Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (752674)	10/28/2006 2:10:40 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI and RAY RIVERA Published: October 29, 2006 BAYONNE, N.J. — Senator Robert Menendez is not directly involved in building the new waterfront development that will soon rise here in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. But his influence can be seen throughout it. The project, which occupies the 437-acre site of the abandoned Military Ocean Terminal, is being built with the help of nearly $30 million in federal funds that Mr. Menendez secured using his trademark policy expertise and aggressive politicking. His work provided the seed money for a plan to produce movie studios and shops, marinas and waterfront parks, and 6,600 homes. The project has also produced considerable work for some of his chief political supporters. The first major contract to develop the site went to a company that hired a Menendez friend and political confidant, Donald Scarinci, to lobby for it. That developer later took on Mr. Menendez’s former campaign treasurer, Carl Goldberg, as a partner. Bonds for a portion of the project were underwritten by Dennis Enright, a top campaign contributor, while Kay LiCausi, a former Menendez Congressional aide and major fund-raiser, received lucrative work lobbying for the project. Mr. Menendez said he had no role in securing the contracts for any of his friends. But the project, known as the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, nonetheless displays the two contrasting images of Mr. Menendez — one a fiery advocate who brings home federal aid for his constituents, the other a political empire builder who detractors say pushes too much largess toward his friends. Whether Mr. Menendez’s considerable clout in Congress is matched by cronyism, or worse, at home, has become one of the central issues in the Senate race he is waging against State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., his Republican challenger. Republicans have portrayed Mr. Menendez as a modern-day political boss, presiding over an apparatus not of union stewards, ward heelers and precinct captains, but of lawyers, developers and lobbyists who fill his campaign coffers. In a year when Republican candidates are on the defensive, Mr. Kean’s steady attacks on Mr. Menendez’s ethics have made the New Jersey race one of nation’s closest and nastiest. A loss here, where Democrats have not lost a Senate race since 1972, would endanger the party’s hopes of winning control of the upper chamber.