Seconds after the final vote was tabulated in Tuesday night's school board elections, Mayor Anthony Russo hopped on a table at the Russo Civic Association and began waving a broom over his head to the loud applause of campaign workers, city officials and other supporters. The mayor was jubilant because the "Excellence in Education" school board slate, which was backed by City Hall, had just swept the elections, placing three Russo allies on the Board of Education, including the mayor's wife, Michele. But that was not the only reason he was smiling. This election has always been about more than who sits in the three seats on the board. With about a year to go before the next mayoral contest, and with a Russo on the ballot, this election was viewed by many political pundits as a mini-referendum on the two-term mayor. After Ed Stinson, a handpicked Russo candidate, lost to long-time political activist Tony Soares in a citywide council election last November, just months after Ruben Ramos Jr., another reformer, won the 4th Ward, it appeared that the once-powerful Russo political machine was faltering. Many wondered if it would fall apart all together after the mayor checked into a hospital suddenly last month to have a cancerous tumor removed from his brain. Hoboken Parents United, the opposition slate backed by the mayor's political opponents, made City Hall, its officials and its tactics a central theme in the election. Over and over again, they touted their own independence while taking pointed jabs at George Crimmins, the city's Business Administrator, for also holding the position of custodian of school monies, a post that entitles him to a $5,000 salary. They also claim that City Hall had orchestrated a pair of arrests of Perry Belfiore, the Hoboken Parents United senior candidate. But in the end, their arguments did not carry the day with voters. Standing outside of the civic association that bears his name, Russo said that the election opponent's campaign strategy had failed because they tried to make him the issue rather than an education agenda. Earlier in the night, Russo had made his point by holding a blank piece of paper up and saying, "here is their education agenda!" "When it comes to the Board of Education, you can not fool the people," said Russo to the "uh-huhs" and "yups" of a small crowd of family and supporters who had thronged around him. "You can not politicize the board. That is why I never get involved with the board's policies. But that is exactly what they did. The best candidates won this election because they had the best issues." The energetic 53-year-old mayor, who has already announced his intention to run for a third term, was emphatic about the relevance that this election would have on the coming mayoral campaign. "This is absolutely relevant," he said. "That is why I wanted to have a Russo running, so it would be crystal clear what this would be about. My public relations advisers advised me not to put someone with the Russo name out there, but I wanted to, because it seems to always be about me no matter who runs." Opposition shrugs At Signore's, a Hudson Street tavern where the Hoboken Parents United backers had gathered election night, many of the politicos sought to downplay the long-term relevance of the election on the city's political landscape. "We may have lost the battle, but I think that we are going to win the war," said City Councilman Tony Soares, referring to efforts he is making with like-minded city officials to eventually wrestle the keys to City Hall from Russo. "There are a lot of positive things for us in this election. I think that we would have won if they had not shut commuters out of voting by making the polls only open from 2 to 9 p.m. His base came out to vote, but the new voters who commute were not able to vote before they left for work." (Earlier this year, the board decided not to expand voting hours due to the expense of manning the voting booths. A number of New Jersey cities hold school board election voting hours from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., but few of them have the high number of commuters that Hoboken does.) Others pointed to the low turnout as evidence that the school board race was just a blip on the screen, not indicative of a larger pattern. "Its hard to extrapolate anything from a school board election because they are so unique," said Phyllis Spinelli, a longtime political activist. City Councilman Dave Roberts, a potential mayoral candidate himself, said that the election loss would not slow down the coalition that opposes the mayor and his policies. "We are going to continue to be an independent group that will challenge the administration," he said. Whatever the long-term significance of the race, it was clear Tuesday night that the election was good for Russo's spirits. Other than his newly-shaved head, which was precipitated by ongoing radiation treatments, the mayor gave no sign of suffering from the operation to remove the tumor from his brain. He pounded the table vigorously when positive news about the vote tally was reported, hugged his candidates boisterously when they won, and addressed the crowd in a loud booming voice from atop the table, after he put down the broom. "This will uplift me to the nth degree," Russo said. "This is the best get well card I have ever received."