SALON

Tuesday, Jan 29, 2013 7:45 PM UTC

Dems agree on candidate to challenge NJ’s Christie

By

Topics: From the Wires, ,

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — You might not have heard of New Jersey state Sen. Barbara Buono, though you’ve probably heard of the man she’s itching to take on in the November election — Gov. Chris Christie.

Expect to hear more about her. Buono picked up endorsements Tuesday from the Democratic Governors’ Association, southern New Jersey’s seven county Democratic Party chairs and the southern legislative delegation, thereby sewing up enough support statewide to become the Democrats’ presumptive nominee for governor.

She will be a serious underdog against Christie, who has the benefits of incumbency, greater name recognition and the ability to raise however much he needs to run a re-election campaign.

Christie, 50, saw his popularity soar after Superstorm Sandy, but Buono says New Jersey’s problems of high unemployment and high taxes existed before the late-October storm.

Buono, a 59-year-old senator from Metuchen on the fringe of the New York City area, was the first major Democrat to enter the race, but establishment Democrats were slow to back her bid to challenge Christie. Their first choice, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, opted to run for U.S. Senate in 2014 instead of facing Christie.

“I was always confident the party would come together,” Buono said. “This election is too important — it’s about having someone who stands up for working New Jerseyans and the working poor who have been forgotten by this governor. We’re mounting an aggressive campaign to take the Statehouse back for the middle class.”

Buono has raised more than $200,000 but needs $380,000 to qualify for public matching funds. Christie has already pulled in $2 million, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is hosting a fundraiser for him in California next month.

The chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, outlined the themes of Buono’s campaign.

“Barbara Buono understands the challenges facing New Jersey’s middle class because she’s lived through them. She’s spent her entire career fighting to create jobs, improve education, expand access to quality health care and balance budgets,” Shumlin said.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald signed a letter pledging “to tirelessly fight to elect Barbara Buono as our next governor” because of her track record as a champion of the state’s most vulnerable residents. Sweeney until recently talked about possibly joining the race.

State Sen. Dick Codey, of Essex County in the state’s north, also threw his support behind Buono. Until Friday, Codey was flirting with his own run for governor. He was acting governor for 14 months after Jim McGreevey resigned in 2004, but he decided against running for an elected term.

Buono had received key endorsements on Monday from Reps. Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell Jr., who was also courted as a candidate, and party chairs in the New York-area counties of Bergen, Passaic and Hudson.

Taking the governor’s seat away from Christie, who has among the highest profiles of any Republican in the country, would be a huge prize for both the state and national Democratic parties. But Republicans were underwhelmed by the prospect of Buono.

“After failing to recruit their first, second, third or fourth choice candidates into the campaign for governor, Democrats have finally settled on state Sen. Barbara Buono,” said Mike Schrimpf, spokesman for the Republican Governors Association.

Mike Duhaime, Christie’s political adviser, said the governor’s “record of leadership cannot be matched.”

Buono’s campaign officially kicks off in New Brunswick on Saturday. Christie’s starts with a fundraiser in New Brunswick on Monday.

More By Angela Delli Santi.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations