The Daily Newarker

Star Ledger: Newark Central Ward Councilman Charlie Bell faces re-election challenge from 8 candidates

The unlikely marriage of Mayor Cory Booker’s money and Councilman Charlie Bell’s clout is not taking any of the fight out of the 2010 Central Ward council race.

With eight other candidates having filed so far, the seat is the most widely contested in the city and two months before election day, challengers are knocking on doors, raising money, and courting district leaders in a political battle royal.

Politicker NJ: In Salahuddin aftermath, James targets the mayor

For all of James’s zeal, the absence of Minor in the aftermath of the Salahuddin announcement furrowed the brows of more than several Newarkers on both sides of the mayoral contest. Why wasn’t the challenger at a makeshift podium in front of City Hall demanding a mop up?

“We’re not here to go tit for tat with Booker,” said James, in defense of Minor’s strategy. “We’re not here to have press conferences and command cameras. Booker has the media locked up. We’ll let him do that. We’re not going to get attention and we’re not going to outspend him. But we had 200 people at our community meeting tonight and, yes, we talked about the indictment. We’re going to win this campaign 100% on the streets.”

In the hands of a gifted politician, the indictment of a senior City Hall official could be a major stumbling block to an incumbent’s campaign. Cliff Minor, apparently, is not that politician.

Reporting for Policker NJ, Max Pizzaro notes the unsubtle irony that the former mayor’s son is casting aspersions in the name of anti-corruption.

“It’s a night and day comparison,” added the son, when asked about Salahuddin and his father’s entanglement with the feds.

Well, that’s it. Mayor Booker was ousted handily from the race. After diligent efforts and a once-thought unstoppable campaign, it appears that the 6.1 Million Dollar Man has met his match and ought to throw in the towel and concede victory.

As the New York Times, reports, Booker was beat out by nearly 300,000 followers, Gavin Newsom, the Twitter Prince:

Samepoint, a social media search engine based in Manhattan, has named Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, “America’s Most Social Mayor.” The start-up company accorded Mr. Newsom the title after running a formula that primarily considered the number of politicians’ followers and fans on Twitter and Facebook.

Mr. Newsom, with almost 1.4 million followers on Twitter, far outstripped the mayor in the No. 2 spot, Cory Booker of Newark, who has just shy of 1.1 million followers.

Oh, wait, what? You thought I was referring to that other race? Oh, no — that other guy is still going to lose.

Star Ledger: In Newark, political family connections play prominent role in campaigns

Names like Payne, Rice, James, and Baraka will all appear on council ballots this May, carrying a long, and sometimes pained, history of political battles. Of the 40 candidates who have filed for council races so far, 11 have strong family connections to Newark politics, and of those, seven are incumbents or considered viable by political observers.

“The famous line from Tip O’Neill is that all politics are local,” said Carl Sharif, a political advisor on decades of Newark political campaigns and former campaign manager to Mayor Cory Booker. “In Newark, all politics are personal. All politics are family.”

But in Newark, where homegrown credentials are a practical pre-requisite for office, familial ties are no guarantee of a political alliance.

Newark is at an intersection of small-town politics and big-city opportunities: politicians who embed themselves into the political system have substantial resources to wield and few challengers to unseat them — Sharpe being the obvious example.

If we want to build sustainability that outlives our current leadership, we need to become intentional and focused on developing the leaders of tomorrow.