Menendez: Can Menendez Count on Black Voters?

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Can Menendez Count on Black Voters?

By JOSH BENSON
New York Times
Published: April 9, 2006

NEWARK - THE REV. REGINALD T. JACKSON, the influential executive director of the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey, is a master of the art of vote wrangling, helping assure lopsided victories among black voters for statewide Democratic candidates like Jon S. Corzine and James E. McGreevey.

Yet when asked recently about the prospect of similar support for Senator Robert Menendez in his effort to defeat his Republican rival, State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., and win his own four-year term, Mr. Jackson was surprisingly guarded.

''I think Mr. Menendez will face a real challenge,'' Mr. Jackson said, ''and it remains to be seen how he meets it.''

Although the 52-year-old Mr. Menendez is not without allies among black political leaders like Mayor Doug Palmer of Trenton and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, he receives mixed reviews from many others, largely because of a bitter feud with the popular former mayor of Jersey City, Glenn Cunningham, who died in 2004, and his supporters.

As a result, Mr. Menendez's relationship with a constituency that has faithfully supported Democrats in the past is ''probably a little vague and tenuous,'' said Walter Fields, a former political director of the N.A.A.C.P.

''Menendez was certainly a long-serving congressman out of Hudson County, but there have developed real difficulties because of him being oppositional to Glenn Cunningham,'' Mr. Fields said. ''So I think there were definitely some unresolved issues between the congressman and the black community.'' While overwhelmingly Democratic-voting African-Americans are unlikely to defect in large numbers to Mr. Kean, they could sit out the election rather than work to get Mr. Menendez elected.

Having anything less than wholehearted support from black leaders -- particularly in what is expected to be a close race -- could pose a serious threat to Mr. Menendez and mean the difference between returning to Washington and returning home. After all, in recent statewide elections, black voters made up approximately 11 percent of the turnout, and they constitute a vital part of any Democrat's electoral base.

''The Democratic margin does depend on getting out large pluralities in Essex and Hudson and Camden,'' said Peter Woolley, the director of Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind poll, referring to counties with high concentrations of black voters. ''So there's no doubt that the people who physically, mechanically are in charge of making that happen need to be brought on board.''

In most respects, Mr. Menendez -- who was appointed to his current post this year by the man who relinquished it, Gov. Jon S. Corzine -- would seem to be in strong shape heading into his first bid for statewide office this November. He has solid establishment support and has raised millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

Moreover, he faces in the 37-year-old Mr. Kean an inexperienced and gaffe-prone opponent. And most important, voter approval of President Bush has reached an all-time low not only in New Jersey -- a decidedly blue state -- but across the country.

As Mr. Menendez has pointed out, that has all been enough to earn solid pluralities in his own congressional district among black voters.

To Mr. Menendez and his supporters, his party loyalty -- along with a voting record that has been reliably liberal on social issues -- will be enough to bring the base of the state party home to him on Election Day. ''It's not what you say, it's what you do,'' Mr. Menendez said in a telephone interview last week.

He added, ''If you look at, from the N.A.A.C.P. to the Urban League, and talk to them about our votes on key critical issues they score, you'll hear an excellent result.''

For emphasis, Mr. Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, noted that he supported Mayor Palmer of Trenton when he first ran, even though his opponent was Hispanic. He also pointed out that under his political leadership the Hudson County clerk, Janey Haynes, was the first black to run for countywide office.

Nor did he stop there. Mr. Menendez pointed to his record in Congress in supporting efforts to expand homeownership for blacks and securing development grants in black neighborhoods.

Indeed, Mr. Menendez received an ''A'' rating from the N.A.A.C.P. for his record last year in the House, voting with the organization's endorsed positions 96 percent of the time -- a tally surpassed in the New Jersey delegation by only Representative Rush Holt.

''The bottom line is, I think that on the issue on our votes, in our advocacy and in our political support, we have consistently been a friend,'' he said.

None of that seems to be any consolation to some of Mr. Menendez's foes from Hudson County, who are embittered by the way the he won control of the county party and, after the mayor died, of Mr. Cunningham's State Senate seat.

The battle between the two men began, appropriately enough, over the long-term successor to the county executive.

Then in 2003, the split widened after Mr. Cunningham spurned the wishes of Mr. Menendez and other county Democratic leaders by running, and winning, in a race for the State Senate.

When the 60-year-old Mr. Cunningham died of a heart attack in May 2004, more than 5,000 people attended his funeral, though Mr. Menendez was not one of them. He had been urged by Cunningham supporters to stay away.

For some, the fight lives on. The name of the mayor's widow, Sandra Cunningham, has repeatedly been floated as a possible independent spoiler candidate for the United States Senate seat, threatening to dilute Mr. Menendez's support among black voters in Jersey City and elsewhere. In March, Ms. Cunningham said that she was ''not ready to talk about that yet,'' and she refused recent requests for comment.

The Urban Times News, a free newspaper operated by former associates of Mr. Cunningham, continues to write about the dispute, and those who supported the mayor are determined to inform black voters beyond Hudson County about what they say was Mr. Menendez's ill treatment of their former political patron.

''I think that we can sensitize the African-American community around this state,'' said the Rev. Edward Allen, pastor of the Philemon Missionary Baptist Church in Newark, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2002. ''I think people have to know how African-Americans in the district he represented feel about him. I think it will make them think twice. I think mayors in places like Trenton and Camden and Newark and East Orange and Irvington need to think twice about supporting him.''

That could prove inconvenient for Mr. Menendez. A PublicMind poll released last week showed Mr. Kean holding a four-percentage-point lead, while other surveys have shown Mr. Menendez with a slight lead.

Some black allies of Mr. Menendez's concede that the picture is mixed. ''I think that reputation varies depending upon what part of the state you're in,'' said the Rev. Perry Simmons of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Newark. ''For example, in his own Hudson County, the black support might not be that strong, whereas in Essex County, Camden and Mercer, it might be stronger. It's probably weaker in his own hometown because of the type of relationship that has developed over the years.''

State Senator Ronald L. Rice, who is running for mayor of Newark, said he thought that black voters would ultimately rally behind Mr. Menendez.

''I think Bob's going to be O.K.,'' Mr. Rice said. ''The one thing you don't want to do is turn Democratic seats over to Republicans. Because regardless of how nice they treat us in terms of leadership roles, they're never going to share the Democratic Party's philosophy in terms of attitude to lower and middle working-class people.''

Still, Mr. Menendez's road will not be made any easier since his opponent is not a wild-eyed ideologue but the son of former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, one of New Jersey's most popular figures In fact, it counts for a lot, and is largely responsible for the state senator's strong standing in the early polls.

And the Kean name could prove particularly resonant among blacks, who gave the elder Mr. Kean more than 60 percent of their vote in his 1985 campaign for re-election -- an astonishingly high number for a Republican in New Jersey.

While there is no sign that the younger Mr. Kean will enjoy that level of success among black voters, his campaign is clearly not prepared to write them off.

''Tom's visited black churches,'' said Jill Hazelbaker, a spokesman for Mr. Kean. ''He's met with the N.A.A.C.P. The African-American community is extremely important to Tom Kean Jr. just as it was for his dad.''

Deepening the intrigue, the Kean campaign has privately negotiated with Ms. Cunningham and her supporters about their common nemesis. ''Our campaign has had private conversations with Sandy,'' said Ms. Hazelbaker, whose assertion was confirmed by someone close to Ms. Cunningham. ''They're private. But obviously, they're interested in seeing anyone but Menendez being elected.''

But if Mr. Kean has been active in recent months courting black voters and political leaders, so has Mr. Menendez, one of the canniest politicians in the state. Among his first acts after being appointed senator was to convene a meeting with black leaders to discuss their concerns.

And he has made an effort to bury the hatchet in Hudson County. Mr. Menendez said that he tried to entice Ms. Cunningham to run for countywide office with his support, which she declined, but he did score a minor victory last week by recruiting a former aide to Mr. Cunningham to run for Hudson County register with the party's backing.

''I don't take any constituency for granted, so we're working very hard in reaching out,'' Mr. Menendez said.

He dismissed the notion that blacks would vote for his Republican opponent, and as for his expectations of winning large margins in heavily black areas, he said, ''I expect to do very well in that community as we approach the November elections.''

Asked a similar question about turnout among blacks, Mr. Woolley, the pollster, deferred to the Essex County Democratic chairman. ''Ask Phil Thigpen -- seriously,'' he said. ''A lot of this isn't about some organic support welling up for Menendez in the streets. It's about the elites.''

Mr. Thigpen said that Mr. Menendez would probably enjoy a large advantage among black voters, if only because of his party affiliation.

''Black voters have to understand that if you elect a Republican, that Republican will be voting for a Republican for president of the Senate,'' he said. ''And if we elect a Democrat, no matter who the Democrat is, he's going to be voting for leadership that's more in tune with us and more representative of the consensus of the black community. That's the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned.''

And will Mr. Menendez be able to win the black vote overwhelmingly?

''That's up to him,'' Mr. Thigpen said. ''He has to work at it. If he fails, he has to look at himself, not the black community.''

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