Donald Norcross

DENVER – Standing in the lobby of the Inverness Hotel this morning flanked by Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan and Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero, former Gov. Jim Florio said that he’s very excited to see his former commuting-mate tapped for the Democrats’ Vice-Presidential nomination.

“I’m very enthusiastic.  He’s a personal friend,” said Florio, a superdelegate who originally supported Hilary Clinton.

During his years in Congress from 1975 to 1990, Florio, who commuted to Washington daily from the 1st District, would occasionally find himself on the same train as Biden, who commuted from Delaware.  That led to a friendship and the occasional campaign function attended by Biden.

A Democratic National Committeewoman who was one of the first superdelegates to slip from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama was defeated for re-election tonight. The New Jersey Democratic State Committee replaced Christine “Roz” Samuels with Stephanie Bush-Baskette, a former Assemblywoman from Essex County.

A Democratic official says that Samuels’ defeat was unrelated to her defection to Obama in a state where most of the party leadership lined up behind Clinton. Sources say that the DNC seat traditionally goes to Essex, and Democratic County Chairman Phil Thigpen decided today to replace Samuels with Bush-Baskette.

Citing comments former President Bill Clinton made about Obama, Samuels dropped her support of Clinton just after she won the New Jersey primary. A week later, she endorsed Obama. Samuels, a state NAACP Executive Board member, is a former Newark Teachers’ Union, Local 481 official.

The word among South Jersey Democrats is that Donald Norcross, the brother of one of the state’s most powerful political insiders, will replace Rob Andrews in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Sources say that the decision to send Norcross, the South Jersey AFL-CIO President and the Camden County Democratic Co-Chairman, to Congress appears nearly final – but that party leaders have little incentive to call a vote to ratify that choice anytime soon.

Obama State Director Tricia Mueller: Politicker photo 

HAMILTON - Politics and union organizing weld into one for Tricia Mueller, the new state director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Granddaughter of a Local 19 sheet metal worker or "tin knocker" as they're called in building and trades, Mueller first started working campaigns for her father, a telephone installer who served as the youngest mayor of Oakland, New Jersey.

"I could read a ward map from the time I was very small," said the 34-year old Camden native and chief political operative for the 17,000-strong New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters, as she sat in a Hamilton coffee shop on Thursday, three days into her tenure as Obama's state director.

"I come from the field," she told PolitickerNJ.com. "I believe voter contact, voter mobilization, and voter education represent civic duty at its finest."