For Buono, Party Leadership Fight Was Battle for Survival

On the surface, it looked like a battle of egos between Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), the Democratic nominee for governor, and Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D- Gloucester).

After all, Sweeney forced out the headstrong Buono as his Senate majority leader two years ago when she fought publicly against the controversial pension and health benefits bill that Sweeney teamed up with GOP Gov. Chris Christie to pass.

But the struggle over the state Democratic Party leadership that was resolved Thursday night with the compromise election of John Currie, the longtime Passaic County Democratic chairman, was really a war over power and money. The unspoken -- and unanswered -- question is whether the party will put its muscle behind Buono if she fails to close a 30-point gap with Christie quickly enough to satisfy party leaders, or pour all of its resources into the special U.S. Senate election and a handful of contested suburban legislative districts instead.

“We’re going to fight north to south, east to west, and we’re going to have a Democratic governor!” Currie proclaimed Thursday night.

But Currie acknowledged in an interview after the convention that Christie’s decision to hold a special election for the U.S. Senate just 20 days before the November election for governor and the Legislature -- a decision upheld by a three-judge Appellate Division panel yesterday -- could force an underfunded Democratic Party into tough choices about where to put its money.

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