Robert Menendez

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park): Politicker file photoBoth New Jersey senators - Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken), and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) - voted in favor of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package, which the Senate passed tonight by a 74 to 25 margin.

In his statement issued shortly after he contributed to the bill’s passage, Lautenberg fingered President George W. Bush and deregulation as prime culprits in the financial crisis.

"It is outrageous that years of neglect by the Bush Administration, Washington Republicans and special interests have put our economy in peril while CEOs pocket millions at the expense of working families. Now we have to clean up their mess and, as economic news worsens each and every day, it is clear we need to act quickly and responsibly.

"We fought hard to make sure this economic recovery package was far stronger than the three-page blank check the Administration proposed, and as a result, today’s bill puts real limits on CEO compensation andSen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) golden parachutes while establishing stronger oversight and more protections for homeowners and taxpayers. Importantly, this bill also helps New Jersey families with college tuition and property tax deductions, alternative energy tax credits and prevents more than a million taxpayers in our state from being hit by the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)."

Asked for a statement today about how he would vote on tonight’s bailout package, former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer demurred, and said he would convene a press conference on the matter on Thursday.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) 

On the floor of the United States Senate this afternoon, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) addressed the ongoing financial crisis, tried to ascertain its real world impact, and argued for why Congress needs to act decisively.

"What’s not making the headlines is what this economic crisis means for people in our hometowns," said Menendez, who acknowledged a Star-Ledger editorial, which criticized elected officials for not making a cogent argument for why the package is necessary. The $700 billion Wall Street bailout failed yesterday.

Simultaneously, the Dow lost $1 trillion, $200 billion in value.

"The problem is we see no stability, so losses are real," said Menendez, a member of the Senate Banking Committee. "...Each member of the Senate, each member of the House needs to find the courage to act on something that isn't very popular."

U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) with mother and daughter constituents visiting Denver: Aisha, left, and Valerie.: Politicker photo 

DENVER - The Democratic Party had been splintered all week, and the test of the convention would be whether on the last day Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) resolved the contradictions and moved everyone forward.

The factions were not imagined, or at least one piece of the delegation claiming the loyalties of 18 million voters was hesitant about the presumptive nominee. For New Jerseyans, that faction had particular force. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) had beaten Obama by almost ten points in New Jersey and her fundraisers had hauled in millions form New Jersey supporters.

Some Monday night drama hinged on Michelle Obama’s shot to prove she loves her children and understands the Middle American concept of family.

"I cried until I couldn’t applaud anymore," Newark Councilwoman Mildred Crump said of Obama’s speech.

However, warm and fuzzy testimonials were already starting to rile the Rev. Reginald Jackson of Orange. Yes, he’d been a solid Clinton backer during the primary, "but we need to deal with the Bushes and we’ve got to define McCain."

U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark): Politicker photo

DENVER - It was coming to an end in an Irish bar, only it wouldn’t actually end there. It would in another bar, a few blocks removed.

Two bars separated by one speech.

"It should be a walkover, of course," said U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark). "These guys - Obama and McCain - are neck and neck. I think it’s perhaps the trepidation about race that makes it that way, but we'll see."

In a few hours, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would take the stage and accept his party’s nomination.

Payne, and his elder brother former Assemblyman Bill Payne, mingled among a respectably large crowd of guests in this, the last big, pre-Obama speech bash in downtown Denver at the Celtic Tavern, thrown by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) and U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson).

The Celtic Tavern is located near the light rail line, and soon the delegates and superdelegates and other guests would pile aboard and head out to Invesco Field to see and hear Obama.

In the meantime, the hosts brought Speaker Joe Cryan up onto the stage with the folk band to take a bow. Just as they were stepping over the microphone cords and getting ready to launch into the Irish songs, the bar door swung open and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy walked in, prompting Pascrell to make a special introduction.

It almost looked staged, as if a staffer had sent Healy a text message. Healy's a good Irish tenor with a rich, well-modulated voice.

But the mayor’s stride-in would astoundingly prove a premature entrance to the main event, for on this afternoon, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Union City) went to the front of the room.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Union City): Politicker photo

DENVER - Sen. Robert Menedez (D-Union City) sang a more than passable verison of Toora loora looral the Pallone-Pascrell pre-Obama speech party at the Celtic Tavern hre Thursday night.

The Irish-Americans in the room listened with apparent satisfaction.

Corzine deputy chief of staff Maggie Moran, governor's spokesman Sean Darcy, Pallone chief Jeff Carroll and others all gave Menendez's perfomance a ramrod thumbs-up.

There wasn't a dry mug in the place.

U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn): Politicker file photo

DENVER - It's not in his hands now, but U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn) would love to see Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Union city) receive a speaking role at the Democratic National Convention.

"It would be great for Obama, great for New Jersey and great for the party," said Rothman, Obama's Northeast Regional campaign co-chair, who is in attendance at a party in the Inverness Hotel in honor of Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden).

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ): Politicker file photo 

DENVER - When Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) attended his first convention, he was running for Congress and serving as a Bill Clinton delegate in 1992.

"It was interesting," Menendez recalled in a phone interview with PolitickerNJ.com. "We invited this little known Southern governor to Hudson County, to our Hudson County dinner. He lost his voice that night, but he was very earnest in his effort, and he went on to become our president."

Fifteen years later, Menendez supported Bill Clinton’s wife for president in what was ultimately her unsuccessful bid for the White House.

Now Menendez, vice chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), backs Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL.), and wants an all-out Democratic Party takeover of not only the executive but the legislative branch.

BRANCHBURG- Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6) helped the Somerset County Democratic Party raise about $50,000 at a private fundraiser here on Saturday.

"Bob Menendez came up from Washington because he believes in the potential to turn this county blue," said Zenon Christodoulou, vice chair of the party.

Christodoulou and his fellow Democrats are fighting a long tradition of Republican rule in Somerset.

Obama State Director Tricia Mueller: Politicker photo

HAMILTON - Politics and union organizing weld into one for Tricia Mueller, the new state director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Granddaughter of a Local 19 sheet metal worker or "tin knocker" as they're called in building and trades, Mueller first started working campaigns for her father, a telephone installer who served as the youngest mayor of Oaklyn, New Jersey.

"I could read a ward map from the time I was very small," said the 34-year old Camden native and chief political operative for the 17,000-strong New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters, as she sat in a Hamilton coffee shop on Thursday, three days into her tenure as Obama's state director.

"I come from the field," she told PolitickerNJ.com. "I believe voter contact, voter mobilization, and voter education represent civic duty at its finest."

Senate Minority Leader Ton Kean, Jr. (R-Union), and Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon).: Politicker photo

State Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., (R-Union) became minority leader just as a new band of hungry Republican legislators came up from the General Assembly to assume their Senate seats.

Another under 40 senator with statewide aspirations might send out at least back channel messages of panic in the face of a baseball roster's worth of new GOP talent.

And indeed there have been some nose-to-nose moments in the last few months since Kean made caucus boss, notably between the patrician leader and the headstrong state Sen. Kevin O'Toole (R-Essex).

But according to his colleagues, the stoic Kean has generally met the onrush by embracing it; and has assumed a statesmanlike stance while tapping the scrappy skills honed by his freshmen senators in the lower house.