Bob Menendez to endorse Brian Stack?; Brendan Byrne wanted Chris Daggett for governor; Ray Lesniak and Tom Kean Jr. go into business

By The Auditor/The Star-Ledger
January 31, 2010, 5:37AM

The Auditor has learned U.S. Sen Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) is quietly reasserting himself in Hudson County politics, the tough-as-it-gets environment that spawned his career and then almost cost him the Senate seat he sought in 2006.
Concerned that the once-powerful Hudson County Democratic Organization is floundering and leaving a gaping hole in his own core support a few years before his re-election bid, Menendez is letting it be known he will not endorse Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy for another term as county Democratic chairman.

The vote is in June, but right now it looks like the senator (who once chaired the organization himself) is going to throw his weight behind Union City Mayor and state Sen. Brian Stack.

All this comes as Menendez is leading his party?s effort to maintain its majority in the Senate. His camp denied the senator is involved in the Hudson County maneuvering.
Healy said he?s too busy governing to worry about the chairmanship contest.

?What I am focused on ... is dealing with the severe financial challenges we are facing,? he said. And he insisted the chairmanship decision is for ?the Hudson County mayors and the county committee people to make,? not a U.S. senator.
But Healy intimates say long before Menendez started making his plays, Healy had decided he would give up the chairman?s mantle this year anyway. So, they argue, Menendez had nothing to do with it. Stack said he had no comment.

For Daggett, an endorsement that never came
As usual, The Auditor can count on a straight answer (or at least one that?s not approved by a team of operatives and PR people) from former Gov. Brendan Byrne.

In this case, the dean of New Jersey?s school of former governors confirmed for the first time that, despite loyalty to his Democratic Party, Democrat Jon Corzine was not his first choice in the November race for governor. It had long been speculated and is now corroborated that Byrne wanted to throw his support publicly to independent Chris Daggett, the former Republican who put a scare into Chris Christie?s camp.

?I would have done it,? Byrne said during Thursday?s Chamber of Commerce train ride to Washington. Byrne said he didn?t because he did not want to go out on that limb alone and was unsuccessful in trying to convince the other elder statesman of the ex-governors corps: Republican Tom Kean, who had hired Daggett as his environmental commissioner.

?Tom didn?t because of his son,? Byrne said, explaining that such an endorsement could have hurt the future of state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., a rising GOP star.
The elder Kean, an honorary co-chairman of Christie?s campaign and now a key adviser to the new Republican governor, scoffed at the notion he would have backed Daggett.

?Come on!? Kean said, laughing. ?I endorsed Christie before Daggett was even in the race. I?ve known Christie since he was 14 years old. I?ve always like Daggett, but that doesn?t mean I was going to endorse him.?

Ray and Tom, perfect together?

It seems Sens. Raymond Lesniak and Kean Jr., despite their partisan differences, share more than just a home county. The two heavyweight lawmakers from Union County have joined in a private business venture led by longtime political operative Adam Zellner. As the Chamber of Commerce train sped to Washington Thursday, Zellner and Kean told The Auditor the company is New Brunswick-based Greener By Design, an alternative-energy startup.

Zellner, Republican Kean and Democrat Lesniak all said there was nothing odd about their hooking up, partisan differences aside.

A onetime deputy environmental protection commissioner and policy director to then-governor Corzine, Zellner approached each of the senators separately to interest them in the business opportunity. For about $100,000 each, Lesniak and Kean each took 10 percent passive stakes in the firm. Zellner is president.

In his typical understatement, Lesniak told The Auditor: ?It?s the emerging economic market internationally and Zellner?s the most knowledgeable person on the planet? in it.