RONALD RICE

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.”

Former lawmaker Bill Payne doesn’t know if he’s going to run for his old seat in the Assembly next year against Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer (D-Newark), but he appears less inclined to make a move than he was this past summer.

Payne’s longtime friend, state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark), told PolitickerNJ.com that he would urge the retired legislator not to pursue a run against Spencer.

“I’m supporting the re-election of every member of the Legislative Black Caucus,” said Rice, including the Mayor Cory Booker-backed Spencer, who won Payne’s South Ward-based seat in last year’s election.

North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos

NEWARK – Among Newark elected officials, the election of Barack Obama last week sparked hope for healthcare reform, more federal aid, a re-invigorated sense of American leadership - and a special place on the president’s to-do list for the Brick City.

Inevitably, the Democratic victory also opened up questions about the future of Mayor Cory Booker, a supporter of Obama’s from the beginning of his campaign, who now serves on the president-elect’s transition team as it relates specifically to urban affairs.

As mayor of one of New Jersey’s biggest and one of America’s oldest cities with a battered infrastructure, Booker will join over 20 other New Jersey mayors in Newark on Wednesday for a conference to redefine urban needs for the new administration.

Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex)

The unlikely political tag team of state Sen. Ronald L. Rice (D-Essex) and North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato that felled Mayor Cory Booker’s candidate in the Central Ward on Tuesday called for Obama-spirit healing in the city in the aftermath.

“I respect him as the mayor,” Adubato said of Booker. “I predict things are going to get better. Let’s face it; this Obama victory yesterday means anything is possible. We have a lot of hope about America.

“I take that win by Obama in a country where 15 percent of America is black, and say if he can be president, why can’t we all work together? “

Central Ward Council candidate Charles Bell

NEWARK – The demonstration of sheer labor power behind Central Ward council candidate Eddie Osborne sent a tremor through the allies of Charles Bell.

But now that darkness has fallen over the city, Bell says his people command the streets and they’re working hard up until the end.

“All of Eddie’s union help climbed back into their buses and skipped town,” said Bell, a former councilman, who’s running with the support North Ward Councilman Steve Adubato, state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), and former Mayor Sharpe James.

Eddie Osborne, foreground

NEWARK – Thanksgiving came early in the Central Ward as Eddie Osborne and company hit the streets with turkeys for seniors, while the same lone, apparently paid, sentinel stood at the corner of McCarter Highway and Market Street with a sign dissing Charles Bell.

The whole ward is wired with candidates but it’s Bell versus Osborne overtime.

To look at the cityscape on its face, Osborne has the edge, for here in the city’s most populous ward there are Osborne signs, Osborne television ads, Osborne organizational muscle, vans mounted with megaphones and high visibility t-shirted LIUNA union workers passing out, yes, turkeys.

A bottomed-out President George W. Bush and losses in New Jersey presidential elections extending to the late 1980s invariably prompt Republicans to designate the Reagan era as a modern touchstone for their party.

The fact that he won here in back-to-back elections still sparks the GOP to pepper their fighting words with Reagan invocations, evidenced by McCain surrogates specifically targeting “Reagan Democrats” at the opening of their headquarters in Woodbridge this summer.

The Gipper remains the man among GOP, going up to the top of their ticket, where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) repeatedly refers to Reagan as his hero and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hits a raise the roof crescendo every time she utters the late president’s name on the stump.

Mary Rone, Central Ward council candidate

NEWARK – As the juggernaut campaigns of Charles Bell and Eddie Osborne hit each other at full speed in the Central Ward, Mary Rone mounts a grassroots operation from below that she hopes will knock both of the bigger operations to their knees on Nov. 4th.

“I’m going to win it for the people,” says the community activist, who with her late husband, James Rone, advocated for fair housing in the city going back to the late 1960s. “I’ve had enough of the ring-kissing style of politics, and I know the people of the Central Ward have too.”

She comes at the campaign with an extra burst of motivation.

Thirteen candidates are vying in a special election to fill the seat of Rone’s daughter, former Councilwoman Dana Rone, whom an assignment judge removed in August after determining that the councilwoman used her office to impede the work of Rutgers University cops in a Dec. 2006 traffic incident involving her nephew.

“You could say Dana losing her seat was my fault,” says the older Rone. “I instilled in her what my family instilled in me. If a family member is in distress, you help them. That’s all it was. It’s not about her improperly using her authority. My daughter is very protective, both of her community – and of her own family.”

Eddie Osborne and Newark Mayor Cory Booker today in the Central Ward: Politicker photo 

NEWARK - Mayor Cory Booker today said he stands with Eddie Osborne, business manager of Laborers Local 1153, who’s in a special Nov. 4th contest to succeed ousted Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone.

The money candidate in a 13-person race, Osborne enjoys state and countywide Labor connections, and he smiled happily as a force of orange-shirted Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) volunteers chanted his name: "Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!"

Booker used to be the councilman in this ward, and he remembered Osborne as a humble, hard-working family man.

"I was very blessed when I ran for Central Ward Council and a whole bunch of people stood up for a reform movement that started a decade ago," Booker said, standing with Osborne in a vacant lot slated to become First Street Park.

Former Councilman Charles Bell: Politicker photo 

NEWARK - The crowded race for a vacant Central Ward Council seat features a veteran with the stalwart backing of Newark’s gray-haired fathers, versus a labor-cash infused newcomer who may or may not receive support from a wobbling Mayor Cory Booker.

Thirteen candidates hope to fill the seat an assignment judge separated from Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone after Rone this summer exhausted her appeals process going back to a 2006 obstruction of justice case.

But apparent frontrunner Charles Bell sees his chief challenger - both for Obama affection and for the local council seat - as fellow labor brother Eddie Osborne, whose billboards and signs laden with Obama iconography have hit the Central Ward like an orange blizzard.

The Osborne campaign sizes up the contest similarly.

In their sights, they see Bell, a former councilman, school board member for nearly 30 years and retired labor official with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers Union, who combines name ID and an alliance with time-tested political infrastructure.