But he’s still representing West Orange and South Orange, where his running mates John McKeon and Mila Jasey are from, respectively.
His hometown of Roseland pairs Maplewood, Livingston, and Caldwell for a solid foundation – where his district now builds out into the suburbs of Morris County.
That was his poison pill, towns like Chatham, Harding, East Hanover, and Madison.
“As far as Morris County goes,” he said today, “we’ll make new friends up there. I’m looking forward to going up there. I don’t care if they’re Republican or Democrat.”
The “soldiers of the bosses” who were after him came up short – and sources said that has a lot to do with the importance tiebreaking Prof. Alan Rosenthal put on incumbency.
The bosses – who today Codey chooses not to name – are familiar: Essex maven Joe DiVincenzo and South Jersey kingpin George Norcross.
Many pointed south last Wednesday to Norcross and his close ally, state Sen. President Steve Sweeney (D-3), of West Deptford, when a Democratic map was leaked that took aim inside the Democratic party: Codey was further entrenched in the burbs; Majority Leader Barbara Buono (D-18), of Metuchen, was poised to face her colleague, state Sen. Joe Vitale (D-19), of Woodbridge; and state Sen. John Girgenti (D-35), of Hawthorne, had his hometown annexed by neighboring state Sen. Robert Gordon (D-38), of Fair Lawn.
All but Buono backed Codey in his arm-wrestling match against Sweeney for Senate presidency in 2009 – Vitale, Girgenti, Gordon – leading many to view the floated map as a Sweeney payback mechanism.
“I don’t fully understand what went on there,” Codey said. “I’ve heard that it was to show Mr. Rosenthal that if they do everything that he wanted that it would have severe consequences.”
As the map morphed, Buono, Vitale, and, for the most part, Codey found their situations greatly improved. “They realized it wasn’t going to fly,” Codey said.
Gordon keeps most of his district, so the brunt of the pain from the map fell to Girgenti, who Codey has known for two decades.
“I was very disappointed (that he was targeted),” Codey said. “I’ve known John since Young Democrats. That’s a big loss for the party and for the state.”
For that reason and others, he’s not ready to call this a win for the Dems – even though Rosenthal sided with the majority party.
“I think the Republicans did better under this map than they did last time,” he said, although that may just be the ripple effect of the GOP’s recent surge.
“Everything is cyclical,” he said. “The last two years were good years for Republicans.”
Considering his large warchest and broad popularity, Codey isn’t worried about his predicament, but he’s going to work the November election as if he was: “You always run as if you’re behind.”
He wouldn’t take sides on whether Gov. Chris Christie should have involved himself so directly into the process – “I’ll leave that up to him.”
But Codey said if he was serving as governor this year, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick.
“If I was going to do anything,” Codey said, “I would have used the phone.”
That would have saved some miles on those black Suburbans with government plates.