Conservative Principles Now

TRENTON - You don't usually just get a high five with At-Large Councilman Manny Segura. You get a high ten. Hard. Followed by the embrace. And that's on a day when he isn't announcing his run for mayor. On Sunday afternoon, in the midst of a driving rainstorm threatening to turn into ice, Segura at the front end of a five month campaign in New Jersey's capital city brought his own usual energy level, amplified by a statewide constellation of new blood stars vigorously backing him in his 2010 mayoral run. Positioning himself as the change candidate following the 20-year era of Mayor Doug Palmer, the widely grinning Segura, a former minor league ballplayer now in his 50's who years ago twice talked to the Cincinnati Reds, jogged into Roman Hall to the strains of the Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta' Feeling, hand clutched and slapped his way to the head of the banquet hall and shouted, "It's good to be alive. It's beautiful to be a Trentonian! "I've spoken with many people - good people, working people, family people, young people - and it's sad when you hear them talk about what Trenton has come to be," said the candidate, standing in front of a blown up photo of the bridge across the Delaware with the old Industrial Revolution boast visible from the floor: "Trenton makes, the world takes."

CHERRY HILL - Gov. Jon Corzine jumps onto a stage in front of hundreds of union workers in the parking lot behind Camden County Democratic Party headquarters. "You must send a message that the labor movement is alive and well," Corzine yells. "Let's win tonight. We are ten hours and ten minutes away. If we get out the vote, we win this election. I ain't gonna lay off 10,000-20,000 public employees. We're gonna build power plants and get our union brothers back to work. The only thing that counts is bottom up." The speech is shouted out to the throng of men and women stretched out in front of the stage. "We're gonna win this because of you," yells Corzine to a roar of approval before falling into the embrace of Donald Norcross, the man who helped build this vaunted South Jersey labor organization.