2011 Power List and Year in Review - PolitickerNJ.com

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year in review 2011
Winner of the Year, Runners-Up
lou stellato
There were some muffled laughs when the
former mayor of Lyndhurst became the new
Bergen County Democratic Chairman. After
Joe Ferriero’s meltdown and the tentative,
winless tenure of Mike Kasparian, who in
his right mind could possibly want the job?
Stellato did. A local political animal who
loved executive power, Stellato threatened to
challenge state Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-36) until
Sarlo helped broker the deal to make the
former Lyndhurst mayor chairman. Alert to
the doubters, Stellato said wins at the county
level would immediately make him credible.
He ended up leading a team that swept: David
Ganz and Joan Voss for two freeholder seats
and John Hogan for the clerk’s seat.
John Wisniewski
Post Joe Cryan, Wisniewski took over
at the state Democratic Committee as a
less than foundationally secure and hardly
scintillating substitute. He scrapped with
the mayor in his home county’s biggest town
and appeared to do little in his time in the
Democratic Caucus to secure the hearts
and minds of his colleagues. But despite his
detractors, Wisniewski has won battles all
year long. As the chairman of the Democrats’
redistricting team he watched the party walk
away with a map that could keep them in
control for a decade. He also was victorious
in a Middlesex County war over the successor
to Joe Spicuzzo, and scored wins across
the board on Election Day. While some in his
party persisted in taking pot shots from the
shadows, this future gubernatorial contender
was consistently unafraid to publicly take on
Gov. Chris Christie.
Troy Singleton
Yes, we know he had the South Jersey
empire behind him, but the affable Singleton
used his long-worked contacts in the Assembly
office gained from his days as staffer there and
in labor from his role as an organizer for the
Carpenters Union, to catapult himself into the
Assembly in LD 7. Those connections – plus
his early popularity in the caucus – put Singleton
on a fast track to leadership at this early
stage of his career as an elected official.
felix roque
When Hudson County political hangers-on
watched Roque show up at events in combat
boots, all but snapping salutes at grunt level
recruits, they delightedly sized up the ex-Army
colonel as an ego maniac, greatly out of his
political depth. A doctor specializing in pain
management, the establishment gave Roque
little chance of putting the hurt on incumbent
Silverio “Sal” Vega. But Roque worked a consistent
change message, rode voter dismay over
the Hudson County Democratic Organization
and finally blew Vega out of office.
Jeff Chiesa
Schooled by Gov. Chris Christie at the U.S.
Attorney’s Office, Chiesa surprised no one
when he showed up in the cabinet as the governor’s
chief counsel. As potent as he has been in
that role, according to insiders, he stands now
to put his biggest indentation on New Jersey to
date as Christie’s choice to succeed Paula Dow
in the office of state attorney general. Unlike
Dow, who burnished the governor’s bi-partisan
credentials and was named to the post in a nod
to Essex County, Chiesa is a true insider. That
worries some Democrats who fear the close
tie between the front office and the state’s chief
law enforcement agency.
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