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Posted by Pepe Bonmot
on March 20, 2002 at 10:52:24:
Dictator charge backfires Bergen Record Will the real dictator please stand up? Charging that Hudson County doesn't need a dictator, Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham called on Rep. Robert Menendez last week to resign from his post as chairman of the county's Democratic Party. But then Menendez charged that it was Cunningham who was acting like a dictator by trying to impose his will over the county's 11 other mayors. The feud is over whom the Democratic machine will support in a June special election to fill one year of the unexpired term of former County Executive Robert Janiszewski. He resigned in September amid reports that he is involved, and cooperating, with a federal corruption investigation. Cunningham supports Bernard Hartnett, who has been serving as interim county executive. But in a joint statement, Menendez and the county's 11 other mayors said the choice should not be made by "a single individual but by mayoral consensus agreement with our party leaders." Although Cunningham got elected thanks to Menendez's support last year, he called a "high noon" press conference Thursday in which he described Menendez as a "political terrorist" for not going along with Cunningham's choice for county executive. Cunningham charged that Menendez has "created havoc" by meddling in local politics. Yet when the county's 12 mayors met Friday to decide whom they will support for county executive, Menendez was vindicated - and the real dictator was exposed. Only Cunningham supported Hartnett. Menendez and the other 11 mayors agreed to support former Jersey City Council President Tom DeGise. "His memory and his gratitude is very limited," Menendez said of Cunningham. "I was the first public official who endorsed him. I gave him credibility in the community. I raised a quarter-million dollars for his campaign. So I don't know what interference he is talking about, because when he wanted my support, he didn't think I was interfering." Cunningham called Menendez "a great congressman," but then threatened that unless Menendez resigns as the party chairman, he will back another Latino for Menendez's seat in Congress. Cunningham said Menendez is being divisive. Yet he is an African-American trying to split the Hispanic community. "The job of the county chairman is to talk to all the mayors and other party leaders and to try to reach a consensus," Menendez said. "But Mayor Cunningham insists that it must be his candidate." Menendez said that although Hartnett has expressed interest in filling Janiszewski's term for only one year, he and the other 11 mayors want someone who wants to stay in the job on a long-term basis. Menendez noted that even if he had wanted to side with Cunningham, who heads the state's second-largest city, "I cannot impose my will over all the other mayors who represent 66 percent of the county's population."
There are many things that are wrong with machine politics, especially because sometimes they tend to impose unworthy candidates on the voters. But when one single man - flanked by a few supporters and city employees who owe him their jobs - tries to become the machine, that's the true definition of a dictator.
Cunningham said Menendez is power-hungry and divisive. But he needs to look at himself in a mirror. Maybe then he will see the man he is describing.
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