A voice for blue Jerseyans

In just 16 months, blogger Juan Melli and his Web site, bluejersey.com, have become a galvanizing force for New Jersey liberals and an increasingly influential must-read for the politically inclined.

Any anonymity the Internet once afforded the 26-year-old Princeton University engineering graduate student is now gone.

Gov. Corzine invited Melli to last week's State of the State address. NJN asked him to appear as a pundit. And New Jersey's leading political Web site, politicsnj.com, named him 2006 politician of the year.

The blog created by Melli, born in Argentina and raised mostly in Washington Township, Gloucester County, hit its stride several weeks ago, producing Web ads on bluejersey.com supporting same-sex marriage. The gay-rights group Garden State Equality liked the ads so much it planned to show them on cable television statewide in mid-February.

"When we win marriage for gay couples – which we're convinced is going to happen in New Jersey in two years – you'll be able to point to Juan Melli as one of a handful of people who made it happen," said Garden State Equality head Steve Goldstein, whose group named Melli one of New Jersey's most influential political figures of 2006.

Goldstein said Melli and his team of bluejersey.com bloggers showed there was straight support for gay marriage. That support, he said, nudged politicians into supporting civil unions, which were legalized last month in New Jersey.

Melli started his blog in September 2005, amid the brutally nasty governor's race between Democrat Corzine and Republican Doug Forrester.

Melli "wanted to learn more about state government and politics," he said. He recruited about a dozen Jersey-centered political bloggers – black, white, Latino, gay, straight – ranging in age from their 20s to early 50s.

One of blog's strengths "is the quality of the content," said Thurman Hart, a political scientist who blogs on bluejersey.com under the name Xpatriated Texan. "If we were putting out bad content, nobody would pay attention," he said.

Melli said he started the blog as a voice for liberal Democrats.

"In the political process, it seemed like there was a voice that was missing," he said.

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, a Central Jersey Democrat, said: "The success of Blue Jersey shows there really was a constituency out there that wanted a place to discuss the issues and, occasionally, to banter."

In addition to the partisan punditry, the blog breaks news. Last year, when news stories reported the U.S. attorney was investigating a business deal involving U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, Melli unraveled a mini-mystery. E-mails critical of Menendez – worded along the lines of attacks by Republican contender Thomas H. Kean Jr. – were appearing on the blog under the names of Cleanupnj, AmadeusNJ and Usedtobeblue.

On Sept. 20, Melli published a report under the headline: "Confirmed: Kean Jr. Campaign Behind Astroturfing."

Melli said the e-mails came from a Kean campaign Internet address and used wording strikingly similar to newspaper quotes attributed to Kean spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker.

Melli's report concluded: "You're nothing but a bunch of liars, and sadly, you can't even do that well."

Hazelbaker and the campaign denied any involvement in the e-mails. She declined to comment for this story.

Melli has an easy, natural smile. He jokes about the stereotype some people have of bloggers and said he thought of attending the State of the State address in pajamas "because that's what people think bloggers do."

For now, Melli's blog and political passion remain mostly hobbies. He's a mechanical engineer researching the mechanics of how fish swim. A possible future application would be "to make underwater vehicles turn like a dolphin," he said.

Could happen. Melli has already helped the state's liberal Democrats sting like virtual bees.