Tom Giblin

Fomer New Jersey and Essex County Democratic Party Chairman Ray Durkin, and his son, Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin

At Mayfair Farms Restaurant in West Orange on Saturday, the St. Patrick’s Guard of Honor of New Jersey hailed Ray Durkin, or the chairman, as they call him here in a nod of respect to his many years of service to the Democratic Party. 

Full-blooded and hybrid and old and new country Irish fathers and their sons - Giblin, Byrne, Stack, Barrett, McCarthy, Baroni, Mac Donald, O’Toole and Codey – for one afternoon absorbed any and all of New Jersey’s other ethnic groups into the arms of Durkin’s Irish-America.  

Durkin, who led the Essex County Democratic Organization from 1980 to 1992 in addition to serving as chair of the state party from 1985 to 1989, was the 68th St. Patrick’s Guard of Honor on a list going back to 1940 that includes President John F. Kennedy, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., and governors Richard J. Hughes, Brendan Byrne and Richard Codey.  

In accepting the award, the former Newark City Firefighter and head of the West Ward Young Democrats who has been lowkey politically over the course of the past 12 years, said he was most proud of his wife and five sons, including Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin, who introduced his father on Saturday.

DENVER - Everyone has a favorite Democratic National Convention, and for former State Democratic Party Chairman Ray Durkin and party executive director Emma Byrne, the year was 1988, when Democrats left Atlanta, Georgia with a 17-18 point lead in the polls and fully confident they would buck the GOP.

"The high we got from the convention was huge, and everyone was absolutely convinced we couldn’t lose," recalled Byrne.

"That would change, of course," said Durkin. "That was before we learned that Mike Dukakis was a nice man. He was afraid to attack, and he took a beating."

The year was important for Durkin, the Vailsburg, Newark product who lived in the same neighborhood as other Irish-American party bulwarks: the late John Cryan (father of state chairman, Joe) and Assemblyman (And former State Party Chair) Tom Giblin (D-Montclair).

Steve Adubato, Jr., presides over a meeting between Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, center, and Sen. Joseph Kyrillos.: Politicker photo 

SPRING LAKE - They drove and were driven to the Irish Riviera from all corners of New Jersey, in cars with government plates on them and dark SUVs and sedans with tinted glass, sporting sunglasses and paunches covered with sports jackets, mostly Democrats and a handful of Republicans, converging on this mansion by the sea.

Congressmen and mayors and assembly people and state senators and opposition researchers and retainers.

Standing at the front of the Seashell Dining Room in the Breakers to greet them was Steve Adubato, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and welcoming smile - and casting an eye that invariably sharpens human activity into the lineaments of political theater.

"I believe in the luck of the Irish," said the executive director of Newark’s North Ward Center and head of the Democratic Party in the North Ward, facing a sun-filled room packed with rivals hunched over plates of eggs and bacon: Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican State Party Chairman Tom Wilson; former Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo, and Assemblyman Albert Coutinho and Assemblwoman Grace Spencer; Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and Assemblyman Thomas Giblin (D-Montclair).

In this poor man’s Olympiad of Jersey ethnic groups gathered under one roof, Adubato highlighted - as he does annually at this North Ward Center-sponsored breakfast - the Irish, who now number 141,379 registered voters in New Jersey, or 47,514 Democrats, 36,063 Republicans and 57,802 independents.

Rep. Rob Andrews is making his second bid for statewide office, challenging Frank Lautenberg in the Democratic Senate primary

As he launches a primary campaign for Sen. Frank Lautenberg's seat, Rep. Rob Andrews says he’s less prickly than he was 11 years ago when his failed campaign for governor left him holding grudges and questioning the value of a man's word.

The congressman from Camden was bothered by then-Essex County Chairman Thomas Giblin’s 1997 decision to withdraw his support for Andrews to instead back north Jersey product James E. McGreevey for Governor.

“I took it personally and that was my mistake,” said Andrews, 50, who felt vindicated but no less intensely frustrated after McGreevey’s spectacular fall.

“Someone who might have backed McGreevey and not me was not a bad person,” Andrews said.

“He is a foolish person,” the congressman added, “but not a bad person.”

GIBLIN BILL MOVING DIVISION OF ELECTIONS TO DEPARTMENT OF STATE ADVANCES

(TRENTON) - Legislation Assemblyman Thomas P. Giblin sponsored that would transfer the state Division of Elections from the Department of Law and Public Safety to the Department of State was unanimously released today from the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee.

The Herald News has endorsed Tom Giblin and Sheila Oliver for re-election to the State Assembly in the 34th district.  READ

POU STATEMENT AT OPENING OF JOINT LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEE BENEFITS REFORM

(TRENTON) - Below are remarks prepared for delivery this morning by Assemblywoman Nellie Pou, co-chair of the Joint Legislative Committee on Public Employee Benefits Reform: