Evidently, the Bayshore Tea Party Group leadership and their candidates don’t like the coverage MoreMonmouthMusings is giving their primary campaign. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Barbara Gonzalez introducing sheriff candidate Dan Peters in the first video below.
Leigh-Ann Bellew stopped taking my phone calls a couple of weeks ago. She told someone to pass along the message that I should deal with Dwayne Horner. Now Horner is not returning my calls. Freeholder candidate Ed Pekarsky asked that I post Tom Fitzsimmons’ email and if he could respond here. I told him he could. He hasn’t sent me his response. It’s OK with me that he isn’t responding, but hey, Gonzalez wrote that I censored Tea Party posts, which I didn’t, and then her candidate doesn’t send it a post he that requested.
When I met Dan Peters in early April, he said he would sit for an interview. I’m writing a story about him for publication later today or tomorrow. Peters hasn’t returned three calls since yesterday.
It’s a lot easier to write “Bellew (or Horner, Peters, Pekarsky, etc) didn’t return a phone call,” than it is to write up their comments, but I’d really rather give them an opportunity to tell their side of the story.
In that spirit, here they are, telling their own stories on video:
We The Peopleof New Jersey do not support the Tea Party or Second Amendment movements, according to an Marist/NBC poll released this morning.
72% of the 1080 self identified New Jersey registered voters who responded to the poll said “No” when asked if they considered themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement. 19% said “Yes” and 9% were unsure.
The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 % and only questioned 22% of the amount of people that Leigh-Ann Bellew’s campaign surveyed, just in the 13th legislative district, two weeks ago.
Bellew’s campaign said that 83% or their respondents favor Tea Party candidates in the 13th. Campaign manager Dwayne Harris would not get into the specifics of the poll, like the margin of error or how many phone calls they had to make to reach 5000 people.
67% of registered voters think New Jersey needs stricter gun laws, per the Marist/NBC poll. 25% think New Jersey’s current gun laws should not be changed. 6% said New Jersey’s gun laws should be less strict. Harris wouldn’t say if the Bellew campaign polled the gun question.
27% of New Jersey voters consider themselves liberal. 32% consider themselves conservative and 40% consider themselves moderate, according to the Marist/NBC poll.
Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford overcame the scandal of his marital infidelity and abandoning his state. He was elected in a special election to the U.S House of Representatives last night.
Could former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey launch a similar comeback?
Sanford won by 9 points in a district that went for Mitt Romney by 18 points last November. Nate Silver argues that 13% of South Carolina’s 1st district voters withheld their support of Sanford over his sex scandal. McGreevey lives in Rush Holt’s 12 Congressional District of New Jersey. McGreevey could win that seat if it was open, unless Scott Sipprelle was the GOP nominee, but he wouldn’t challenge Holt in a primary.
But what about U.S. Senate? Senator Frank Lautenberg announced he is retiring. Newark Mayor Cory Booker won’t say if he is running, officially. Booker strung the Democratic Party along for too long before announcing he wouldn’t run for governor this year. McGreevey wouldn’t really be stepping on Booker’s toes if he announced a candidacy for U.S. Senate.
Congressman Frank Pallone says he wants Lautenberg’s job. He wouldn’t be too happy if McGreevey entered the senate race. But McGreevey offered Pallone the opportunity to become a senator in 2002 when Senator Robert Torricelli dropped out of his reelection campaign. McGreevey doesn’t owe Pallone anything.
Gay Rights is the progressive social issue of our day. Who would be a better standard bearing for Gay Rights in a New Jersey U.S. Senate race. Booker, Pallone or McGreevey?
McGreevey will appear with Governor Christie at the Hudson County Jail this morning. They are holding a press conference about the work that McGreevey is doing as a minister to incarcerated women. There will probably be YouTubes and spots on the evening news.
Timing is everything, they say, in politics. A governor driven from office in a sex scandal being elected to congress is good timing for McGreevey.
Cory Booker was out of state exploring a his candidacy for U. S. Senate, so Governor Chris Chistie had to rely on his father, Jon Bon Jovi, Alec Baldwin, James Carville, and Kim Guadagno playing solitaire to co-star in this year’s video for the New Jersey Press Association Legislative Correspondents Dinner. The dinner took place last night in Hamilton.
Anyone who has read Henry Vaccarro Sr’s book, Johnny Cash is a Friend of Mine, will recognize that Bon Jovi was reprising a role he’s mastered.
A fitness instructor and model, Melissa, 31, is competing in her first pageant. After Superstorm Sandy destroyed so much of her hometown, Highlands, she was moved to find a vehicle from which she could contribute to the rebuilding and recovery. Her platform is Restoring the Shore: Hope for Highlands.
Since Sandy hit, Melissa has been hard at work bringing happiness to the lives her Highlands neighbors who have suffered mightily. She promoted Operation Prom to make sure Henry Hudson Regional High School female students will have nice dresses to wear at their prom this weekend. Melissa and her sister Amanda appeared in an Anderson Live segment, Do car dealers rip off women in March.
The Mrs. New Jersey pageant is on Saturday, May 11, 7PM, at the Walter Edge Theater at Atlantic Cape May Community College.
Governor Chris Christie and Danny Shields in Highlands last week. Shields, an owner of Windansea, is Sen. Jennifer Beck’s husband. facebook photo.
Governor Chris Christie secretly underwent lap-band surgery in February. He has lost 40 pounds since, according to a report in the New York Post.
Christie told NYP that he underwent the aggressive weight loss procedure because he recently turned 50 and wanted to be around for his kids. He said it had nothing to do the presidential ambitions.
“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he said. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”
He also insisted that, contrary to what observers may say, the effort to slim down was not motivated by thoughts of a presidential bid.
“It’s so much more important than that,” he said.
The governor went to great lengths to keep the procedure secret. He did not go to his surgeon’s office, having the doctor visit him at his Mendam home. He checked into the surgery center under an assumed name.
The surgery took 40 minutes on the morning of February 16. Christie was home in the afternoon after having a silicone tube placed around the top of his stomach.
Before having the surgery, Christie spoke privately with Jets coach Rex Ryan. Ryan had the procedure in 2010 and has lost 100 lbs. since. Dr. George Fielding of the NYU Medical Center’s Weight Management Program performed the surgery on both men.
Monmouth County Democrat Chairman Vin Gopal told MMM that a representative of the Bellew for Senate campaign reached out to him for financial support and help in generating publicity for the Bayshore Tea Party backed slate of candidates in the 13th Legislative District Republican Primary. “We need help getting the truth out,” Gopal said the operative pleaded.
The campaign operative, who Gopal said is close to Bellew but not so involved with BTPG, said the campaign was having difficulty raising money, recruiting volunteers and getting positive press.
“I turned him down,” said Gopal, “this is a primary between two Conservative Republican tickets. It’s not our fight.
“Kyrillos may have run as a moderate in the U.S. Senate campaign last year,” Gopal added,” but based upon his voting record in the legislature, he is a Conservative as far as I am concerned. He’s voted against abortion rights, marriage equality rights and the millionaires tax.
“I’m glad to see the Republicans spending money fighting with each other instead of coming after us.”
MMM called Bellew, her campaign manager Dwayne Horner, and BTPG co-founder Barbara Gonzalez for comment. None have returned the call.
Bayshore Tea Party Group co-founder Barbara Gonzalez pinning Sen. Joe Kyrillos
MMM has challenged State Senator Joe Kyrillos to accept Leigh-Ann Bellew’s debate challenge ifBellew produces documentation of the law degree and undergraduate degree she told us she earned. MMM publisher Art Gallagher offered to moderate the debate.
Kyrillos laughed at the idea, but has not agreed. He didn’t decline either.
Gallagher called Bellew for Senate campaign manager Dwayne Horner to issue the challenge. Horner has yet to call back. A Bayshore Tea Party member who asked not to be named agreed to extend to the challenge to Bellew.
What’s a “messenger ballot?” Excuse me if my answer is a bit sketchy, but I’m just learning about it from a group of bad guys who appear to be illegally exploiting it.
I don’t know if other states are doing this, the history of it, the need for it, etc., but here in New Jersey we are learning the perils of not having people show up to vote in person and present identification.
Apparently a “messenger ballot” is allowed when one person acts as a “messenger” for a voter, picks up forms for the voter to be allowed to vote by messenger, then votes for the voter by absentee ballot.
Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
Does the phrase “penchant for fraud” even cross the minds of legislatures when passing such a statute? Or, in a Democrat-controlled legislature like New Jersey, is fraud the goal?
Goal or not, it certainly seems to be the result in Asbury Park, a city poorer than most and more liberal than San Francisco (with a fraction of the feigned sophistication).
Residents of Asbury Park vote for their entire governing body (5 people) all at once, in an off year and in May — when no one is paying attention.
There are 22 people running this year – four “tickets” of 5 people and 2 independents.
State Senate primary candidate Leigh-Ann Bellew owes her supporters, and the voters of the 13th Legislative District, the truth about her resume. Any candidate’s educational and employment history is an important consideration for voters to take into account when choosing their nominees and elected officials. Bellew is asking Republican voters to fire an long term and distinguished incumbent in Senator Joe Kyrillos, and to hire her instead. In order for her candidacy to be taken seriously, she needs to be transparent about her education, career and character.
Bellew has gone into hiding since the questions about her resume and education have become public. When the questions about her legal education arose in early April, Bellew told MMM that she graduated from law school in Texas but never took the bar exam. She said she went to work in customer service for American Express rather than pursue a career as a lawyer, and then exited the work force to raise her children.
However, since PolitickerNJ questioned the veracity of her resume, Bellew has stopped returning MMM’s repeated phone calls. Her campaign manager, Dwayne Horner, has not been able to provide answers.
Bellew, her running mates and campaign volunteers have been distorting Kyrillos’s record. Kyrillos is a moderate, but he is not a tax and borrow liberal as the Bayshore Tea Party Group backed ticket is claiming. Kryillos does not support partial birth abortion and death panels, as the duplicitous literature the BTPG backed campaign has been distributing claims.
If a candidate or campaign is going to take liberties with the truth about their opponent’s record, they at the very least should have the decency to be transparent about something as basic about their own education and career.
Leigh-Ann Bellew can put an end to all of this nonsense over her past by simply proving she has the degrees she has claimed she has. She should do that immediately. If Bellew has embellished her past, she should come clean about that and explain herself.
, will recognize that Bon Jovi was reprising a role he’s mastered.
