Richard Codey

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex): Politicker file photo 

DENVER - Gorged on a buffet dinner, the delegation now heads for the light rail that hugs the side of I-25, and that will shuttle the Jersey politicians northward into the bowels of downtown Denver for the convention, and a few scattered souls remain behind in the otherwise desolate Columbine Room at the Inverness Hotel.

Some stragglers head for the exits.

"I told Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) we need this in Jersey," said Michael Greenstein, husband of Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Monroe), moments before he trots up the stairs to the light rail station.

The bar awaits.

Another round of drinks arrives in the basement-level Spotted Dog - cranberry juice in honor of Jersey - and vodka - as a baseball-capped Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine appears on the large-screen television screen and tries to stifle a lump in his throat acknowledging Obama’s wisdom in selecting Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) as his veep. It doesn’t sound altogether sincere. Kaine was on the short list for second banana and now it’s over and he manages a smile for anchor Wolf Blitzer but he doesn’t radiate eye of the tiger.

DENVER - New Jersey’s Trenton triumvirate pumped up the delegation here a few hours before the Monday night main event, with Gov. Jon Corzine paying tribute to his legislative legmen: Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) and Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden).

The presidential campaign will come down to who can reach out and grab those undecided voters, said Codey, who showed up here today with a big green pin on his lapel that says "O’bama."

First, the Democrats have to be buzzed.

"We’ve got to elect Obama," Codey cried to a packed house at the Inverness Hotel. "Come on you know it and I know it! You know, the press keeps asking, "Are you united? I mean, come on. Come on! Yes!"

Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo: Politicker photo

NEWARK - Joseph DiVincenzo knows the joke is coming, and he fields it with a grin - the one broadcaster Steve Adubato, Jr., has delivered for years about how DiVincenzo tried out for more than a half dozen NFL teams and got cut by every one of them.

The fact that Brett Favre is now taking snaps for the Jets sets up Adubato’s new punch line.

"He’s even older than Joe D," Adubato cracks and the roomful of politicians at the Breakers laughs, and DiVincenzo a moment later stands at the microphone, giving a nod to Essex County Democratic Chairman Phil Thigpen, who’s out there in the audience somewhere.

"I’m with Phil Thigpen, not Steve Adubato," DiVincenzo says, a playful poke at his leader, the junior Adubato’s father, who tried to oust Thigpen as chairman earlier this year but ran into a public objection by DiVincenzo, who wanted Thigpen to remain as chair.

DiVincenzo prevailed.

Senate President Richard Codey: Politicker file photo NEWARK - Senate President Richard Codey (D- Essex) stands by retired Gen. Wesley Clark as his top choice to complement a ticket with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Codey called for Clark as his party’s vice presidential candidate months ago, at a time when the four star general appeared to be on Obama’s short list.

The Clark buzz died after Obama publicly disassociated himself from remarks Clark made on a TV interview show.

"He got into trouble when he questioned whether (presumptive Republican presidential nominee John) McCain’s experience getting shot down in Vietnam qualified him to be president," Codey recalled.

Gov. Jon Corzine: Politicker file photoNEWARK - Hit with reporters’ questions here today about the business connections of his former chief of economic development, Gov. Jon Corzine said he did not know when he selected him that Gary D. Rose had a financial stake in the Xanadu Meadowlands project.

Corzine himself had close ties to a private firm behind the large-scale East Rutherford development - envisioned as a $2 billion pleasure dome of shops and entertainment hot-spots and slated to open next year.

In his capacity as economic chief, Rose helped facilitate a privately funded bailout of the once-floundering project, even as he owned stock in a company that stood to lose over a billion dollars, according to The Record reporters Jeff Pilletts and John Reitmeyer.

Rose left the Corzine administration in June.

Gov. Jon Corzine, former Gov. Brendan T. Byrne, Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, and Senate President Richard Codey: Politicker photo

NEWARK - On a ridiculously hot day in which many other public speakers might have sent the brow-mopping audience on a premature beeline for the nearest watering hole, former Gov. Brendan T. Byrne regaled his willing audience with charm and one-liners.

"Everything else I asked for, but I didn’t ask for this," said Byrne, before officially accepting the honor bestowed by the Essex County Freeholders and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, and before he pulled the American flag off a stone fixture in a plaza named after him.

"When my kids used to visit me here, I used to put them in jail, and that taught them to stay on the straight and narrow," he cracked.

Gov. Jon Corzine, left, and former Gov. Brendan T. Byrne today in Newark.: Politicker photo

NEWARK - The presence of a beloved former anything in the world of politics invariably intensifies public scrutiny where it concerns that person’s successor, especially when that successor is currently in office.

So an Essex County favorite son, the 84-year old former Gov. Brendan Byrne standing beside Gov. Jon Corzine before a packed audience of county diehards today, created myriad opportunities for parallels.

On this day, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo’s unveiled the Gov. Brendan T. Byrne Plaza, honoring the former county prosecutor and governor with his own local monument.

"Because of everything he stood for," DiVincenzo said of Byrne, who served as governor from 1974-1982. "Because he stood for doing the right thing. Whether it was with (raising) the income tax or the Meadowlands, he always did the right thing."

Then DiVincenzo introduced Corzine, who would introduce Byrne.

JERSEY CITY - U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-West New York) been in Congress for almost two years, and he says his second year was a big improvement on the first, in part because he feels focused in his new job as a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

"It takes a while to be effective because it’s very much based on seniority," Sires said of the Congress. "The first year was very difficult. I was new. The entire Democratic Congress was new.

"But I have a mission now," said the freshman congressman. "I still enjoy being on the foreign affairs committee very much, but I also have transportation now and that’s critical. My job is to go after the money for transportation and infrastructure projects."

Sires has confidence he can get federal money for the ARC (Access to the Region’s Core) Tunnel, but he needs the state to get in gear.

Citing the statute of limitations, U.S. District Judge William J. Martini today moved to dismiss a complaint filed by Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., against the West Orange Police Department and the Township of West Orange.

"The Court finds that the applicable one- and two-year statutes of limitation indeed do bar plaintiff’s federal claims since they arise from Defendants’ conduct in mid-2004 while plaintiff waited until late 2007 to file this complaint," Martini wrote in his decision.

Hawkins, who was elected mayor of Orange on May 13, is on a leave of absence from his job as a patrolman with the West Orange Police Department.

The suit he filed against the West Orange Police Department and the township asserted that West Orange gave hiring and salary preferences to other officers based on their Irish heritage.

Union City Mayor/Senator Brian P. Stack (D-Hudson): Politicker photo

UNION CITY - They call him "24-7," and on a brutally hot summer Friday when several other Hudson County public buildings look like the fixtures of a ghost town, Union City’s Brian P. Stack bounds down the steps of City Hall and keeps on the move.

"Yo, BPS," a kid wearing a headband cries in greeting, and he gives the mayor a fist pump as he cruises up 49th Street leading a contingent of the under 15 crowd.

"Go, Brian!" the kid shouts over his shoulder.

As he does every Friday, Stack presided over wedding ceremonies in the morning. Now he oversees mobile constituent services ten blocks away from City Hall in the concrete center of this Hudson County city of 70,000 densely packed people - mostly Latinos - where City Hall sports dual busts of George Washington and Cuban hero Jose Marti.

Police barricades stand at either end of the street, at Hudson and Palisade. A hot dog vendor gives out free dogs and sodas, courtesy of Stack - and under a tent in the middle of the block, the mayor in a tie with his suit jacket slung over the back of his chair, calls out the next name on a long list of names.