JERSEY CITY – The war for the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) chairmanship goes on here with state Senator Brian P. Stack (D-33) driving hard into Hague-ville to, in effect, become Frank Hague’s successor on June 12^th.

A political historian, Stack knows how Hague – leader of the Hudson Democratic Party – once prevailed on Franklin Delano Roosevelt to kiss his ring for the Irish immigrant vote. He knows the power that the organization can and should wield as party operation for the county with the state’s biggest plurality of Democrats.

The state’s most avid campaigns and elections organizer, he’s up against a formidable albeit unlikely opponent in high school teacher Amy DeGise, who, if she were to win, would become the first woman to head the HCDO. The daughter of Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise, Amy DeGise comes from a family that doesn’t intimidate, out of step for some politicos here in a county that produced Frank “I am the Law” Hague.

But in the door to door Jersey City war, the young DeGise connects to people emotionally and with easygoing familiarity. She’s from the Heights section of Jersey City. Born and reared. So her strategy hinges on trying to wrest some of Jersey City’s 362 county committee votes away from Stack, who’s gone all in personally to the county’s biggest city.

Mayor Steven Fulop’s allies insist Stack will be fine, but the Union City mayor wants hard commitments – so he’s doing it himself.

“It’s like that scene in Goodfellas, where the kid is carrying the umbrella for Tutti,” remarked a source. “Brian is literally going door to door in the rain.”

DeGise is also out there, and hitting her rival hard, trying to make the case that the state senator’s endorsement of Republican Governor Chris Christie hurt the HCDO, and hurt public sector workers, including teachers like herself.

“There are 100 people on that list who don’t belong to Steve Fulop,” a source insisted to InsiderNJ. “The question becomes, who shows up?”

The Stack-DeGise collision to lead the county that Frank Hague once defined as a political empire routinely prompts Hudson pols to reexamine their own recent political history and reflect on those past fights that intertwine with this latest bout.

2007 was a big and important one, with lasting implications.

That was when Stack – looking to move up from the Assembly and make a statement in the process – ran off the line and defeated West New York Mayor Sal Vega to succeed Senator Bernie Kenny of Hoboken. Stack fielded a countywide team, including Lou Manzo for senate in LD31 and Jersey City Police Officer Sean Connors for senate in LD32. Sandy Cunningham, widow of the late Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham, beat Manzo and incumbent state Senator Nick Sacco (D-32) defeated Connors. But Stack fulfilled the core of his mission when he won off the line, establishing himself as an independent political force separate from the HCDO. He would go on to make peace with Sacco, in part as the county tried to coalesce around what was then the fledgling gubernatorial candidacy of Fulop. Ironically, the 2015 reelection campaign of Tom DeGise brought the North Hudson bosses together. But it proved a brittle peace, with Stack – and Fulop – this year finally losing their tolerance for DeGise as county executive.

Before then, there was that brutal rift between U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and the late Jersey City Mayor Cunningham, a fight that included the Cunningham-allied Fulop unsuccessfully challenging Menendez for his congressional seat in 2004, and setting up what would become a longstanding uneasy relationship between Menendez and Fulop. They would enjoy a brief run of goodwill when Fulop appeared to gear up for a 2017 gubernatorial run, but they could never sustain deep-set ties.

Cunningham versus Menendez also highlighted the longstanding animosity between Senator Sandy Cunningham and DeGise, who lost his 2001 Jersey City mayoral bid to her late husband. Menendez’s fight with Glenn Cunningham allowed DeGise to get closer to Menendez, and the two have remained longstanding allies. The senator personally appeared at DeGise’s 2019 reelection kickoff in the middle of DeGise’s war with Stack and Fulop. Despite making peace with the HCDO in 2007 to land Glenn Cunningham’s LD31 senate seat and teaming up with DeGise’s allies that year, Sandy Cunningham would maintain a certain independence from the organization over the last decade and, unsurprisingly, is pulling for Stack over Amy DeGise to lead the HCDO.

As of right now, with less than three weeks to go, the fight to secure the party leadership linkage back to Hague unsurprisingly comes down to the performance of the committee in Hague’s hometown of Jersey City, where both candidates claim strong ties.