The Tortuous Road to Teresa: Part II

[Mr.5Reasons]

The Tortuous Road to Teresa: Part II

At the following Sunday breakfast meeting of the Adubuto machine after the Bolden fiasco, the special guest of honor was none other then Hector “Macho” Corchado. This event was perceived as a public humiliation for Anibal and Carlos from Big Steve - letting them both know that they can be dumped anytime. Corchado couldn’t be happier and was glowing at the breakfast. Corchado, I’m told is also angling on some sort of County Under Sheriff position. (Sheesh)


This is where Maria Vizcarrondo enters into this soap. Maria was on Cory’s transition team and managed to promote herself as the top Latina candidate for the Booker Administration. It is rumored that she did this because of problems with her future contract at the United Way of Essex and West Hudson. She joined the Booker Administration with the understanding that she would be the candidate for State Senate in the 29th District. When Anibal was selected she was pissed off at Mr. Revenge. When Anibal was dumped, she, once again, became Booker’s front runner. She even started to make phone calls to line up other wavering supporters.


Ah, but nothing is so far as a finish line that’s so close. Adubato dislikes Maria from past political confrontations although he made her believe past problems were over since he was getting lots of funding from the United Way for the NorthWardCenter. But Steve doesn’t believe he can control Maria and so why elect someone that needs to be managed when he can elect an Adubatobot.


Maria gets dumped as the potential front runner for State Senate and Booker (through negotiations by Oscar and Carl) agree with Steve on Teresa Ruiz for State Senate and Grace Spencer for Assembly. The other subsection of the deal is that Steve will help with resources against Rice Sr. in the State Senate (Through Joe D’s influence at the County). Steve has had a long-running feud with the Rice and so that didn’t take much arm twisting. Maria, after getting kicked to the curb, had a letter sent to the Star Ledger indicating back room politics once again.


Now Anibal and Carlos are trying to rally their troops and seeking other alliances to withstand the potential fallout with the Adubuto machine. It will be difficult for them to seek an alliance with Quintana since Anibal was instrumental in derailing the efforts of Butchie Nieves to become President of the Advisory Board after the 2003 bitter fight against the SEIU and the James machine against Bolden. Remember, Nieves was the campaign manager for Anibal and Anibal promised to support Butchie for the Presidency, but at the last minute maneuvered himself by claiming that the selection of Butchie would have given too much influence to Quintana. Butchie currently works for Quintana and has vowed to give Anibal a taste of his own medicine when the opportunity makes itself available. Ah, the time may be now.


Lurking in the background is none other than Newark’s protean candidate - Quintana. This guy went from Sharpe hack to Sharpe challenger to Lucas Killer to Booker Team member to voting for a portion of the 80 MILL THRILL to voting against it. He also, if you remember, came in first in the May election (which only I predicted).


Quintana, through all of his twists and turns, has managed to increase his popularity (reflected in voter turnout) in the predominately black wards and has remained, primarily, independent of the “so called” Booker team mates. In the last State Senate primary against James, Quintana went against the entire Democratic Party Line (including Adubuto in the North) and defeated James in the North and East Wards.


Do not be surprised to see Quintana enter this race down the road as a spoiler. I don’t know his asking price, but given how only a few hundred votes either way (if Payne is the other candidate) can decide this thing, I assume it’s the limit.


How this all plays out is anyone’s guess. Teresa, at this point, will be the candidate. She’s pretty, young, intelligent and an Adubatobot. In other words – PERFECT! But the candidates on both sides appear to be angling – greed in Newark politics, who would have figured? The rumblings you hear of Sharpe running have more to do with having the black candidate pay him some damn respect. Kiss the ring, if you know what I mean. I believe that’s also the primary motivation for Quintana.


If both sides can get their alliances together, it should be a very close race. I’m banking, however, that both - I repeat – BOTH candidates won’t be able to gather the various remaining elements and that some more backroom deals are in the making.

Mr. 5Reasons



Notes: There may be additional follow-up information on this story. In particular, Mr. 5Reasons has suddenly become flooded with information on Sammy and Teresa’s housing situation. I still have to figure out what everyone’s talking about. I promise to keep working my sources hard.