The Star Ledger's 'Trail Mix' column today ran an item about the Forrester campaign paying Newark residents $20 a piece to attend a rally for the Republican candidate before last night's WBGO radio debate. (Via Blue Jersey.)

As Doug Forrester accepted the endorsement of a black minister on a Newark street corner yesterday, more than 100 local residents were on hand to hold up campaign signs and cheer him on.

According to more than half a dozen of them, they had been promised $20 apiece for their enthusiasm.

"I don't know a whole lot about who is running, but they are offering $20 and I came out to work for whoever needs help," said Sheree Baker, 50, of Newark.

Shakirah Jones, 22, also said she was promised $20 "to scream out his name, I guess."

Lest you think this is just some sort of stupid conspiracy theory, the Forrester campaign admitted paying the attendees.

Sherry Sylvester, Forrester's campaign spokeswoman, said that "about 40" local residents in Newark were paid $20 yesterday for hanging up signs, knocking on doors and putting literature in mailboxes. She said they attended the rally voluntarily.

But that's not what the attendees said.

...after Forrester left on his campaign bus, many in the crowd grew angry as word spread that in order to collect they would also have to show up outside last night's radio debate at the WBGO. "We got duped!" yelled one man who declined to give his name.

One woman who asked her name not be used said, "they told us we were going to come down here for an hour and we would get paid, period. I have a family to get home to."

Those of you not too familiar with New Jersey politics may roll your eyes and figure this is just typical Republican shenanigans, but nothing too worrisome. However, handing out money in traditionally Democratic disadvantaged areas is nothing new here. The state's Republicans have a history of using cash to depress the urban vote.

Columnist Errol Louis told the infamous story in a New York Daily News column last summer. It's worth noting that Louis was making the point that this is still a practice the GOP still practices, and not just in New Jersey.

In 1993, after winning a tight contest that put Republican Christie Whitman in the New Jersey governor's mansion by 26,000 votes, Whitman's campaign manager, Ed Rollins, triggered a national uproar about race, money and voting rights.

Boasting to reporters, Rollins said the GOP margin of victory came from the payment of $500,000 in "street money" to African-American ministers who agreed to "forget" to urge black voters to go to the polls.

Rollins quickly recanted his statement, particularly when federal investigators began asking questions, but many people believe to this day that he wasn't kidding.

So this is what Jon Corzine and New Jersey's Democrats are up against. If Forrester and the Republicans can't win the urban vote, they figure they can just buy it. And if they can't buy votes for their own guy, they can at least pay people to stay home.

The only good thing about this story is that it's coming out a week before the election rather than a week too late.