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Fat camp.

He'll need to come out of the closet, or else someone will out him. The point of having McGreevey as a close advisor looms large. NJ voters will want to know his total identity before voting him in as Governor. It's only an issue because he refuses to address it.

I think so many of us were enamored by the idea of Fulop: an energetic, young man, full of ideas and willing to take on the status quo. Instead, we got something else. I have NO DOUBTS that he means well, and that he really wants to make JC into a great city, but the blunders and miscues have been many. I am sometimes by the way things are done, or handled.

I suppose the writing was on the wall when they, immediately after getting elected, put up STOP signs all over downtown, some with nary a reason. A few days later, we heard from Councilwoman Osborne that she had misunderstood a letter/request from a constituent and the wrong sign was placed in the wrong corner. The idea was valid and good, but the execution was terrible. The same can be said about the recent speed humps. I don't think anyone would argue about the need for them. Drivers on the DTJC streets are downright crazy and aggressive. The issue is with the way they implemented those. Too high, no accompanying signage or coloring/markings. To this date, that's still not done. The same happened with the bike lanes! They put up stripes everywhere to delineate bike lanes, but left out the appropriate markings on them. The result? Confusion and people using them inappropriately. Their response? The crews will come back around to do the stenciling. It's like they are going out of their way to poorly execute very good ideas and initiatives. It all smacks of amateur hour, or kids running the house.

In my opinion, they should have put up stripes on the streets and done the stenciling at the same time. Maybe it would take longer, but it would have been done right from the start. The same goes for the humps: put them on the streets, and have them painted immediately, along with appropriate signage.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

He should go back to being a scrappy, complaining councilman. He doesn't have the leadership skills or experience to be a mayor, let alone a governor.

The only reason he got to be our mayor was because Healy sucked so bad. Of course Christie sucks, too, but we need a much stronger leader to take on the whole state.

where is christie going? are there term limits in nj? he doesn't have the "right stuff" to make it to the white house.

Political Insider: 'Gov. Fulop' branding is waiting in the wings

By Agustin C. Torres | The Jersey Journal
September 27, 2014 at 7:30 AM

There was an interesting poll this week by Fairleigh Dickinson University?s PublicMind that asked registered Democratic and Republican voters who they see as a possible replacement for Gov. Chris Christie in 2017 ? or sooner. The results show that Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, a Democrat, has a lot of work to do.

While the focus of my columns has been mostly Hudson County politics, it is not difficult to see that on the statewide landscape, the public hasn?t got a clue about how governors are elected. They don?t come from the Legislature. My interest is in chronicling the voyage of Fulop, the Hudson County guy who has no choice but to seek the Drumthwacket address while the hot opportunity exists. If you believe the poll, Fulop hasn?t got a prayer ? but it?s deals with the devil that makes a good pol.

The FDU pollers do admit that the results are of the moment and, if anything, the race is wide open. Sen. Richard Codey has 27 percent name recognition; Senate President Steve Sweeney comes in at 9 percent; ?someone else? came in at 6 percent; Fulop is at 3 percent, and ?didn?t know? or ?refused? beat them all at a combined 55 percent.

The Republican list shows the GOP is in big trouble. ?Didn?t know? (as in sign-in candidate) leads with 74 percent, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno received 12 percent and Assemblyman Jon Bramnick came in at 4 percent.

The numbers are surprising because Fulop has been trying hard in his first year as mayor to get noticed. While state politicians certainly know him, the FDU poll seems to suggest that Joe and Jane Blow haven?t a clue. They will, though. Getting elected has more to do with image than anything else. Sure you have to accomplish some stuff, but branding (sometimes called smoke and mirrors) is the key.

Proof of this is Newark ex-Mayor Cory Booker, who won a special and regular election for the U.S. Senate thanks to several years of self-promotion ? bolstered by notoriety and a great deal of fundraising. This is why Fulop has been close to Booker since winning the Jersey City mayoralty. The former Downtown councilman has been getting a sense of how Booker did it ? enough so that Fulop should actually be better at image building with his branding team, sometimes called the city administration. It seems the mayor has decided that if he can build up Jersey City?s reputation, he will be helping himself. Not a bad thing.

This time around, Booker is lucky he is not facing a financially sound heavyweight Republican. The ex-mayor has been out of sight in New Jersey and has not been receiving the usual weekly headlines.

Booker never had the backing of a major county political organization the way senior U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez has. With anything President Obama-affiliated souring in the minds of undecided voters and many predicting a GOP mid-term plurality, there are many candidates ? mayors and such ? in the middle of the November ticket who shook off the Stockholm Syndrome and are now not thrilled to have Booker at the top of the slate.

Making it worse, 70-year-old GOP Senate candidate Jeff Bell is within an acceptable double-digit polling distance of Booker. Booker has more than $16 million in funding, according to his last spending report, while Bell has campaign money that can be counted on an abacus. No wonder Booker doesn?t want to debate.

For Fulop, it means more out-of-state speaking engagements and in-state traveling. Sometimes it?s not enough to pad your liberal credentials or take stands that please the urban Democrats. This election will also require votes from the ?burbs ? or at least the middle class ? as well. There will have to be some leaning to the center. As one of my political whisperers (who is not from the Hudson County menagerie) says, the mayor has to do something that creates a groundswell of (middle class) support, a cause to champion that he can beat like a drum ? say a constitutional amendment to reduce property taxes (again) or finally provide free college tuition. The only problem is that other candidates will also be looking for an issue they can hang a campaign on.

As for Codey, the reality is that he has no chance to become governor again (Does being acting governor really count?). When the boss of South Jersey, Sen. George Norcross hates you, you?re dead. Sweeney? He once stood too close to Gov. Christie. Fulop is the new hot personality, and he has the best chance to pull off a victory ? but there are bound to be some speed humps in the way.

PALABRAS DO HURT

It all started when he learned that his ex-wife had died in Miami. The events and emotions that followed saw Jose Falto of Union City arrested Wednesday on a charge of terroristic threats, mainly saying he?ll ?kill someone? if any local politician (and he probably means Union City Mayor and state Sen. Brian Stack) shows up at his ex-wife?s wake. Seems like a typical Hudson County thing to say.

Foolishly Falto said he owns a gun and the cops reported they smelled alcohol when they paid him a visit. Jose said his neighbor gave him a glass of red wine (pinot noir train) to calm him down.

As I have written many times in the past, Falto and Stack are oil and water. They have been political rivals for decades. Falto enthusiastically helped in an unsuccessful attempt to recall the mayor in 2003. He failed to challenge Stack in the May municipal election when he did not collect enough monickers for his candidacy petition. In the June Democratic primary, he was trampled by Stack-backed incumbent Freeholder Tilo Rivas. The fly keeps hitting the truck windshield.

Yesterday, I arrived at the JJ offices and immediately started reading the Falto story on NJ.com, and as if on cue, the phone rang. Jose said he was calling the ?Dirty Jersey,? me. He complained that no one got his side, and I suggested that the reporter probably couldn?t get through to (think ?The Snake Pit,? 1948). ?Nah, I was released quickly and then the cops handcuffed and arrested me,? he said, adding that he learned he had high blood pressure and that the cops were going to give him a heart attack.

Falto, a Hudson County Schools of Technology board member, said he was kept a short time at the Union City hoosegow and released because Judge Nino Falcone set a quick $2,500 bail.

I told him the story was very entertaining and I asked him, who (in his or her right mind) would let you have a gun?

?I?m going to be a millionaire Boricua after all this,? Falto said, threatening to sue, as he always does. As I continued to read snippets of the article out loud, he asked me to email it to him.

?I can?t do that if I?m going to be the subject of a lawsuit,? I responded. Jose (colorfully) objected.

He left his phone number for the JJ reporter who wrote the story, Terrence McDonald, to call him back. Later, I read the result of their conversation on NJ.com. Falto agrees with the police version of events, but says the facts were ?misconstrued.? He explained that he really didn?t mean he was going to kill someone and that it was an emotional response. Let?s leave at that for now, because then Jose couldn?t help himself and kept (talking) about Stack.

North Hudson was always my favorite beat when I was reporter. They always had the greatest characters ? book material.

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/09/post_70.html