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One thing that gets under my skin is when machine politicians bash other machine politicians for being -- you guessed it -- "machine politicians." Either change your style of politics or accept what you are and stop being a hypocrite tossing that label at others.
But that, like many things in politics-as-usual, is just a fact of life we have to live with.
But I find it really abhorrent when machine politicians accuse non-machine politicians of being machine politicians. That is the case in today's Political Insider column in the Jersey Journal discussing Hoboken's Fourth Ward do-over run-off.
Battling it out are former Councilman Chris Campos and current Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer. The columnist writes about a press conference Campos and supporters held to discuss the race. Much of the press conference had Campos and Councilman at Large Peter Cammarano arguing that Zimmer stole the election using illegal tactics orchestrated by the Hudson County Democratic Organization. Cammarano said there have been only three other cases in New Jersey political history where a candidate had to vacate a seat.
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Cammarano listed a number of HCDO people who worked for Zimmer, including North Bergen spinmeister and consultant Paul Swibinski. He even rejected criticism of Campos getting help in the runoff investigation from former Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann as "a page out of the HCDO playbook." Of course who just happens to pass by the press conference but Gerald McCann -- 'on his way to register voters for Campos,' he told the columnist. And the only people active in this Fourth Ward race who have ever paid the HCDO's Swibinski are Cammarano and Campos (They hired him two years ago for their race with Hoboken Mayor David Roberts).
In fact, it's rather funny to hear Zimmer labeled as an 'HCDO tool' because people who run in Hoboken and Hudson County political circles know what kind of politician Zimmer is: a wide-eyed, elitist, newcomer, reformer, do-gooder type. She doesn't get down and dirty with the machine. They tried to enlist her, but failed. They endorsed her because Campos now runs with Brian Stack's HCDO splinter-group, DFHC. And while she accepted their endorsement, she turned her nose up at their help -- rather naively. Most people wrote her off for that reason, but she pulled an upset on a rainy and (what should have been) a low-turnout day.
'Ha. Newcomers vote,' the HCDO shrugged and walked away. They would laugh even harder when they heard that Zimmer agreed to re-do the election. 'Naive, rookie mistake.' You're supposed to keep your head down and never admit mistake, no matter how small. "There have been only three other cases in New Jersey political history where a candidate had to vacate a seat" because people who know politics know you fight it in court all the way. Never deny your victory. That's what a machine politician would do, that's the advice the HCDO would have given Zimmer.
But Zimmer's decisions show she is no machine politician.
Now for Round Three and the HCDO isn't running to her side. They're too focused on the next primary. Their only presence in this race comes out of the mouths of Cammarano and Campos, who, in the DFHC are more machine than 2,000 Dawn Zimmers.
This is not to say whether the Fourth Ward's needs would be better served by either Campos or Zimmer, or who is running a cleaner campaign. I can't attest to that. I don't live there.
But I do know what kind of politicians these are, and this mischaracterization of Zimmer by Campos and Cammarano is just plain wrong.
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