By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Two supporters of Republican Party mayoral candidate Richard Woodbridge busied themselves setting out orange and black plastic plates, knives, forks and spoons — the colors of Princeton University, Mr. Woodbridge’s alma mater — on a pool table at the Ivy Inn Tuesday night.
One by one, Mr. Woodbridge’s backers trickled in through the front door. There was Cosmo Iacavazzi, the Princeton University football star and a college classmate of Mr. Woodbridge, and former Borough Council member Irv Urken.
Three flat-screen TV sets, tuned to CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, helped the Woodbridge crowd to keep tabs on the Obama-Romney race.
A dee-jay blasted music in the background, turned up to such a volume that conversation was impossible without shouting. But that didn’t seem to bother the group, some of whom were watching the TV screens while others stood around with refreshments.
Then, around 8:15 p.m., Mr. Woodbridge walked in. He was swamped with well-wishers, and found it difficult to make his way through the crowd. Everyone wanted to talk to him. Eventually, he made his way to the far end of the bar, where a laptop computer had been set up to tabulate election results.
As the results began to come in, Mr. Woodbridge commented that with two election districts yet to report vote tallies, it appeared that there was a gap of about 1,000 votes between himself and Democratic Party mayoral candidate Liz Lempert — and not in his favor.
As the last of the votes came in, he commented that “I thought we would do a little better than that. We ran a credible campaign, an enthusiastic campaign, a ‘big tent’ campaign. There was not much more we could do.”
By around 8:40 p.m., it was all over.
Mr. Woodbridge, obviously disappointed, climbed up onto a small stage to address his backers.
”We gave it a good shot,” he said.
”We ran as good a campaign as it is possible to run in this town. It’s the most wonderful campaign I have been in. We gave the town a choice,” he said.
And then he was off to extend his congratulations to Ms. Lempert.

