http://cw11.trb.com/news/local/eveningnews/?track=nav

Click on the video "NJ Primary Nasty Race".

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Except she wouldn't be. Joseph Charles, a long time assemblymember, was elected as State Senator from the very same district in 2002. L. Harvey Smith was appointed interim state Senator when Charles vacated the seat, and Sandra Cunningham's own husband Glenn Cunningham was elected in 2004.

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Hmm... seems to me that they took their classes, but other people (esp in the media) need to take more classes in politics. Suppose this is the starting point for becoming the next Bush, or better, next Wolfowitz, it will still not pay through salaries.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC made a funny observation about these primary races. Both sides are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV ads to win seats that pay $49,000 a year -- "they MUST need to take classes on economics"

Agree!

This article is all that is necessary to know who to vote for.
VOTE MANZO ON TUES...........

I interviewed the 4 candidates & Jenny Garcia would be another slug on the board.... That's the problem, the pols and teachers union love people who can't read a financial statement / budget & then they buy them off with favors or jobs.... See my TV show which streams off our website. The budget has gone to almost $633 million with a school employee for every 5 kids! Janitors & painters making over $200k with OT! McCann knows the issues & can read a financial and is not afraid to ask questions, unlike the others.... Slugs will bankrupt us. The state is not going to keep shelling out the big bucks forever.... The JC taxpayers only pay about 18% of the school budget!

I'd take Jerry McCann over Jenny Garcia any day... We need rable rousers to question all this out of control spending before we all go broke.... and the kids still can't read!

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McCann cheated (big surprise) to get elected to the Board of Education. He stuffed the ballot with absentee votes from alzheimer patients at a nursing home. A court case over that election is in process. From the coverage I read of it, the judge was all but openly mocking McCann's lawyer during the initial hearing and leaving little doubt which way the case was going to go.

NOT IF YOU VOTE! We have too many disinterested people living here. They complain but don't help us turn this place around by voting these people out but in her case, keeping her out!
The 31st district includes Bayonne; in Jersey City - Paulus
Hook & Van Vorst Park areas in Downtown, Bergen Lafayette and sections of Greenville & Journal Square Please VOTE on TUESDAY! The polls are open from 6AM to 8PM...

What is funny and can only happen in JC, is that she has good odds of getting the senate job - just like McCann got the vote for the BoE position.
Like I said before, the people of JC are stupid and its the individuals that have to put up with this sort of stupidity that suffer, on such important issues.

This Hudson politician is an insult to the voters
Friday, June 01, 2007
To find the worst that New Jersey politics has to offer, go to the regions where one party dominates. The machines there are so cocky about their winning streaks that they've lost all perspective.

The latest example is Sandra Cunningham, who is running for Senate as the choice of the infamous Hudson County Democrats.

It's been a rough few months for her. First came the revelation that a convicted child rapist was working for her campaign, even collecting signatures for her.

Then the Jersey Journal reported that a foundation she runs has been spending almost all its money on parties and overhead, including a salary for her.

Add her conviction for drunken driving in 2005, and the fine she paid for riding the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail without a ticket in 2006, and you have a candidate with lots of explaining to do.

But Cunningham is blessed with that special quality you often find among New Jersey politicians -- she has no idea how bad all this looks to the rest of the world. She is living in the bubble, blissfully clueless.

So she spoke freely yesterday during an hourlong interview at a Jersey City diner, feeling no pain as she banged a hammer on her head, over and over.

Take Russell Wallace, the campaign volunteer who was convicted by a jury of raping a 13-year-old girl when he was 37. Cunningham insists that he is not guilty.

"He always said he was innocent, and I personally believe he's innocent," she says.

Asked about her charitable foundation, she says its purpose is to provide "training and education" to the disadvantaged. But she defends making its single largest payment on a party she threw to commemorate the death of her husband, Glenn Cunningham, who was both mayor of Jersey City and a state senator.

"The city was in mourning," she says. "I would do it again to help heal the city."

One more. Asked about the drunken driving conviction, she said she was at a brunch with friends and had a bit too much wine that day.

The ticket, it turns out, shows that police pulled her over at 10:55 p.m. with a blood alcohol content more than twice the legal limit. Must have been quite a long brunch with an irresistible wine.

You have to wonder: Is this really the best and the brightest of Hudson County?

"We endorsed her because we thought she was an outstanding individual with a lot of character," says Sen. Bernard Kenny, chairman of the county party. "And I think she's on the right side of the issues."

Really? We've had a glimpse of her character, so let's take a look at the issues.

Cunningham says her main concerns are crime, jobs and housing. Sounds reasonable. So how would she address those problems?

"I have not really come up with solutions," she says. "We need to come up with an urban plan, to try to come up with programs that address these issues."

She mentions the need to break the barriers former prison inmates face when they try to get jobs, a serious problem we'll be hearing more about. But beyond that, she really has nothing to say.

The truth is the Democratic Party chose Cunningham because her husband was popular, and because she's an African-American candidate in a district where roughly half the voters are, too. Her opponent in Tuesday's primary, Assemblyman Lou Manzo, is white.

"She would be the first African-American senator from Hudson County, and I think that matters," Kenny says.

Yes, it does. But isn't there more to it?

One final note: Party organizations do best when turnout is low, because they can win with a small core of activists. The last time New Jersey had a primary like this, with just legislative candidates on the ballot, only 9 percent of eligible voters bothered to vote.

So for the machines, Tuesday is likely to be a good day.


Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or (973) 392-1823.

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