Can the Rifts in the Republican Party Heal in Time for the November Election?

With less than a month to go before Woodbridge municipal election, the Republican candidates have been quietly working the phones and ringing doorbells.

The effort hides the fact that the politicking has been going on in two equal but separate Republican camps. The animosity in the Woodbridge Republican party is borne from the , when mayoral candidate Chris Struben and his slate beat out Republican councilman Bob Luban and his team in an upset, still hasn't evaporated.

There may have been some progress, though, in the unification of the disparate party factions in time for the Nov. 8 general election.

, the one council-at-large candidate from the Luban ticket who won in the primary, has been running separately from the Struben team. At local events which politicians traditionally use to establish a presence with the public, the has set up their tables, while Boros has been doing the politicking for her campaign by herself.

Boros held a fundraiser Monday night at the Woodbridge Bowling Center. She expected supporters, part of what she calls "a truly grassroots effort", to show up and lend support.

They appeared, and so, surprisingly, did Chris Struben.

It was, to anyone's recollection, one of the few times Struben and Boros had appeared together in public since the primary.

Struben is running against incumbent Democrat John McCormac for the mayor's seat. Republican council at-large candidates Eduardo Ascolese, Walter Kaczmarek, Jr., and Debra Reinhart who ran with Struben are running on the regular Republican line for election, as is Sue Boros, the only candidate from the Luban team to win in the June primary.

They are pitted against Democratic incumbent council members James Carroll, Gregg Ficarra, and Brenda Yori Velasco. , another Democrat who was appointed to his at-large seat, is also running for a first time election.

In the Third Ward, Michele Charmello, who was appointed to her seat by McCormac to fill the term left by a resignation, is running for election to the seat she holds. On the Republican side, Pradip "Peter" Kothari is aiming at the Third Ward council slot.

Whether it was a sign of a rapprochement between the feuding factions of the local Republican party, though, was unclear. Struben posed for pictures at the Boros fundraiser with the candidate herself, and in one picture, Luban and Struban appeared to be cordial.

Neither Struben nor Boros, though, were particularly anxious to discuss the ongoing problems with party infighting.

"I wish Sue all the luck in the world as a Republican candidate," Struben said in an interview.

Boros said that Struben came to the fundraiser, but not at her invitation. "Struben turned his back on me. He's made up his signs, they're out on lawns. My name isn't on them," she said.

For his part, Struben said he only cared about getting Republicans elected next month, and letting "" over the party's seeming inability to heal their internal rifts.

"All that matters is that Republicans get elected in the general election. Sue is a Republican I support. I was happy to donate to her campaign," Struben said. "I want her, and all Republicans in Woodbridge, to win."

Boros has held several fundraisers, and keeps her campaign moving along with the help of neighbors and friends. "We're cruising along. I have high school kids, we're going out every weekend. We're trying to win an election," she said. "We're beyond grass roots in how we've drawn people to work on my campaign."

Luban, the sole Republican on the council, has been helping Boros with her fundraising and campaigning. He was cordial towards Struben.

"We're all Republicans. We're all working toward one goal," Luban said.

Tom Maras, a former Republican ward chairman who recently resigned from the Republican party to become an independent, said he was glad to see the two sides trying to work their differences out.

"I'm glad to see that the factions inside the party are coming together in a more united way to stand against the McCormac regime," Maras said.

He said he was "glad to witness the closing of ranks" against the mayor.