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: Jersey City's version of The Comeback Kid    

: Thursday, October 30, 2003 

: By STEVE STRUNSKY
: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

: JERSEY CITY - The church basement where Gerry McCann was trying to romance votes out of two dozen elderly ladies seemed worlds away from the richly appointed mayor's office where others had tried to woo him before his ouster in 1992.

: But McCann was in his element nonetheless. Reveling in every political point he scored at Holy Rosary Senior Citizens Club, McCann was stumping in his latest campaign to recapture elected office, this time in a bid for Hudson County freeholder.

: Whether reminiscing about the sausage bread at an Italian bakery, or how safe neighborhoods used to be before television and air conditioning swept people off their stoops, McCann, 53, showed he still knew just which buttons to push.

: "I liked his talk about building all these things for the senior citizens," said Kay Romano, 79, who, like the candidate, is a lifetime Jersey City resident. 

: "I didn't know he did all that."

: Whether McCann really does deserve the credit or was simply in the right place at the right time, there is no question that the city's once-abandoned waterfront, in particular, has undergone a spectacular transformation that began during McCann's first term.

: "Part of what I'm doing in this campaign is communicating with the new residents that I was a good mayor," McCann said in an interview. 

: Of his detractors, he said, "They're not saying I didn't do it. They're just saying, 'Oh, Gerry McCann's making it sound like he created the world.'''

: McCann's own world came tumbling down 11 years ago, when he was removed from office following a federal bank fraud conviction involving a failed development deal unrelated to his official duties. He worked on the deal, to build a marina, after being voted out of office in 1985 and before being voted back in four years later, and was convicted after his second term began.

: After serving two years in prison, McCann tried twice to win his old mayor's job back, in 1997 and 2001. But state courts blocked him from running for office in Jersey City, which bars candidates convicted of "crimes of moral turpitude." However, courts have ruled that McCann could run for county or state office. 


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