Keith Hovey

NJ for Obama organizers, from left: Peter Brown, Julie Diaz, and Keith Hovey.: Politicker photo 

DENVER - They were a scrappy, grassroots group of no-name organizers when Peter Brown and Julie Diaz sat in a diner bull-dozed up to the side of a Jersey highway months ago.

But anti-establishment candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Il) victory in the Democratic presidential Primary propelled them, and NJ for Obama director Keith Hovey, into the laps of New Jersey’s political establishment tonight as the three of them attended a dinner at the Inverness Hotel hosted by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn).

"I’m just happy to be here, I don’t care if I have to sit behind Guam," said Hovey.

Obama Campaign State Director Mark Alexander. 

The campaign was about to change.

On Oct, 9, 2007, an announcement came down from Chicago regarding New Jersey operations. 

Mark Alexander, a Seton Hall University law professor and Obama’s senior policy advisor, would be the campaign’s official state director.

"I am grateful that he is going to carry the fight forward to and through the Feb. 5 contests," Obama said of Alexander. "He is a valued and trusted advisor, and at the same time has deep ties in his home of New Jersey that will be invaluable to our efforts. 

"I am proud of the policy work we have done on this campaign and through Mark’s leadership we have built a team of key advisors from the ground up that will continue to offer new and innovative approaches to the challenges this country faces," added the presidential candidate.

A personal friend of Barack and Michelle Obama’s going back a dozen years, Alexander as a child worked on the 1974 Washington, D.C. mayoral campaign of his father, Clifford Alexander, former chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission. Later, he ran Sen. Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign and served as counsel to Cory Booker.

Gov. Jon Corzine endorses Hillary Clinton for President last April: Getty Images Photo
Although presidential favorite Sen. Hillary Clinton is waging a dead-heat dogfight with Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John Edwards in Iowa, Gov. Jon Corzine today said he’s confident that the establishment candidate will prevail, and refuses to criticize her initial thumbs up vote on the Iraq War.

"She’s very credible, and she was very responsible in the way she took her position," said the governor, who last spring stood on the steps of City Hall in Elizabeth with a cavalcade of Jersey politicians behind him, and embraced Clinton as his presidential choice.

The early endorsement dismayed anti-war Democrats who believe Clinton rolled over in the face of post 9-11 political pressure when she voted to give President George W. Bush the authority to go to War in Iraq. Among the other Democratic presidential contenders, senators Chris Dodd, Joseph Biden and former Sen. John Edwards also gave the nod to Bush.

Hillary Clinton's New Jersey campaign co-chair, John F.X. GrahamI walked into Pal's Cabin, that West Orange watering hole where the Irishmen who run the state go when they want to tie one on.

On this particular summer night, John F. X. Graham was at the front of a room full of heavyweight Hillary Clinton supporters, some of whom, however weighed down with gold bars, were evidently still in the throes of John Kerry fatigue.

"Hillary's a winner," Graham assured the group. "She's a centrist, and the Democratic Party wins with centrists."

Obama troops took to the streets in Princeton on Tuesday night, rallying at Palmer Square in support of the Illinois senator who is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, but who trails frontrunner Hillary Clinton by over 30 percentage points in a Quinnipiac University poll of New Jersey voters released last month.

The Obama backers here didn’t appear to care about the poll numbers.

"I never participated in any way before reading Obama’s books," said Phil Blackwood, an engineer from Lincroft who was passing out Obama ’08 stickers among the crowd of over 100 people. "I’ve been busy campaigning for him. Before this event, I walked around Princeton for two hours."

Obama volunteers Tiffany Bennett, Nick Cream, David Singh and Raye Witte try to collect signatures of support on Witherspoon St.

Down in the polls by double digits and up against the big money presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton, the rucksack rebellion waged by Sen. Barack Obama’s youth army spread across portions of the state Saturday in a door-to-door canvassing effort.

"People are still politically conscientious given the primary on Tuesday and realize since Obama declared, we’re halfway to the first caucuses," said grassroots NJ for Obama head organizer Keith Hovey, a 30-something attorney from Montgomery who rallied his team of over 20 volunteers in Princeton University’s Robertson Hall before they took to the streets.