The first trip on the merry-go-round was in the ’92 special election held after Gerry McCann got the gong from Michael Chertoff. With the Hudson County Democratic Organization’s backing, Lou appeared poised to win. But, as luck would have it, Lou’s brother Allen decided to place his name on the ballot, too. Jersey City voters got the chance to view Smothers Brothersesque campaign commercials with Momma Manzo affirming that she liked Lou best. There was no brass ring for Lou.
In the 1993 regular election for Mayor of Jersey City, Lou Manzo was again the HCDO candidate. This time, brother Allen did not run. A bizarre theme of the Manzo campaign was to blame Bret Schundler for Apartheid in South Africa. Though Lou seemed to have missed it, the voters knew that Apartheid was abolished some years before the election. At least one audience walked out on him.
Losing by a two to one margin, Lou Manzo said that he felt like he’d been “hit by a refrigerator.”
Manzo ran again in 2001 in a three way race with Glenn Cunningham and Tom Degise. Knocked out in the first round, Manzo backed Glenn Cunningham in the run-off. An early City Hall meeting between Lou and the newly-elected Mayor didn’t turn out so well. Manzo complained that he’d been kept waiting in the reception area. As the weeks wore one, the lumps got kneaded out. Lou Manzo ran (and won) for Assembly in the 31st on the Cunningham reform ticket.
After the death of Glenn Cunningham, it was deja vu all over again with Manzo in the 2004 special election. That spectacle dwarfed anything that had been seen in Jersey City for generations. This time ’round, another brother, Ron, managed to cause trouble. Ron Manzo pleaded guilty to insider trading, involving McGreevey’s Chief-of-Staff. The Cunningham supporters backed Willy Flood and called Lou Manzo a “political charlatan and backstabber.” Lou Manzo wasted time and energy ousting Ron Buonocore from the race. And in yet another sideshow, a convicted sex offender accused another candidate of ordering a hit on Manzo.
Manzo managed to spend over two million dollars, plastering the town with signs — including huge picture banners strangely reminiscent of Citizen Kane — and filling mailboxes with gibberish printed in three colors on glossy paper. But, despite the extraneous motion spending spree, the Manzo campaign never developed a clear, coherent message. Plus, Manzo had no Get Out The Vote, the spearhead of Hudson County ground war politics (and the raison d’être of Machine politics). Manzo lost this time, too.
And that’s not all.
Post-election, Eyewitness News featured Frmr. Candidate Manzo for stiffing campaign workers.
Charged with taking bribes from Solomon Dwek in connection with the 2009 run for mayor, the curtain seems to have finally closed on the Manzo Follies.
LOUser Manzo MalarkeyFrom the Assemblyman Manzo Web Site: Manzo was not afraid to take on powerful political figures and big developers. In the mid 1980′s, Manzo halted construction at the site of one of New Jersey’s largest developments, Newport, on the Jersey City waterfront. He challenged the world-renowned developer, Samuel LeFrak, when he discovered that the development was dumping contaminated soil on the site and into the Hudson River. Furthermore, Manzo shutdown portions of the Newport Mall when it became infested with rodents because of the developer’s failure to properly bait excavation sites. . . . In 1989 when a pro-development candidate was elected Jersey City’s Mayor, Manzo locked horns with politicians overattempts to stifle his Division’s efforts to have chromium sites excavated. The Mayor felt that Manzo’s efforts were scaring away potential developers from the city. Manzo was forced out of office and pursued a lengthy, unsuccessful battle in the courts to retain his job. In 1990, Manzo became the first independent in Hudson County history to win election to the Hudson county Board of Freeholders, defeating the hand-picked candidate of the very Mayor who forced him out of his Health Division post. # # # Manzo’s “raids” on Newport were his version of “Oh WAITER, there’s a FLY in my soup!” For LOUnatic Manzo, being Health Officer meant one cheap publicity stunt after another, the public be damned. That supposedly evil tool of developers Jersey City Mayor who “Manzo locked horns with” was Gerry McCann, Lou Manzo’s biggest backer. |
Frank Hague – Mayor of Jersey City
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