John Currie

John Currie supervising the provisional ballot count.

PATERSON - Passaic County Chairman of the Board of Elections John Currie - who also serves as chairman of the Democratic Party -  supervises the provisional ballot count here in a third floor jury room at the Passaic County offices in downtown Paterson.

Head-to-head in this Passaic City Council contest are Vice Principal Angel Laboy and former School Board member Kenneth Lucianan.

At last count, Lucianin led Laboy by 103 votes.

Laboy observes the ballot count while Lucianin waits in a secure location for the results.

As soon as this count is done and the winner certified, the results of the mayor’s race will also get the county’s official imprimatur.

County Chairman John Currie: Politicker file photo 

As five candidates for mayor continue to slug it out in Passaic City, John Currie, chairman of the Passaic County Democratic Party, said he doesn't want to get in the middle of the action.

"I'm keeping out of that one," the chairman told PolitickerNJ.com moments before joining elected officials at an Obama rally in Paterson on Monday.

He's mostly focused on presidential politics and on his freeholder candidates, not the county's biggest local battle, he insisted. 

"I'm spending more money than I'd like on the freeholders' race, but that's all right," said Currie. "Registration's through the roof."

Party Chairman John Currie and Assemblywoman Nellie Pou (D-Paterson): Politicker photo 

DENVER - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) romped in Passaic County in the Democratic Primary, essentially blowing up the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.) there with a 59-38% victory.

"He didn’t win a single town in Passaic," said Democratic Party Chairman John Currie, and that includes the county’s biggest city.

"In my ward, he lost handily," recalled Sixth Ward Paterson Councilman Andre Sayegh, a longtime Obama supporter. "A lot of Latinos in my ward told me, ‘We’ll vote for you, but not Obama.’ It wasn’t a landslide, but he lost Paterson, and got trounced in my ward."

Now old school Democrat Currie, a onetime Clinton backer, wants to mobilize his troops behind Obama for the general election, where Democrats number 47,807 to the Republicans 38,662 registered voters.

Bill Layton was re-elected Burlington County GOP Chairman without opposition tonight. Dottie Spellman was elected Vice Chair, replacing Dawn Lacy.

The Rev. Dr. James Kuykendall, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the Rev. David Rios, and U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell pray on Monday. 

PATERSON - On the Monday before Election Day, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) came to his native city to stand with a coalition of Latino and African-American ministers in a onetime gentleman’s club for the managers who operated the silk mills.

"When I was a kid, I used to walk on the street out there and wonder what was in that dark place," said Lautenberg, son of Jewish immigrants. "Then someone told me, ‘your kind is not welcome.’"

"Speak, Frank, speak," exhorted U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8), standing with the Rev. Dr. James Kuykendall, the Rev. David Rios and other ministers.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. in Passaic on Monday night, flanked by U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, left, and Assemblyman Thomas Giblin.

Arguing that his presidential candidate possesses a unique combination of toughness and persuasive power, Robert Kennedy, Jr. electrified a tent-ful of fellow Hillary Clinton supporters on Monday night at a private home in Passaic.

"I was very skeptical at first because I knew she was coming in under the same charges as my father did, which were that she was a carpetbagger," Kennedy, a Westchester, N.Y. resident, said of Clinton’s appeal to him when she first prepared to run for his father’s old Senate seat.

Kennedy said Clinton faced tremendous hostility, especially in traditionally Republican upstate New York - where a Senate candidate must win if he or she is to win the state, in Kennedy’s words.

State Senator Joseph Coniglio, the target of a federal corruption probe, has dropped out of sight since he dropped his bid for re-election to a third term.  With Assemblyman Robert Gordon now slated as the Senate candidate, there hasn’t been a whole lot of talk about Coniglio.

In case you missed it: New Jersey's three newest Assembly candidates were effectively annointed by individual party leaders, unencumbered by the need to present themselves to voters -- in this case, elected members of the County Committee.  Elease Evans, a Passaic County Freeholder who was elected to fill Alfred Steele's unexpired term, was picked by County Chairman John Currie; Bergen County Freeholder Connie Wagner, who will be the Democratic candidate for Assemblywoman in the 38th district (replacing Bob Gordon, who is running for Joseph Coniglio's Senate seat) was selected by County Chairman Joseph Ferriero; and Mila Jasey, a South Orange Board of Education member, was handpicked by Senate President Richard Codey to replace Mims Hackett in the Legislature. 

State Sen. John Girgenti (left) and Passaic County Democratic Chairman John Currie with Assembly candidate Elease Evans
The Democratic Party chiefs in the 35th district united today behind a woman they say is a powerful community presence: a social worker, grandmother, public servant and churchgoer; someone with deep and important community ties in Paterson and the environs.

Hoping to represent a nearly 2-1 Democratic district, Passaic County Freeholder Director Elease Evans will have the added challenge of proving that the trust she built in her grassroots work and public service means something in a legislative district where a man with many of those same credentials on paper violated his office, according to the U.S. Attorney.

The Passaic County Democratic Organization this morning unanimously decided on Evans to replace former Assemblyman (and Passaic County Undersheriff) the Rev. Pastor Alfred Steele on the 35th district legislative ticket, and immediately made a statement regarding the new candidate’s intentions. Acknowledging that dual public office-holding isn’t a practice the public will tolerate, Evans said if elected to the Assembly on Nov. 6th she would hold dual office only for a period of months, and would not seek re-election to the freeholder board when her term expires at the end of 2008.

Assemblywoman-elect Elease Evans will not seek re-election to the Passaic County Board of Freeholders in 200835th District Democrats today elected Elease Evans to the State Assembly. She will fill the unexpired term of Alfred Steele, who resigned last week after his arrest on bribery charges, and will seek a full-term in the Assembly in November.

Evans, the Passaic County Freeholder Director and former NAACP leader, became the unanimous choice at a Special Election Convention after party leaders agreed to support her earlier this morning.

Passaic County Democratic Chairman John Currie said that Evans will serve in both offices for now, but will step down as Freeholder sometime before the completion of her current term, which expires in January 2009. Under the new state law banning dual officeholding, Evans would be eligible to hold both posts, if she wanted to.