Healy seems to know how to get the labor force / semi skilled workers to vote for him - I hope the other individuals running, haven't relied on white collar workers to get them elected. You might find that the white collar group are in the minority!

Healy seeking another term as Jersey City mayor

VICTOR EPSTEIN
Philadelphia Inquirer
May 9, 2009
The Associated Press

NEWARK, N.J. - The nonpartisan race for leadership of New Jersey's second-largest city features a favored incumbent against a field of four challengers, including one who has tried to force the current mayor from office.

However, political analysts expect incumbent Jerramiah Healy will ride his $3.1 million campaign war chest to victory in Tuesday's nonpartisan election.

"Healy hasn't shot himself in the foot badly enough to lose," said Francis Moran, a political science professor at New Jersey City University.

Another analyst, Montclair State University political science professor Brigid Harrison, said the crowded field works against leading challenger Louis Manzo because it divides the anti-Healy vote between him and three other candidates.

Healy, 58, has been mayor since winning a special election to complete the remaining term of Glenn Cunningham, who died in 2004. Healy was elected to his first four-year term in May 2005.

"The name recognition factor is a big advantage for Healy," Harrison said.

His challengers include Manzo, a former state assemblyman who is running for mayor a sixth time and reported $270,000 in contributions as of April 22, and current Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, who has raised $85,000 according to the state Election Law Enforcement Commission Web site.

Also running are Daniel B. Levin, a local businessman who has raised $8,700, and Phillip G. Webb, a police detective with no contributions listed on the state site.

Former Mayor Bret Schundler, who had raised more than $140,000, withdrew from the race in January.

Manzo lost a legal bid to oust Healy from office in November, when a state judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking the mayor's removal for convictions on obstruction of justice and resisting arrest in 2007. The convictions resulted from a 2006 incident outside a bar owned by Healy's sister on the Jersey Shore.

"He's failed miserably on crime," Manzo said of Healy. "And people resent the way he's embarrassed the city with his extracurricular activities."

Healy, though, said he's proud of the work he's done to create jobs and development, particularly during the recession.

"I think I've worked my butt off," Healy said. "I've made a positive difference in Jersey City."

Tuesday's winner will need to garner more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff with the second-place finisher. At stake is leadership of a city of 242,000 which may edge out nearby Newark as the Garden State's largest city after the 2010 Census. The job pays $117,728.

Jersey City, which is across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, has attracted hundreds of financial services jobs in recent years. That's helped build a $23.2 billion municipal tax base that is the state's largest, according to the Moody's Investors Service bond rating agency.

However, recent job losses in the financial sector helped push Jersey City's jobless rate to a 10-year high of 9.6 percent in March.

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap ... ermasjerseycitymayor.html