3 years later, enmity has turned into ticket that spells black unity

Earl Morgan - Jersey Journal - March 13

Politics, like death, never takes a holiday, especially in Hudson County.

Which accounts for the dozen or so times former Jersey City City Council President and acting Mayor L. Harvey Smith was spotted Friday, cell phone in hand and deep in conversation, going to and from his seat at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation concert at New Jersey City University's Margaret Williams Auditorium.

The upshot of all that telephonic activity was yesterday's announcement that Smith has apparently kissed and made up with former adversary Sandra Bolden Cunningham, and will be a candidate for a 31st District state Assembly seat on a slate that includes Bolden Cunningham vying for the state Senate and Bayonne Councilman Anthony Chiappone, who is looking to recapture the Assembly seat he held from 2004-2005.

So, while the Duprees and the Manhattans belted out song after song during the concert, Smith was fielding calls about his political future from both current and wannabe political power brokers.

A press conference scheduled today at Bayonne's Chandelier Restaurant could yield some answers as to just how the conjoining of Bolden Cunningham and Smith was brokered.

When Jersey City Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham died in 2004, relations between his widow and Smith, who as City Council president became the acting mayor, were so acrimonious that Smith reportedly was barred from attending the funeral.

When Smith ran for mayor, against a crowded field that included eventual winner Jerramiah Healy, he certainly got no support from his predecessor's widow. Far from it; Bolden Cunningham allies Bobby Jackson and Joe Cardwell used the pages of their newspaper, the Urban Times News, to repeatedly savage Smith in support of their candidate, Willie Flood.

Smith supporters often point to Flood's candidacy as a key factor in Smith's loss in the mayoral race, since she supposedly siphoned off a substantial number of black votes from him in that election.

And here we are just three years later, with a press release announcing the Cunningham/Smith ticket - and the phone number on it ringing at the "executive office of the Urban Times News."

Smith and Bolden Cunningham could spin their candidacies as a "unity ticket," poised to bring the black community in Jersey City together by providing cohesive political leadership - something that certainly would be welcomed in the fractious political atmosphere of the city's black community.

On the other hand, we still have to hear from the Hudson County Democratic Organization - which in fact may be responsible for the Bolden Cunningham/Smith alliance because of Healy's supposed opposition to Smith.

So, in its own way, maybe it's the HCDO that brought political unity to Jersey City's black community.