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It never ceases to amaze how tone-deaf some politicians can be. Take, for example, the entire Hudson County Democratic Organization. Last week, State Senator and North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco held his annual HCDO fundraiser in Garfield (which is, incidentally, in Bergen County, but I digress). It was, as I've been told, the place to be seen in Hudson County politics.
Guttenberg Mayor David Delle Donna certainly thought so. Fresh off an indictment for extortion and mail fraud, Delle Donna joined a number of HCDO luminaries at the fundraiser. But some of the attendees were not what I'd lovingly call the usual, ahem, suspects.
There was a strong Hoboken contingent in attendance, for example. Carol Marsh, the HCDO's primary candidate for Assembly from the 33rd District, Frank "Pupie" Raia, the HCDO's candidate for Council from Hoboken's 3rd Ward, and gadfly Michael Lenz all showed up. What's interesting about this group is that they make up the brain trust, as it were, of 4th Ward Council Candidate Dawn Zimmer's campaign to legitimately win the seat she stole through election fraud in June and then vacated when challenged in court. And yet somehow, Zimmer still claims she's not an HCDO candidate.
A few weeks ago, the anonymous poster Jersey Boy went to bat for Hoboken Council candidate Dawn Zimmer, claiming she wasn't part of the HCDO machine and that attacks against her for taking HCDO support were hypocritical coming from those who had also accepted HCDO support in the past.
It's time to knock down the spin and set the record straight.
The problem here is not the extensive support Dawn Zimmer has received from the HCDO. That's her right. Good people have accepted that backing in the past and will again in the future. The problem is that Zimmer's a hypocrite, consistently denying that the support she's received makes her an HCDO-backed candidate. Dawn has presented herself as an opponent of the organization and, well, that's a tough sell when they're providing her core of support.
On March 26, 2007, Dawn Zimmer announced on Hoboken411.com that she had not accepted HCDO money and would not in the future.
My campaign has not received, and will not accept, any contributions on a personal or organizational level from the Mayor, the Hudson County Democratic Organization, Brian Stack, or any of the other players involved in the battle for control over the Hudson County patronage machine. We have had no discussions whatsoever with any of those people or organizations in which support has either been solicited or offered.
That's a promise she broke repeatedly, taking thousands from HCDO-aligned County Executive Tom DeGise, HCDO Chairman and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, and the HCDO itself. In response to this, Zimmer has said that she only took $4,000 from HCDO. She clearly misses the point. She made a campaign promise to take nothing from them.
Again, neither I nor anyone else associated with her opponent, Councilman Chris Campos, think there's anything wrong with Healey's or DeGise's money, but Dawn Zimmer has gone on the record in the past saying that there is. Politicians are free to change their minds, of course, but there's always a price to be paid for it. And in Zimmer's case, she needs to stop denying that she is a beneficiary of HCDO support. After all, DeGise and HCDO consultant Paul Swibinski didn't end up at her campaign headquarters on election night by accident.
Dawn Zimmer is a hypocrite, plain and simple.
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