Sunday, March 14, 2010

CD 6

On its face, the race for the GOP nomination in CD 6 looks very much like that of CD 12. An solo-practice attorney who is the mayor of a small town is challenging a private citizen with no government experience, but who can spend over a million dollars of his/her own Wall St. fortune to fund the race. Ironically in both cases, it is the "career politician/attorney" who appeals to the "grass roots" while the wealthy private citizen appeals to the party apparatus.

Each race has other candidates who may compete in the primary but who have little if any chance of gaining a county party line. In CD 12, businessman David Corsi says he is running in the primary after running as an independent in 2008. In CD 6 Pastor Shannon Wright of Plainfield, who declared she would run for governor as an independent last year and then didn't file has been appearing for before Tea Party groups without getting any traction. She failed to get any votes at the Middlesex County GOP screening last week. Also in 6, Fabrizio Bivona of Bergen County has declared his candidacy and says he will run in the primary.

Wright's campaign and Corsi himself have reached out to me for exposure. At this point I am interested in informing convention/screening voters regarding their already viable choices rather than giving a hopeful who hasn't gotten traction free exposure. Change is a constant in politics. If something happens during the next two weeks that makes Wright or Corsi viable to earn the Middlesex or Monmouth County lines, I'll accept their requests for interviews, if they still want to. I haven't heard from Bivona.

Another similarity between CD 6 and CD 12 is that the mayors accepted the invitation to interview, while the wealthy private citizens, after initially accepting, sent messages through their staffs backing off due to scheduling conflicts. The invitations remain open.

Former Red Bank Councilwoman Grace Cangemi volunteered to interview Highlands Mayor Anna Little after I recused myself from doing so. The Gallaghers and the Littles are close family friends. I am the municipal chair in the town where Little is mayor. I thank Grace for stepping in and doing an excellent job, and I thank Mayor Little for making herself available.

In this first segment of nine, Grace asks Little about her personal, professional and political background, and how she intends to fund her campaign. Then they jump in the the biggest issue of the day, health care.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

only a fool would vote for a career politician. That tops the list of reasons not to vote for a candidate

Anonymous said...

So we should only elect people with no government experience?

I guess that means Ronald Reagan should not have been elected president because he served as a Governor of california and Chris Christy was a freeholder oh yeah and John Curley spent a lot of time as a councilman in Red Bank.

Maybe the Gooch Supporters should rethink that approach especially considering all the money Gooch gace to Democratic Career Politicians like Frank Pallone and Chris Dodd.

Anonymous said...

More importantly, will Grace challenge that crook of a mayor Pasquale Menna in the November election. Former Councilwoman Cangemi is the ONLY candidate who can beat Menna and restore integrity to Red Bank dating back to the days of Mayor Arnone (even Mayor Mckenna despite his personal problems, was a decent mayor, menna is just awful). Shes done it once - she can do it again.

Anonymous said...

it's all about making Frank spend down some of his big bucks,the hell with us in the district,really..it'd be a good year for a GOP woman to run for mayor of Red Bank, the 2 Dem females on council are up..don't know if Grace is interested.. we'll see, something needs to be done to break the backs of the "entitled," wherever they exist..