Joseph Ariyan is raising a lot of money for his race against GOP State Sen. Gerald Cardinale, but he’s not ready to go head-to-head with the veteran incumbent in a joint TV appearance.

The two 39th district candidates were invited to appear this weekend on Channel 9’s New Jersey Now. Cardinale accepted, but Ariyan, a first time candidate, declined.

Think the Bergen County Republican Organization is weak? That may be what they want you to believe.

“Think of the movie Braveheart. Let them think that we’re down,” said Freeholder candidate Paul Duggan at last night’s “meet and greet” for the three candidates for BCRO Chairman.

In truth, Duggan said, the Bergen County Republican Party has seen better days, but he was confident that after electing its new Chairman, the bad old days could soon be over.

Cooperation was the overarching theme of last night’s event, which was held at a senior center in front of a posh strip mall in Woodcliff Lake. So much so that Senator Gerald Cardinale, who attended the event along with Assemblyman John Rooney and Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, went as far as to suggest having all three candidates serve as joint chairs for the remainder of the unexpired term left vacant by Guy Talarico.

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announces the indictment of State Sen. Sharpe James, the former five-term Mayor of Newark
He would go to a park and if people were playing soccer he’d take off his suit and get in on the game, if we went to a Latino party he would dance the meringue, he’d talk baseball with anyone in a diner, he was a big Jackie Robinson fan.

But there was another side to the fit and flamboyant Sharpe James, who served as Newark’s mayor for 21 years, and it took a battery of federal law enforcement officials led by U.S. Attorney Chris Christie to unravel it all out into the daylight Thursday afternoon in Newark.

It’s a hefty, 33-count indictment, including 17 counts of defrauding the residents of Newark with credit cards, four counts of fraud involving local government receipt of federal funds, three counts of improperly favoring girlfriend Tamika Riley through the fraudulent sale of city properties, one count of conspiring to use the U.S. mail to defraud the public, four counts of housing assistance fraud, three counts of tax fraud, and one count of tax evasion. (Please see related story and press release for details).

Former Newark Mayor Sharpe James was indicted today on charges that he used his city-issued credit cards "to spend lavishly on himself, eight female companions and others during personal trips and vacations to such places as Martha’s Vineyard, Rio de Janeiro, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico", U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie and State Attorney General Anne Milgram announced.

Christie and other law enforcement officials will hold a news conference following court a court appearance by James, a State Senator who served as Mayor from 1986 to 2006.

The 33-count Indictment also charges James "in a second fraud against the citizens of Newark in which he allegedly facilitated and approved the drastically cut-rate sale of city-owned land to Tamika Riley, one of his companions, who fraudulently reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sales. She too is charged with this fraud in the Indictment."

James was expected to turn himself in to the FBI upon notice of the indictment, according to the office of the U.S. Attorney.

James and Riley are expected to appear at about 2:15 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo. Judge Arleo's courtroom is in the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Courthouse (the new courthouse) in Federal Square in Newark, between Broad and Mulberry Streets at Walnut Street.

A news conference with Christie, Milgram, FBI Special Agent in Charge Weysan Dun and IRS Criminal Investigation Division Special Agent in Charge William P. Offord will follow the court appearances. The news conference will most likely be held outside the courthouse, when the Indictment and a detailed news release will be available.

READ SHARPE JAMES INDICTMENT

Joined by local religious and community leaders, Atlantic County Democratic Chairman Ronald Ruff says State Sen. Sonny McCullough should apologize for making a joke about a chinese couple and an African American baby.  McCullough told the joke to PoliticsNJ.com reporter Max Pizarro during an interview in Atlantic County last week.

According to its critics, the Newark City Council over the past year has mostly marched to a single drummer - one that couldn’t be found, they say, in the Spirit of Newark Drum and Bugle Corps.

In what was hardly a blow the house down follow-up to last month’s mini Bastille storming of City Hall - but a telling political vignette nonetheless, residents took to the microphone at today’s council meeting to excoriate what they see as a governing body spellbound by Mayor Cory Booker. The council sat there and choked it down for the most part, before pledging to override the administration’s axing of the Spirit of Newark.

It was none other than State Sen. Ronald Rice, defeated by Booker in the mayoral election last year but reanimated with his district 28 primary re-election just last month, who led the charge for the council to take action to preserve the corps. The traveling group of some 100+ young musicians want to go to Pasadena to compete this year. They received $85,000 from the city in 2005, remained on life support with some state funding supplied by Assemblyman William Payne last year, and appeared to be going out on a long tuba note of gloom until Rice complained.

Armenian-Americans seem like an odd group to go to battle over, but both 39th district state Senate candidates are vying for their support.

It’s common for politicians to court specific ethnic groups if they’re numerous enough to have an impact at the polls, but what makes Armenian-Americans different is their tiny population.  There are just over 8,200 Armenians in Bergen County, according to the 2000 census, and about 17,000 statewide.  But despite their small numbers, they’re cohesive and politically active, and they can be a powerful political force if they coalesce behind a single candidate. Now the support of the Armenian-American community has become a point of contention between Democratic state Senate candidate Joe Ariyan, who’s of Armenian heritage, and long-time Republican incumbent Gerald Cardinale, who just sponsored a Senate resolution that will appeal to many in the community. 

The Middlesex County Central Labor Council has endorsed Democrat Seema Singh for State Senate in the 14th district, bucking the tide of union endorsements for the GOP candidate, Assemblyman Bill Baroni.  The Middlesex CLC had 17,000 members in public and private sector unions.

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie has scheduled a major announcement tomorrow regarding the federal probe of State Sen. Sharpe James, the former Mayor of Newark, according to the Star-Ledger.  James has been notified by federal prosecutors that he was the target of a grand jury investigation.

Former New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Chairwoman Anne Evans Estabrook took the first step toward her bid for the 2008 Republican nomination for U.S. Senate by announcing the formation of an exploratory committee that includes a Congressman, four GOP County Chairs, three state legislators and several key Republican fundraisers.

Backing Estabrook’s bid to unseat four-term Democrat Frank Lautenberg are Rep. Mike Ferguson, former Republican National Committee Finance Chairman Lewis Eisenberg, State Senators Diane Allen and Joe Kyrillos, Assemblywoman Amy Handlin, Monmouth County GOP Chairman Adam Puharic, Union County GOP Chairman Phil Morin, Gloucester County GOP Chairman Loran Oglesby, and Camden County GOP Chairman Rick DeMichelle.