both internal and public polling show Congresswoman Mikey Cheryl is holding a slim lead among the crowded pack of Democrats vying to be the next governor putting a target on Cheryl's back that rival candidate and Newark Mayor Raz Baraka set in his crosshairs today traveling to the congresswoman's hometown in Essex County to take some direct jabs at Cheryl and the party organization backing her campaign senior political correspondent David Cruz reports six Democrats looking to succeed Phil Murphy as governor with most polling public and private showing Congresswoman Mikey Cheryl holding a slim lead with most voters saying they still don't know who they're going to vote for but the front runner is also generally the target of attacks from their opponents and that's what a lot of people expected from Rasparaka whose campaign has surprised many observers but Iraq's attack today was a little more nuanced the party bosses have chosen the congresswoman as her as the person that they want and so she has to be held responsible and the party has to be held responsible for that uh as well and and and she would have less responsibility if she would have not said the things that she said over and over again it's not so much the messenger said Baraka as the message itself platitudes and empty rhetoric that resemble plays from an old playbook that has the Democratic base disenchanted and apathetic at a time when the opposite is what the party needs at the heart of this thing it's not even really about Congresswoman Cheryl's it's really about the culture of what's going on in the state and the leadership of the party uh and people's inability to differentiate between Republicans and Democrats on these issues in the state of New Jersey and if you have leaders that are in the middle on these issues that are not clear that don't have a plan on these issues people are going to stay home i don't care how many parades how much money you spend how much hate mail how much other things you put out there the reality of this this is not an opportunity to hate on the congresswoman this is an opportunity to tell them to correct the direction if you're going to say we need to get rid of the old playbook then damn it that is the old playbook treating black and brown people the way the state has been treating us is the old playbook and they have to put it aside black and brown voters and progressives have been the base of this party giving huge pluralities to Democrats like Phil Murphy and said Baraka with little to show for it but segregated schools degraded health care options lackluster support for immigrant rights and a lack of economic opportunities from state government i think that's the thing as I I that's why I go back some you know 40 years you know to to his life as an undergraduate is someone who's been thinking about politics seriously for a long time you know um in some ways it's been his his vocation uh maybe not mainstream uh representative politics uh which has obviously come later in life for him but he's been thinking about it for a long time cheryl didn't reference Baraka's speech in a statement released this afternoon but said she agreed that there is deeply rooted systemic racism in New Jersey that it was at the core of her candidacy for governor and that fighting it would be a top priority when she gets to Trenton somebody has to do the dirty work but the person who does the dirty work gets their hands dirty and the people who don't do the dirty work keep their hands clean and so it really is a a challenge um to to figure out when the time is right and um you know those who keep on advertising their positive message maybe become the acceptable alternative so somebody's got to do it and maybe they all have to do it but um it is a it's it's a challenge to know when a few of the people we talked to today said off the record that they expected Baraka to go a little harder at Cheryl but analysts believe that any voters who turn away from Cheryl might not necessarily turn to Baraka which would make today's speech a bit high risk with potentially low reward as we head into the final full month of the primary season i'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News