Peg Schaffer

MINNEAPOLIS - Stunned by Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) headline-snatching announcement last Friday that he selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, N.J. Democrats this week re-set after taking a three-day hard look at Palin.

So far, they’re having a difficult time squaring an obscure Alaskan with New Jersey’s hard-edged, ethnically diverse environs, despite Republicans’ best efforts - in the words of State GOP Chairman Tom Wilson - to make a case for why "New Jersey will love Sarah Palin."

"They have Eskimos in Alaska," former Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield said to the suggestion that Palin may not have experience relating to the kinds of ethnic groups whose myriad cultures saturate New Jersey.

As for the fact that Palin’s a woman - a younger, slimmer verison of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) with an attitude to tempt backlash voters over to the GOP after Clinton’s primary loss - Democrats remain unimpressed.

New Jersey delegates cheer Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver Monday night: Scott Weingart Photo
DENVER - A good orator indulges in autobiography to the extent that he or she can connect to a common story, with the danger never far that the wrong points of emphasis can entrap the speaker in self congratulations.

Michelle Obama’s maternal confessional and intimate revelatory family detail treaded too close to the edges of egotism for only a handful of the New Jersey delegation, with most Democrats hailing the effort as a dead-on bull’s-eye.

They spilled into the spacious Celtic Tavern on Blake Street after the convention on Monday night, and the liquor flowed as U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) celebrated the presidential candidate’s wife as a people’s champion.

"Her speech reached out and spoke to the common story," said Lautenberg. "It reminded me very much of my own story, growing up in Paterson, working hard, having a father who died young. She told a story that many of us can relate to."

State Party Chairman Joseph Cryan operates at the Inverness.: Politicker photo

DENVER - It was one of those unlikely big event introductions: the governor of New Jersey revving up the crowd before he rolled out U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn).

Usually it’s one of the members of the congressional delegation warming up an audience for the governor, but this occasion was different, as onetime Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) stalwart Gov. Jon Corzine yielded to Rothman, a Northeast Regional co-chair of the Obama campaign.

Co-hosting a party with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) at the Inverness Hotel on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, Rothman hit the two big power chords the Obama campaign hoped to sound with its pick this weekend of Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) as Obama’s vice presidential running mate.

"Joe Biden is going to be great at reaching out to working class voters, plus he has foreign policy experience," said the congressman, the only member of the New Jersey delegation to have endorsed Obama from the beginning.

There were scattered hand claps - and a little spark of happiness for Biden.

Somerset County Democratic Chair Peg Schaffer, right, with Montgomery Mayor Cecilia Birge, one of her freeholder candidates. 

Charged up by the presidential race, Democrats believe they can storm GOP freeholder strongholds in at least three counties this year: Somerset, Burlington and Monmouth.

While the Democratic Party has chopped away in sections at county freeholder seats in Monmouth and now is one win away from obtaining a majority, Somerset and Burlington remain elusive Republican bulwarks for the Democrats, who see Monmouth as a model.

The election this week of a new Democratic Party chair in Somerset brought forth fighting words from those party members long schooled in living under Republican rule, and prompted the obligatory GOP reply that for all the updates on Democratic Party registration, the county remains red.

MANVILLE - In a contest for Somerset County Democratic Party chair, Peg Schaffer winsPeg Schaffer of Bedminister prevailed over former county freeholder Michael Ceponis at the VFW Hall tonight.

The pair had matched up against each other after Rebecca Perkins of Warren dropped out and endorsed Ceponis.

Schaffer, who won 185 votes to Ceponis's 132 on first ballot, had received the support of retiring chair Elia Pelios.

MANVILLE - In this three-person race for Democratic Party chair in Rebecca PerkinsSomerset, Rebecca Perkins has just thrown her support to former Freeholder Michael Ceponis.

She backed him in her speech and withdrew before the first ballot.

Now it's a contest in the VFW Hall between Ceponis and Peg Schaffer of Bedminister.

Schaffer is the candidate backed by retiring Chair Elia Pelios.