CRANBURY - Robert Torricelli always loved Mark Antony as conveyed by Shakespeare, maybe because he shares some of the qualities of that character: imperfect, but eloquent and hard-nosed. You don't walk around with the nickname "The Torch" if you're holding one for the more sluggish qualities in public life.

So, it was with something like a totality of commitment tonight that the former Senator from New Jersey - radiant, intellectually curious, vital - participated in a coffeehouse conversation on behalf of the CD-12 candidacy of his friend, Sue Altman. At the heart of it, Torricelli cited a new generation of leadership in his fellow Democrat, rooted in the deepest convictions of their party.

"Donald Trump didn't parachute in," he told a clutch of Altman backers. "He came in the front door. That's because we opened it. The Democratic Party forgot who we represent. You can't be all things to all people. We started as the party of working people and poor families, the poor yes, but also the working class, union members, people who were doing the tough work of America every day. Honestly, it's my generation's fault."

They alienated working people with NAFTA, said Torricelli. "We forget that putting China and the World Trade Organization [ahead of workers]. We forgot that not enforcing the right to organized labor and unions. We forgot that not strengthening public schools. We forget that Trump didn't parachute into the White House. We opened the door by forgetting our base and the things that matter, the things that brought us there. ...Political parties sometimes fail because they're too big...because we represent everybody, we represent nobody."

Altman's better than that, said the Torch.

"Sue understands we are a party of working families, of labor, of struggling people," he told the participants in tonight's event. "We may find success because of the failures of the past. Better than anybody in New Jersey, Sue, by the work she has done to date, reminds the Democratic Party who we are. She has taken on the leaders of the party who not only shouldn't be leaders - they shouldn't be in the party."

Please see below for opening remarks by former Senator Torricelli and by Sue Altman, in addition to a conversation the candidate had with some of her supporters.