(Loretta Weinberg represents the future of NJ's Democratic party, and Ferriero is making a big mistake in trying to push her out. - promoted by jmelli)
On this, Blue Jersey's one-year anniversary, it seems like the right time to look ahead to a watershed moment for our progressive community in 2007. It's in Bergen County, where state Senator Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck, Hackensack, Englewood), one of the greatest progressive champions of our time, a woman who has sponsored and fought fiercely for every major progressive bill in the legislature since her election to the Assembly in 1992, may well be primaried by the Bergen County Democratic machine. |
| In 2005, as you'll remember, the Bergen County Democratic machine put up its own candidate, Ken Zisa, to run against Loretta in a special convention to replace state Sen. Byron Baer on the ballot when he retired because of health reasons.
Had that been a general election in which the public voted, rather than the Bergen Democratic machine and other political insiders, Loretta would have won in a landslide. She known and beloved, so deeply deservedly, by everyone in her district and throughout the county. No one in Bergen has higher or more positive name recognition.
But the longtime Bergen County Democratic boss, Joe Ferriero, who embodies so much that's so wrong with New Jersey's pay-to-play, anti-democratic backroom politics, finds Loretta to be too progressive and most of all, too independent, to take his orders. That's true - not only is Loretta one of the most progressive leaders our state has ever seen, she's also as clean a public servant as has ever served in the state of New Jersey. She is a good-government advocate's dream.
Through a scheme that would rival the 2000 Bush v. Gore election, boss Ferriero last year refused to recognize ballots for Loretta so that his guy, Zisa, could win the seat. But through an emergency lawsuit and with Jon Corzine's support, the court ordered the ballots for Loretta to be counted. She won, and of course is a state Senator today.
Well, boss Ferriero is back, and as many people know from the buzz here in Bergen, he's probably going to run his man Zisa in the primary against Loretta in 2007.
This is about as good an opportunity for us progressives to organize at the grassroots and achieve a victory not only for Loretta, who is there for us every single day, but for clean government and a Democratic party in New Jersey that should be more progressive and more open-door than it is today. We should swarm Loretta's district with progressive activists from all over the state to send a signal that will resound throughout the party everywhere in New Jersey for years to come.
I personally live in Loretta's district and in the same town, Teaneck, as she does. A couple of blocks, in fact, from her legislative office. We're going to turn my basement into Progressive Central for Loretta when the election heats up, and I hope many of you will join us. |
