Loretta, Valerie and Gordon Share a Selective Account of History.

Welcome aboard, BCDO! (0.00 / 0)

We hope you enjoy the ride.

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by: Juan Melli @ Fri Feb 09, 2007 at 23:16:34 PM UTC

nice to meet you too (4.00 / 2)

This is how you introduce yourselves to the Blue Jersey community?  With accusations and no citations?  That's pretty lame.  How about some actual evidence on any of these claims?

all we ask is a little evidence and a little courtesy.  that's the way we try to play here. 

activist for hire.

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by: Jay Lassiter @ Fri Feb 09, 2007 at 23:37:53 PM UTC

What a difference a week makes (4.00 / 2)

So, Ferriero announces he's supporting Loretta Weinberg for reelection, and now that she spurned the offer, she's disloyal, corrupt and not an asset to the party?

Wow - people's reputations come and go so quickly here.

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by: Jeff Gardner @ Fri Feb 09, 2007 at 23:40:50 PM UTC

Surely you jest! (4.00 / 2)

Everyone knows how the Bergen Machine is really run.  To even suggest that it's more akin to collective farming from the Woodstock generation, you must have been smoking with the Dell Dude before writing this.  The fact remains, Loretta, Gordon and Vallerie deserve reelection.  They have stood for some of the most progressive ideas in the legislature and work hard for the people in their district.  Of course, if you would prefer some party hack who will only do what they are told by He-Who-Demands-Our-Allegiance, then by all means,subscribe to the sanctimonium above.

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by: FlamingModerate @ Fri Feb 09, 2007 at 23:45:33 PM UTC

Go back to Oregon n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: Scott Weingart @ Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 00:16:22 AM UTC

Let's set the record straight. (4.00 / 8)

I want to thank all the members of the Blue Jersey community for their encouragement and support.  Now let's set the record straight.

BergenDems accuses us of calling rank and file county committe members "criminals".  They are well aware that we are referring to only 2 people...who were, in fact, criminals. The participation of these convicted felons was obviously welcomed by the Bergen County Dems.  One was the former Municipal Chair of Ridgefield Park and the other a former county committee man in Maywood.  Both of whom were signed up to vote in the 2005 special election.

The only "wall" I am aware of is the one built around the leadership of the Bergen County Democratic Organization.  This wall has served to protect the interests of the insiders at the expense of the rest of the party. 

In 1998 I "took one for the team" when I ran for County Executive as a favor to my party.  I helped produce a 10,000 vote plurality out of my district to help Doug Bern and Dennis McNerney become the first democratic freeholders in a decade.  In addition, my dollar contributions have gone to countless statewide democratic candidates including Linda Stender, Anne Summers, Mary Brennan, Ellen Karcher, Bernadette McPherson, and many others.  I ran Assemblywoman Joan Voss' first District 38 fundraiser. I escorted Freeholders throughout the county.  We also rang doorbells all over Bergen well before Bergen Democrats were handing out big patronage contracts.  I fought against the privatizing of Bergen Regional hospital as the lone Democratic voice for a long time.  I could go on and on.

If "BergenDems" would like to identify him/herself, I would be happy to match our Democratic "worker bee" records face to face.

More than fifty rank and file Democrats in our district joined together in urging us not to go to the convention. And at the recent bylaws meeting, we received much support from rank and file Democrats all over Bergen County. So "BergenDems", you are not the sole spokesperson for the Democratic activists in our party.

Let me make something very clear. In front of several party officials, Chairman Ferriero tried to convince me to come to the convention with his assurances that I would be running unopposed.  My answer was: "I am not appearing before a rigged convention even if it is rigged on my behalf."  That's called integrity, not fear.

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by: Senator Loretta Weinberg @ Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 01:03:38 AM UTC

Aren't they just TOO funny? (4.00 / 3)

The Rank and File Dems USED to be part of the Democratic Party, until Chairman Feriero placed them on column 4 in the Primary in June.  Simply for excercising their right to vote in a special election.  We are talking women who had been on the CC for DECADES.  Talk about loyal Democrats.  Decades of working for the party and just heartsick over what the BCDO has become under this Pay-to-Play Party Boss.  Folks who were trying to lower your property taxes by getting rid of Pay-to-Play have been gotten rid of by the Party Boss.

Most of the folks on the County Committee now, aren't rank and file dems, they are FOJ  (Friends of Joe) who took advantage of voter apathy during previous Primaries.  If the CC wasn't so full of County Employees with County jobs that can be easily eliminated with one phone call from BCDO HQ to McNerney's office, that Bylaws vote would not have been as close as it was. 

Funny how Joe and friends think that Loretta, Valerie and Gordon are abandoning the "rank and file" Dems by bringing their campaign DIRECTLY to the Democratic voters in the Democratic Primary, instead of to just the FOJ.  Especially when you consider that it was 50 of us Democrats from her 37th district - Elected Democratic Officials - that ASKED her to do this to keep her team together. 

That first post of theirs is hilarious, just like the Chairman's statement that making Legislative races County-wide instead of District-wide will be more "inclusive".  Oh, go on....This is quite entertaining......

The BergenDems don't mention that the candidate in question whom the CC members from Englewood including Valerie and Gordon chose not to support was not a county wide candidate, but a shameless self-promoting Mayor, who ran against Valerie Vaineri Huttle for Weinberg's vacated Assembly seat, and at that election had no problem with Joe's goons trying to disenfranchise nearly all the CC members from Teaneck and Tenafly and the Black Caucus.  That man was Michael Wildes. 

Sometimes you just want to say.  Mike, God loves you, everybody else, (well, fill in the rest....)

If I was in Englewood, I absolutely could not stomach supporting Michael Wildes either.  And if you all knew him, I'd think I'd have a lot of company on this one.

That same guy was at the Bylaws vote on Wednesday night getting FOJ to sign his petition for State Senate.  Gee, I thought that position was filled already.  That's right.  Loretta Weinberg is the state senator already.  Michael could not even get enough votes at that election when his side CHEATED to get an Assembly seat, and now he wants Loretta's job. 

Well, if you knew Michael like we know Michael, then you wouldn't give Valerie and Gordon a hard time for that, you'd give them a medal.

One Vote.  Yours.  It really does matter.

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by: carolh @ Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 01:26:28 AM UTC

One medal coming up (0.00 / 0)

Check out my 3 paragraph primer on Polywell Fusion.

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by: FogerRox @ Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 04:33:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Batting practice. (0.00 / 0)

I'm so giddy. BergenDems: please oh please continue to post. In reference to the Democratic activists you claim Loretta, Gordon and Valerie are abandoning..."let's go back to the video tape!":

Try to identify the activists chanting "We love Joe!" or "YES, YES, YES!"

YouTube

As far as BergenDems reference to "bossism" is concerned, I will give David Sivella (Michael Wildes' campaign manager during the last Englewood Mayoral Election) the honor of speaking for all of us.

From the Bergen Record

"Joe Ferriero controls the money going to Democratic candidates for county offices the way the player with the most real estate in Monopoly has all the cash come to him," said David Sivella, a 1999 Democratic freeholder candidate who left the party last year and registered as an independent.

But in this case, Sivella said, "the valuable real estate is Column 1 [on the ballot], the party line. He owns it, and when you land on it, if you want to be there, you have to pay a hefty price."

Sorry Joe, you won't find Loretta's name in your column.

PoliticsNJ

"I think that the county committee is going to at some point deeply resent being dictated to this way," [David Sivella]predicted.

Despite his party's triumph at the polls in November, the chairman's style has made him more vulnerable than many think, Sivella said. 

"He's developing the reputation of being a bully, and if he is concerned with whether or not that is a valid reputation, he needs to remove himself from even an attempt to influence who the rank-and-file votes for to appear on the ballot," he said.

Mr. Sivella was right. Bergen County is beyond resentment at this point. Joe Ferriero is more vulnerable now than ever. This is the opportunity we have all been waiting for.

Oh, and who is supporting the Weinberg/Johnson/Huttle team?

There was The Rally in Paramus, of course.

Rally backs 3 Democrats at odds with party boss, rule change

And as Carol noted,

it was 50 of us Democrats from her 37th district - Elected Democratic Officials - that ASKED her to do this to keep her team together.

Among those two groups you will find REAL Democratic activists that ACTUALLY work and stand for the values of the party.

Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle summed it up best in this
Star Ledger article.

  "I would bet on the voices of the people over that of Joe Ferriero anytime. "

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by: lsanchez490 @ Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 23:31:16 PM UTC

Bergen's bully boys have met their match.... (0.00 / 0)

so says this Star Ledger article...by Tom Moran: http://www.nj.com/st...

Here's a few tidbits...

In the first big fight of this election year, the Bergen County Democratic machine is gunning for Weinberg and her Assembly running mates -- a rare attempt to replace a district's entire delegation.

"They're planning to run a full slate against all three of us," Weinberg says.

The stakes in this fight go well beyond the towns in District 37, which stretches from the George Washington Bridge along Route 4. This one will tell us something about the power of the machine in New Jersey politics.

Weinberg is up against a triumphant Democratic organization that has turned Republicans into an endangered species in Bergen County. Its autocratic leader is Joseph Ferriero, who built the machine by raising huge sums of money and embracing the most sophisticated polling and turnout techniques.

The catch is that Ferriero relies on the practice of pay-to-play to fuel his machine. Give him a donation, and the chances are excellent that your firm can win a government contract in Bergen. You can look it up.

Here's another...

And because many of Ferriero's loyalists within the party work for the county government as well, they tend to stay in line.

"They all have county jobs and are dependent on him, so he can control them," says Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle, who is on Weinberg's team. "I don't know when people around here turned from Democrats into Ferriero-crats."

More....

"We don't walk away from people we consider to be friends," said Charlie Wowkanech, head of the state AFL-CIO, who acted as emcee.

Even Ferriero seemed to realize the next day that he may have reached too far this time, and that he'd better try to wipe off some of the fingerprints.

"I'm trying to arrange a compromise," he says. "I am not behind trying to replace Loretta."

Hmmm. Weinberg doesn't believe that. And even Ferriero's friends have a hard time swallowing it.

The kicker...

o maybe Ferriero will fight, and maybe he'll fold.

But either way, he is getting a lesson in the limits of machine power. And that's something we should all be happy to witness.

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by: Nick Lento @ Mon Feb 12, 2007 at 00:50:29 AM UTC

PS (0.00 / 0)

There have been hundreds of articles and many editorials written over the years that speak to the nature of the bossism in Bergen County.  There is no shortage of documented references to the unpleasant scent of the BCDO under Ferriero.

It's not a mystery, any and all political reporters (or well informed readers) in the region know EXACTLY what's going on with Joe Ferriero and the BCDO. 

Their Modus Operandi is crystal clear.  The practice of pay to play is no longer some obscure esoteric/insider tactic; it's fairly common knowledge to many many thousands of New Jerseyans and will need to become common knowledge to the whole population if we are ever to clean up this filthy practice.

The only way Joe Ferriero...(and the Republican bosses in other parts of the state for that matter), can retain a stranglehold on power is by counting on the lights being turned off, and the electorate being kept in the dark.

No doubt the machine will spend millions of dollars to smear its opponents and to distort the issues and to distract the voters; what else can they do? Eh?

Sometimes it really is better to "light a candle than to curse the darkness"!  ;-)

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by: Nick Lento @ Mon Feb 12, 2007 at 01:11:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Why I Recomended This Diary... (0.00 / 0)

Let's keep this near the front page so that whoever wrote it might be inspired to come back and to engage some of the point made by the commentators.

Free speech, debate, democracy!  All great stuff!  Surely we can all agree on that much, can't we?

Hell, I'd pay good money to see a confident and self assured Joe Ferriero go toe to toe with a well rested Loretta Weinberg in a 90 minute debate on the issues that divide the BCDO!

Let there be light, Light, and more LIGHT!  Let the Sun Shine In!!!

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