Ballantyne Strides the Harrah’s Hallways with Currie and Company: An Itemization of Murphy Dinner Guests
ATLANTIC CITY – Foxholed with the Governor in a fight with Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) and South Jersey, Democratic State Party Chairman John Currie grinned amid the balloons and finery this evening, intent on organizational success.
Booker.
Check.
Murphy.
Check.
Bodies.
Check.
Scutari.
Check.
Tom Perez.
Check (tomorrow).
Menendez.
Check (tomorrow).
Recognizable faces materialized.
Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes. Lambertville mayoral candidate Julia Fahl. Somerset County Democratic Chair Peg Schaffer. Hudson Chair Amy DeGise. Morris Democratic Chairman Chip Robinson.
There was Brendan (no surprise) Gill.
Phil Swibinski operated and soothed.
“Heading over to Ras Baraka’s party later,” someone told InsiderNJ.
Baraka.
That’s a party atmosphere name, or so the nugget – delivered with a sense of festive goodwill – suggested.
Alright, so he was here.
And then there were those obvious South Jersey antagonists.
Being seen.
A beaming Bill Castner.
A beaming John Ballantyne.
Discharged as chief of the Carpenters union after radiating too big a comfort zone with Murphy, Ballantyne positively gleamed with happiness as he strolled the Harrah’s hallways with Currie, state party political guy Axel Owen and Lizette Delgado Polanco, vice chair of the party.
People getting bused in.
Bused in tonight.
Bused in for breakfast tomorrow.
“They are missing the legislature’s two leaders, majority leaders, budget chairs, and the three largest chairs on a night they had the chairs’ meeting,” one source seethed from afar.
A Murphy ally provided this, however, as evidence of robust attendance:
Chairs and other notables in the room at Murphy-Currie dinner:
1- Ocean
2- Union
3- Somerset
4- Passaic
5 – Monmouth
6 – Hudson
7 – Warren
8 – Atlantic
9 – Morris
10 – Cape May
11 – Burlington
12 – Hunterdon
Parsippany Mayor Michael Soriano
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka
Bill Castner
Lloyd Levenson
Joe Baumann
Liz Gilbert
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