Hailed as a big event in New Jersey political history, the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primary produced some memorable moments of oratory.
Here are several:
Bob Menendez in North Bergen on Jan. 23
"Hudson, Hispanics, Hillary, History"
A battery of politicians warmed up the crowd before Big Head Todd and the Monsters’ "Blue Sky" blared into the cramped, hot room and presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton appeared on stage with Menendez. The crowd had waited for several hours and was overjoyed to see Clinton at close range. As "Hillary" signs shook overhead, the cries rose to near deafening: "Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!"
It was now Menendez’s job to introduce Clinton to his own personal political machine, but the problem was there was a mini revolt gathering. The boss from Union City was used to being the most powerful person in the room, only this evening he wasn’t, and the Latinas here knew it and welcomed Clinton as a soul sister force of liberation.
Less savvy politicians might misread the buzz and hopelessly attempt to spin the excitement into their one shot at a Barack Obama moment, or muscle flex by sternly insisting on holding the floor. But after making a single brief attempt to talk over the crowd, Menendez’s alertness to the mood sparked him to offer up one of the gem speeches of the cycle, his voice rising with each dramatically timed word:
"We have an opportunity here in Hudson… in Hudson… Hispanics… Hillary… and history!!!"
With that simple alliterative statement, Menendez let the crowd roar engulf the room as moments late he stepped aside and let Clinton the champion take over.
Clinton beat Obama in Menendez’s Hudson County by 62.3% to 35.6%.
Richard Codey in West Orange on Feb. 5
"Brothers"
Familiar by now with Dick Codey’s dagger-like shrewdness, which has enabled him to thrive in the Florentine political waters of New Jersey politics, some of the younger members of the press corps were stunned when the former governor stood in front of a microphone and delivered a blistering, arm-flailing ode to idealism in the lead up to Obama’s appearance.
"Today, we have a new leader, a new Kennedy-type leader who has energized this country like no other candidate we’ve seen in many, many a decade," Codey screamed. "Obama! Obama!"
The cynical notion quickly circulated that Codey was irritated because the IZOD Arena wasn’t crammed with people, and was merely channeling defiance at all the empty seats, or living out a basketball coach’s sideline fantasy in the shadow of the arena’s Jumbo-tron. But older operators corrected the record, saying if he’s in the mood, Codey’s a gunslinger political orator, always has been.
A day later in Codey’s home town of West Orange, the Senate President faced a wilted crowd in the Wilshire Grand Hotel. Obama had just lost in New Jersey by ten points in an effort that few at that moment could see as a moral victory. Even as the presidential candidate’s other wins around the country rolled in, the mood remained flat.
Into that atmosphere, Codey charged from his corner with combinations flying at all angles. The contest wasn’t finished, he said. They were in a fight. They were in a fight for delegates all over America. It wasn’t over then and it wouldn’t be over by the end of the night. It would go on.
"Tonight was a split decision," said Codey. "But the bottom line is that Mrs. Clinton is no longer the front-runner." Then the line he had used as a joke about him and Obama being brothers because of their shared Irish ancestry became a starting point for a jam on the brotherhood of man. "We’re brothers," Codey shouted. "We’re all brothers and sisters!"
Cory Booker, West Orange, Feb. 5
"The giant of love"
Throughout the campaign cycle, Newark’s mayor and New Jersey’s oratorical superman regularly risked overshadowing his presidential candidate, while simultaneously leaving ink-begrimed reporters to helplessly toss away their pens for failing to be able to spot-on capture Booker’s poetics.
"I like Obama ok, but I’m used to hearing speeches by Cory," said Newarker Albert Velez at an Obama rally.
Sen. Kevin O’Toole said of Obama’s speech-making, "He’d be a good warmup act for Booker."
There was Booker seven weeks ago bolstering a crowd at the Masonic Temple with "we the few who must do for the many."There was Booker in Jersey City, teasing the older funny bones in the audience with his mimicry of Gov. Thomas Kean: "New Jersey and Obama: Perfect together," before charging into a reflection on the Battle of Trenton as a "pivotal fight, " much like the Obama candidacy. There he was at headquarters on the Saturday before Election Day, pledging to be "all Obama, all the time."
Then came Election Day itself. The ballroom at the Wilshire Grand had just become that scene in "The Poseidon Adventure" when the ship goes belly up.
With the crowd momentarily buoyed by life jacket speeches thrown out there by Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy and Codey, Booker stepped up to the microphone. It would be as though every speech he had delivered on Obama’s behalf over the last two or three months suddenly took the form of one fiery statement.
But it didn’t seem to start out that way.
Likening the Obama and Clinton campaigns respectively to David and Goliath, Booker apparently had found a metaphor that would lend his remarks all of the tired associations of a misfire. But no matter. He had delivered before and how could he be faulted one hackneyed speech at this moment?
But almost immediately it became obvious Booker was going to surprise and tantalize, as he turned the Goliath metaphor into America under Bush’s leadership, and described how what appeared in his view to be the lumbering, ungainly abusive acts of this administration in the world were under siege in earnest now with Obama coming over the horizon.
What he’s seen in the Obama campaign are the faces of old, Booker said, the accumulated wisdom of all the suffering strains of America. He’s heard the echoes of voices drowned in prior generations by the misguided use of power, and with the mortified mood of the room beaten finally, Booker amidst the cheers picked up the fighting Irish themes laid down by Codey and Healy and went for the oratorical kill with a post Super Bowl metaphor that was at once surreal and powerful.
"America," said Booker, "will once again rise and be the giant of love."
The room erupted, and when the final numbers were tallied, Obama bested Clinton in Essex County, 56.4% to 42.5%.
Bill Pascrell, Passaic, Feb. 4
"God bless you"
Pascrell learned politics from his uncle, ward leader Pat Mone, who taught him not only about old fashioned organizing – registering voters and getting them out to vote – but told the future mayor and congressman that until he properly appreciated the function of emotion in elections, he could forget about even trying to run for county committee.
The 71-year old congressman got the lump-in-the-throat lesson over the course of six congressional elections
Pascrell’s closing argument in a tent in Passaic on the day before voters went to the polls was a classic GOTV appeal that blended high blown American rhetoric with the street sharpened talking points of an old organizer from Paterson’s tenth ward.
"This is a country where we change rulers without firing one shot," Pascrell reminded the audience early.
Stretching his arms to encompass the crowd of Passaic County Democrats, Pascrell hit Clinton’s main campaign promise to help the middle class. With that goal established, he spent a good part of the speech laying out how to get there, hitting all the practical points. New Jerseyans aren’t accustomed to presidential primary contests in the wintertime. Go home, he said. Work the phone. Call your relatives. Call your neighbors. Go to the polls.
Then he went for the finish.
"We will have a rainbow victory tomorrow night," said the congressman, "because this election is not about gender or race. It is about experience, and making it count, and raising your hand on day one, and being able to go to work. God bless Hillary. God bless America…."
That might have been the end of it in a lesser speech, but Pascrell brought it back to the beginning and to the people as he couldn’t resist adding over the cheers and hard clapping hands, "And you’d better get that vote out tomorrow, God bless you!"
Passaic County voted for Clinton over Obama, 59.5% to 38%.
