Hoboken Can Wait: Stack Mobilizes 500 Volunteers for General Election Power Surge

Almost everyone in Frank Sinatra City continues to tug on state Senator Brian P. Stack (D-33), who, in a numbers-generating zone this morning on the streets of Union City, appeared loathe to engage in the competitive Hoboken mayoral election. Unhinged as a GOTV animal, he’s simultaneously hindered on the endorsement front by several factors, including an enduring wariness around the political forces of fellow boss state Senator Nick Sacco (D-32).

Sacco’s not directly involved in the local race, having signaled to his Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) forces to stay put – out of respect -until Stack gives word on what to do in the mile-square city. But Sacco’s much-disliked ward, Joey Muniz, who’s piled multiple public and private job paychecks, including his latest appointment to the Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield Board, has convinced everyone around Hoboken politics that he’s with Hoboken mayoral hopeful Mike DeFusco.

That association irritates Stack, sources say. He might have more than dipped a big toe into DeFusco world had it not been for DeFusco’s association with Muniz. But while the mayoral campaigns of DeFusco and Hudson County Freeholder Anthony Romano continue to exhibit major league rivalry, with Romano trying to smother DeFusco as an alternative for the born and raised contingent, Stack sees Romano as a non-starter.

As for the other two top tier candidates, Councilwoman Jen Giattino is a Republican, and Stack already went that route with Governor Chris Christie and isn’t exactly overly eager to do it again; and he and Councilman Ravi Rhalla have never really gotten along. So while he dislikes the Sacco-world shenanigans in Hoboken, he can see no discernible and imposing counterweight among the on-the-ground alternatives.

So he focuses on putting up monster numbers in an effort to demonstrate undisputed political power. For what end ultimately? Jittery HCDO types can only continue to somberly publicly tell him they intend to stay out of Hoboken until he makes a decision. But Muniz’s movements in there prevent him from pulling the cord on DeFusco, otherwise his most likely option, even as he considers how he might have misspent the goodwill he had mustered on Sacco’s behalf these past four years.

Rather than fasten himself to a single candidate in a coin flip election, each of whom appears fatally compromised as far as he’s concerned, one more than the others, he can only do what he has always done, sources around him say: blanket the entire area with GOTV bodies.

 

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