The battle beneath the Clinton-Obama battle

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, backing up Senate President Richard Codey's endorsement of Obama on Thursday.

When Sen. Ronald Rice and North Ward Democratic Party boss Steve Adubato find themselves in the same political foxhole, something is either amiss, or it’s a presidential election year.

In certain company, the lead-up to Tuesday’s historic Democratic Primary contest looks like some incidental skirmish in Newark with here-today, gone-tomorrow alliances, played out as a backdrop to that more fervent chess war between local rivals angling for the real epic of some area city council and freeholder races later this year.

Lionel Leach, Rice’s former campaign field director, serves as the point of contact for Sen. Hillary Clinton in her campaign’s week-and-a-half old Broad Street headquarters, even as North Ward Democratic Organization campaign firebrand Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz continues to steel the Latino vote for Clinton in rallies statewide. On the heels of his own family fight with Adubato, U.S. Rep. Donald Payne also intends to do some campaigning for Clinton this weekend.

On the other side stands the encampment of Sen. Barack Obama, which consists in part of Mayor Cory Booker (who on Thursday would not commit to endorsing Payne's re-election), City Council President Mildred Crump, West Ward Councilman Ron Rice, Jr. - and South Ward activist Ras Baraka and his father, poet Amiri Baraka, who have both campaigned aggressively against Team Booker in the past.

On Thursday, Booker stayed focused on his candidate.

"What Obama is doing is powerful, and I see this on the streets of the City of Newark, because he is activating an electorate that has been disengaged from politics for a very long time," said the mayor. "He is now speaking to America, not just the people who have been involved for a long time. This is an exciting election because polls and pundits cannot predict this."

He made one reference to his own 2002 crusade.

"This is another election that is going to be won out there in the community," Booker said, "out there in the streets."

Notwithstanding the Barakas’ presidential year alliance with the mayor, Leach suggests Tuesday’s contest in Newark is a referendum on Booker’s leadership.

"The mayor’s played an intriguing role in the past three or four elections," said the operative, a former director of outreach for Sen. Robert Menendez. In a 2007 state election year alliance with Adubato, "Cory was one of the many who was trying to get Ron Rice out of office, and people don’t forget that. I think a lot more elected officials would have supported Barack Obama were it not for Booker’s support of Obama."

On a giant TV screen in the busy converted teacher’s union office, an evening news broadcast showed an image from earlier in the day of Senate President Richard Codey standing with Booker and other elected officials and officially endorsing Obama for president.

"Codey’s the most popular official in the state," admitted Leach, "but this campaign is going to come down to grassroots penetration throughout all of Essex County. We have people out there knocking on doors right now, tonight."

In Newark, he likes the odds. He said Booker’s school board candidates won last year, but lost in the South and Central wards. Moreover, Bill Payne won off the line in the South Ward in his Senate contest, and Sen. Ron Rice won in the South Ward. Between Adubato’s considerable election Day GOTV drive in the North Ward, and what Leach said would be his heads-up effort in the Central, West and South, Clinton should perform well against the Booker/Obama forces in Newark on Tuesday, Leach said.

"We have a new automated system at work here, which makes up to 100 calls an hour, 2,500 calls per day," said Leach of ongoing efforts to contact key Democratic voters of the 134,765 who live in Essex County. "What we do is get a commitment from people that they’ll vote for Sen. Clinton, we download that information to Excel, and then on Election Day we go and knock on those people’s doors and remind them that they need to go out and vote."

Rice used that same phone system last year when he staved off a challenge by Booker’s candidate, Freeholder (and Irvington City Councilman) Bilal Beasley. The senator’s campaign staff received 6,000 commitments, then went out and converted 4,100 of those pledges into actual votes on Election Day.

As volunteers at five individual stations worked the phones, into Clinton headquarters walked Irvington Councilman - and Clinton campaign volunteer - David Lyons, often the lone dissenting voice on that town’s governing body, and a bitter opponent of Irvington Mayor Wayne Smith’s.

"Here to help out," said Lyons.

Leach said Rice intends to work with Lyons to challenge Beasley and Smith’s other allies on the council in Irvington municipal elections in May. Rice also will align himself with freeholder candidates to run against any of Booker’s allies, and will probably back former Essex County Prosecutor Clifford Minor from the South Ward in what Leach said is Minor’s prospective 2010 mayoral bid against Booker.

All of those players are using the Clinton campaign as a real world warmup act for coming battles - which is not to say they are emotionless about Clinton’s candidacy in and of itself.

"It’s not just about change, it’s about change and experience," said Leach. That's what Ruiz says, too, but while she has pumped up the troops in Montclair and North Bergen, the new Senator has not headlined any Clinton events in her hometown of Newark, said one of her chief allies, Essex County Executive Chief of Staff Phil Alagia.

"We're very excited to get the vote out on Election Day," said Alagia, "but in terms of passion, it pales in comparison to beating Ron Rice in county and local races."

At an Obama rally in the Masonic Temple later Thursday evening, Mayor Wayne Smith walked up onto a stage bedecked with Obama signs and reminded a small band of GOTV volunteers why they should vote for Obama. The presidential candidate was against the War in Iraq from the beginning, he has a healthcare program that would cover low and moderate income families, and he inspires, Smith said.

"The Kennedys saw it," said the Irvington mayor. "What we’re seeing is excitement in this young senator from Illinois. Let’s all of us do what we can do."

The supporters numbered no more than 30 people, and included other local officials from Newark’s neighboring towns, including former East Orange Mayor Tom Cook.

"At some point we need to give up the whole black and white bit and support people who support other people, and that’s what this young man Barack Obama has proven over and over," said Cook.

But between the rallies and debates and the recently opened campaign headquarters here, to date it does not look like election season in significant parts of Newark. In the North Ward, on Bloomfield Avenue, the score reads 1-1, as a lone Clinton sign peeks out of a tailor’s shop window and a single Obama sign sticks to a telephone pole. A Ruiz sign from her Senate campaign last year dominates the avenue.

"Check out the West Ward, and the South Ward, we’ve had a lot of signs up in those neighborhoods," said Mark Alexander, state director for the Obama campaign.

"We put up 200 signs in the West Ward, and we handed out another 60 signs to people in cars and other passers-by who wanted to post lawn signs," confirmed Councilman Rice, a delegate candidate for Obama.

Both the Clinton and Obama camps say diminished financial resources and their candidates’ strategic choices to pour dollars into other Super Tuesday states have prevented them from creating a more visible sign presence throughout the city. But both sides also say that will change this weekend.

"We’re going to have 1,000 people putting up signs," said Booker Chief of Staff and campaigns guru Pablo Fonseca. "You’re going to see a sign and phone-bank explosion on Saturday as we really start pushing our GOTV efforts through Tuesday. This is going to be a citywide operation."

In Obama’s newly opened headquarters at the intersection of Broad Street and Central Avenue, there were no phones as of Thursday afternoon and few signs. In the near emptiness of a big office, two Newark volunteers - Peter Geier and Zora Menguelti - said they were waiting for both. Operational for several months now, the Obama campaign's main phone-banking center is in West Orange, but Fonseca said the Newark volunteers would be getting cellphones.

"Since we opened the office yesterday, people have been passing by and asking questions," said Menguelti. "We give them literature. We talk about Obama. I’m volunteering because I think he reflects the American Dream that everyone is looking for right now."

Waverly Whittle of Bloomfield"I saw the Barack Obama signs in the window and I just walked in off the street," said Geier, a writer who recently moved to the city from Baltimore. "I think the element that’s been missing in our leadership these past years is what this guy has, and that’s the ability to inspire."

As they were talking, Waverly Whittle entered the headquarters and quietly requested signs for his lawn in Bloomfield. He tucked two under his arm and headed for the door. When asked why he was supporting Obama, he reached into his back pocket and withdrew his wallet. Inside was a New Jersey State Corrections Officer’s badge.

"I worked in a jail for 36 years, I’m retired," he said. "Do you understand? That’s what I did. When I look at Obama, I’m just so proud." His voice broke. "My parents..." he tried, but he couldn’t finish the sentence, and turned and walked up Broad Street with the Obama signs under his arm.