District Assembly seat being vacated by Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Washington).

“I believe the County of Warren’s 'pay as you go' philosophy is a model that the State of New Jersey could learn from," DiMaio said.

A former mayor of Hackettstown where he also served as a councilman and was a candidate for the Republican Nomination for the assembly in 2005, DiMaio serves as the second vice chairman of the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, the federal funding agency for the State of New Jersey’s 13 northernmost counties. 

Franklin Township Mayor Brian D. Levine, who has won twice in a heavily Democratic town, is thinking about seeking the 2009 GOP gubernatorial nomination

Brian D. Levine doesn’t know if he broke any records in losses suffered when he ran for student council at Rutgers. But he retained his interest in politics after marrying and moving to Franklin Township and at the polls one June he noted that no one from his party had filed to run for Republican County Committeeman.

So he wrote himself in, and won. 

 “You could say I squeaked it out because I won by one vote, or I won by a landslide because I won by 100 percent,” says Levine. “That proves you can spin the numbers.”

In the 1997 race for city council, Levine faced a formidable 16-year incumbent. He prevailed in a close election, triggering what became for him a pattern of victories, and spawning two back-to-back wins in mayoral races, in 2004 and 2007.

Now Levine, 50, a certified public accountant who is married with two daughters, is considering a run for governor, and believes his record as a fiscally conservative Republican in a Democratic town gives him particularly well-suited skills to serve as New Jersey’s chief executive.

Taking a shot at the campaign run against him by the Laborers and the allies of Mayor Cory Booker, Central Ward Councilman Charles Bell at his swearing-on ceremony in City Hall last night noted gratefully that money and turkeys don’t vote.

The crack was a reference to Eddie Osborne campaign’s massive GOTV operation, which included the coordinated distribution to of hundreds of early Thanksgiving turkeys.

Officially assuming the seat left occupied by former Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone, Bell seized the opportunity to instruct the mayor, who was not in attendance.

The new councilman disapproved of the tone of the campaign, expressed in hand and pole signs with the words: “Charles Bell equals corruption and waste.”