The Jersey Journal Politicial Insider

Congressman Fulop? Healy might like that

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

J ersey City Councilman Steve Fulop is a problem for Mayor Jerramiah Healy's re-election hopes.

Healy is having trouble quantifying the Fulop threat? Is the councilman a big enough citywide household name to take seriously? Are the councilman's activities getting enough attention that he can be considered an "early" mayoral hopeful?

That Fulop announced he has a working partnership with James Carroll, a potential council candidate in the Heights, forces Healy and company to take Fulop a bit more seriously. How serious?

Enough to toy - and some say it has already been done - with the idea of offering the councilman another position. A seat on the Hudson County Board of Freeholders seems as table scraps compared to being mayor. OK, how about congressman? How about taking the seat of U.S. Rep. Albio Sires of West New York?

The Hudson County Democratic Organization - as in Healy, Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise and North Bergen Mayor and Sen. Nick Sacco - is trawling the big congressional hook. They are hoping to reel in Fulop out of the City Hall pool and at the same time, as far as Sacco is concerned, making good on a promise to make Sires a one-term congressman.

Some Fulop followers say he would not mind being called congressman. And this is why there is a great deal of thought going into whether the councilman could win a fight in Sires's 13th Congressional District.

Fulop would have to take on a sitting Hispanic congressman in a gerrymandered district carved out of Spanish-speaking sections of Hudson, Essex, Union and Middlesex counties. It had been tailored for Union City's, and now Hoboken's, Robert Menendez.

Logic tells one that a Hispanic candidate is the HCDO's best chance. This why most believe that Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega would be the best bet to challenge Sires. Vega is another potential mayoral candidate who could be side-tracked by a congressional seat.

Has anyone noticed how congressional Vega has been sounding at recent City Council meetings?

As a council member, Vega did a Harry Reid impression by ranting against the war in Iraq. He sounded like Al Gore's buddy when attacking the air-polluting PSE&G. For want of another national issue, Vega did take it down a peg by voicing his displeasure over potential presidential candidate Gov. Jon Corzine's flirtation with leasing state toll roads. Was it all an audition?

His lack of fluent Spanish-speaking skills aside, Fulop can win in the 13th District, say supporters. They are aware that the very big hurdle in Hudson County is Stack, who has agreed to watch Sires' back. Key to victory is getting enough votes out of Hudson County that are not from Union City, Weehawken and West New York to come out fairly even. The key may be in those other counties in the district, Essex, Union and Middlesex, they say.

To get Essex, they will need Newark Mayor Cory Booker, co-coordinator with Healy for Barack Obama's New Jersey presidential campaign. In Union, Sen. Ray Lesniak is already committed to Sandra Bolden Cunningham as a state senator, but will he dabble with the 13th District?

In Middlesex County, Perth Amboy Mayor and Assemblyman Joe Vas can get Fulop on the Democratic primary line in June - if Vas doesn't want the seat for himself, or if he can forget the "no mas for Vas" quip by the mayor of a certain major Hudson city.

There are a great many "ifs" and it sounds very labor intensive.

This does not even consider Stack expanding his influence into the Hispanic areas of Jersey City by broadening his constituent services.

Also, can Fulop trust the HCDO should he agree to go after a sitting congressman.

Another problem is that a June primary ballot could look different with a presidential primary being held earlier in February. Fulop could wind up on a column below U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who is up for re-election next year, while another column could have Sires on top and freeholder candidates on the bottom. There could even be a third column with, just for argument's sake, U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews of South Jersey on top as a Senate candidate.

No one is sure how this could evolve, until filing deadlines. All a politician has to do is listen to all propositions, work toward all of them and see what paths open to him or her. They could get a plum, as long as one remembers Branch Rickey's wise observation, luck is the residue of design.

Yet somehow, there is a feeling that Hudson County subscribes more to the Chaos Theory.