The Bigger Consequences of What Went Down Last Night in Hudson
So, what exactly happened last night in Hudson?
Depends on whom you ask.
The friends of Albio Sires say the Cuban immigrant came full circle on his infectious American Dream.
Nice guys finish last?
At least not if they’re named “Albio Sires.”
It’s true.
But when the Randy Newman soundtrack from The Natural dies down, and the guys come in with the brooms and sweep the confetti off the floor in West New York, the inevitable question arises – “What exactly happened in raw political terms?” the only terms that count in a country called New Jersey.
As Sires pointed out in his victory speech quoted by InsiderNJ Columnist Fred Snowflack, state Senator (and Union City Mayor) Brian P. Stack played a major role in getting Sires the win.
If Sires comes across as more of a barbershop-style campaigner, sitting around talking to guys with the baseball game on in the background amid razors and shaving cream, Stack is the epitome of the organization x’s and o’s guy, who doesn’t stop until every door gets banged on and re-banged on and even the drunks get fireman carries to the polling places on Election Day if they’re initially unaccounted for.
There was a decided arc for Sires Tuesday.
But Stack had his own redemption story, too; grainier maybe, and more localized.
If the senator/mayor lost his 2018 initial bid to become the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) Chairman in which old lion state Senator (and North Bergen Mayor) Nick Sacco occupied an opposing gun turret, last night’s Sires victory represented his slow, Fistful of Dollars crawl back to claim a bigger sized Stack footprint that will likely stand as the springy turf he needs toward full control of the county.
Consider the fact that Stack’s opponent in that chair’s race (Amy DeGise) imploded out of political relevance, and her successor as HCDO Chair (Anthony Vainieri) – while Stack, with his own Union City on lockdown, ran around in another town – occupied a place on the Sacco ticket as a North Bergen commissioner.
Consider this, too: Sires’ opponent (Cosmo Cirillo) was the HCDO choice to represent Hudson as part of a redistricting process that ended with tough guy Sacco as the statewide party’s sacrificial lamb.
Getting the heave ho before one says so might happen to a kid in the suburbs but not Nick Sacco.
So, if Sacco (and Vainieri) won last night – and they did – it was on a decidedly shrunken playing field, even as Sacco ward Joey Muniz went down doubly hard after redistricting with the losing Cirillo Campaign.
Muniz wanted to pull a rabbit out of that West New York hat, to create larger statewide opportunities, but, as it turned out, he and Cirillo couldn’t stop the bleeding revealed by the redistricting mess.
Stack’s humiliation in 2018 didn’t diminish him among his allies, and in the final showdown with Sacco last year, his redistricting map won, leaving the older warrior hobbled, and – instead of expanding – retracting.
It bodes well for Stack longer term and – again – his designs to run all of Hudson, if indeed he chooses to go in that direction once more; and it bodes well for Stack’s allies beyond Hague Country, specifically Middlesex County, where Chairman Kevin McCabe has forged a close relationship with Stack. That said, Democratic State Party Chairman LeRoy Jones made sure to salute Stack when he showed up on Sires’ behalf pre-Election Day.
Stack was once that guy derided out of contention by virtue of a sound truck in Kearny reminding committee members that he backed the reelection of Republican Governor Chris Christie in 2013. A few years later and into the future, Democrats will fall over him with a vengeance, especially after what went down in West New York last night.
Of course, none of that has much to do with the American Dream, as classically understood.
That dream was more obviously expressed by Sires.
Can you ever just write an article without trying to win a Pulitzer? It’s like trying to read Jane Austen write about NJ politics. Just tell the story
American Dream? More like American Scheme. There is nothing to be accomplished for the voters by the choices that were on Tuesday’s ballot.
I am glad of one thing: the mention of Stack supporting Christie. I was in Union City before that election and there were Stack : Christie signs at nearly every home. Stack was never punished by the Democratic party for these actions that were obviously against party rules. Why? But, as a Stack constitient, at least until next year, I have forgiven him that significant transgression because of his excellent constituent service — moreso than the entire rest of the Hudson delegation put together.
I still resent like hell the way Hudson shoves candidates down the voters’ throats. Two most recent examples, Menendez Jr. who has never done anything in Hudson County, and Craig Guy, the former indicted Jersey City policeman who was never adjudicated. The charges of running a cocaine ring out of the JCPD just miraculously “went away.”
Essentially, what you are saying is that Hudson county is s pile of hot dog feces! Where corruption, nepotism and inertia rule!
Hudson County has been in a race with Passaic (Paterson), Bergen (Hackensack/Teaneck), Morris (Morristown), Essex (Newark), Camden (Camden), Middlesex (Edison) and Mercer (Trenton) Counties as the most corrupt counties in New Jersey history. Former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman asked for Congressional support in her 2nd election term, and was told that D.C. pols wouldn’t come to Passaic County where she was having a rally because the “dirt might rub off”. Hudson, Essex, Bergen, Morris Counties were, or still are, under Federal investigation for corrupt practices (which also involves the Courts in those counties, especially in Morris where strong rumors of judges taking payoffs to throw cases abound). Paterson Police Dept., in Passaic County, was taken over by the State. Jeez, I wonder why?!?!?!?
Hudson County has been a cesspool of corruption for over 100 years. It’s an extension of NYC and the corrupt practices there. Any wonder why voters can’t get the candidates they want on the ballot, and any wonder why the Democrats always win there (ballots stuffed in boxes found in back rooms, behind computer voting machines, etc., along with computer voting machine manipulations of vote tallies, etc. during the last gubernatorial election).
Everyone associated with Albio Sires says he’s the “best thing since sliced toast”. Sires, is Cuban-born, votes Democrat, and has voted for the many SOCIALIST-COMMUNIST programs installed here in New Jersey and when he was in the U.S. Congress. Sires did not leave his COMMUNIST roots in Cuba. He brought them to the U.S. and is promoting them here.
Please, anybody with a brain knows Hudson County is a racketeering criminal enterprise and has been as long as can be remembered. All one has to do is mention the words “U.S. Senator Robert Menendez”, even to people from out of state, and the responses are that he’s the corrupt Senator from N.J. who is on his 2nd round of Federal corruption investigations. When is enough going to be enough for New Jerseyans (and Hudson County residents)?????