John Traier

It seems to bother Passaic County GOP Chairman Michael Mecca that his friend-turned-rival, Wayne Mayor Scott Rumana, has forged a political alliance with Clifton Republican Municipal Chairman John Traier. Here's what Mecca had to say in a letter to County Committee members: "Political marriage of Scott Rumana and John Traier. As the old political adage goes, "politics sure does makes strange bedfellows." John Traier is the municipal leader of Clifton. In 1997, when Rumana ran for Freeholder, Scott and I started to walk door to door on January 20, 1997. Every night and weekend, we knocked on doors for over nine months. Not once did John Traier help Scott Rumana in his quest for Freeholder. Most night in 1997 and 2000, Scott and I ate dinner at my house which my wife Susan prepared for us. Personally, I should have written Scott off as a dependent on my tax return. John Traier was nowhere to be found in the campaigns of 1997 or 2000. In return in 2003 when Traier was the candidate for Freeholder, Rumana did not help Traier at all. What great political bedfellows."

The Passaic County Republican Organization (that's the faction run by County Chairman Michael Mecca and supported by former GOP Chairman Peter Murphy) will run former County Clerk Ronni Nochimson, Passaic City Councilman Jonathan Soto, and Ken Del Vecchio, a North Haledon attorney, for Freeholder. Another wing of the party, aligned with Wayne Mayor Scott Rumana (who is running for County Chairman) and former Paterson Mayor Lawrence "Pat" Kramer, had sought to place three other candidates -- former Assemblyman Ronald Fava, a former Passaic County Prosecutor and Sheriff, Clifton Board of Education member John Traier, and former Wayne Councilman William Van Gieson -- on the ticket. The Rumana slate might run in the primary. There has been some talk last week that Republicans could compete for Freeholder seats this fall as a result of a Democratic split over the nomination of a controversial Arab-American businessman for Freeholder.