Despite telling multiple press outlets that she was running and despite professionally produced fundraising appeals for a campaign for U.S. Senate, Anna Little has not decided whether of not she will challenge Joe Kyrillos for the GOP nomination to unseat Robert Menendez.
Little’s manager, Larry Cirignano, told The Asbury Park Press, “She’s thinking about it. She wants to wait and see what the people think –if they want a choice or are they satisfied with the field. It’s (a matter) of who is the best person to beat Menendez.”
Highlands GOP Municipal Chairwoman Carol Bucco has already weighed in. Bucco and her husband Tony, long time Little supporters, were in attendance at Kyrillo’s campaign kickoff event at the Lincroft Inn in Middletown yesterday. Sources tell MMM that Bucco declined to sign Little’s nominating petition.
State Senator Joe Kyrillos will officially launch his campaign for U.S. Senate with two events tomorrow.
The first event will be in Kyrillos’ hometown of Middletown; 11am at the Lincroft Inn, 700 Newman Springs Rd, Lincroft, NJ 07738.
In the afternoon, Kyrillos travels to Burlington County. His 3PM event will be at the Gibson House-Evesham Community Center, 535 E.Main Street, Marlton, NJ 08053
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez reacted to State Senator Joe Kyrillos’ formal campaign announcement with a statement of his own, issued to Politickernj.
“New Jersey’s voters will have a very clear choice if Senator Kyrillos becomes the Republican nominee- Senator Bob Menendez who fights every day for middle class New Jersey families or long-time Trenton insider Joe Kyrillos- who sides with corporations and special interests over working families and seniors and panders to the most extreme elements of the Washington Republicans,” Menendez campaign strategist Brad Lawrence said in an emailed statement today.
Clearly, Menendez has read the polls and knows his job is at risk. Recent polls indicate that Kyrillos has low name recognition outside of Monmouth County. For an incumbent Senator to react like he did guarantees that Kyrillos’ announcement will get press conference. Menendez, knowing he is vulnerable, has decided to try to define Kyrillos at the risk of increasing his name ID.
Menendez’s recent reversal on Magistrate Patty’s Shwartz’s nomination to the Third Circut Court of Appeals and his back peddling on the Internet Censorship Bill he is a sponsor of, are other indications that he knows his support is soft at best with New Jersey voters.
Menendez’s use of senatorial courtesy to block Shwartz’s nomination to the Appeals Court was met with fierce opposition in the legal community and speculation in the media that he was acting punitively because Shwartz’s boyfriend was the prosecutor who investigated him during his first campaign for Senate. The senator latter reversed himself, saying that after a second interview Shwartz was satisfactory after all.
After the enormous outcry this week against the Protect IP Internet censorship bill sponsored by Menendez in the Senate, lead by Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist and other major web sites, he tweeted, ”
Our country is in trouble and Washington is failing us. Americans have seen their neighbors lose their jobs, their home values fall, their savings shrink, and their economic horizon darkened by a record $15 trillion national debt. Washington has responded with nothing but partisan squabbling and reckless spending, and now Bob Menendez is seeking reelection to deliver more of the same.
New Jersey needs a strong voice for change. As the father of two young children, I believe we can and must restore the limitless opportunities and freedom that made America great and inspired people like my own father to immigrate to this country. That’s why today I converted my exploratory effort into a campaign committee and will soon formally announce my candidacy for the United States Senate.
We have proven in New Jersey that strong leadership can change things for the better. Under Governor Christie’s leadership and with the support of fiscal conservatives like myself, we took a state that had been mismanaged to the brink of bankruptcy, and we turned it around. I intend to do the same in Washington. Voters have a clear contrast – Bob Menendez will offer more of the same: more debt, more spending and more joblessness. I will offer real solutions to renew America’s promise.
The dean of the Monmouth County legislative delegation is running for United States Senate.
MMM has confirmed that State Senator Joe Kyrillos has completed his exploratory activity and will announce his candidacy to replace Robert Menendez in the United States Senate today.
Kyrillos has represented northern Monmouth County in the state legislature for over two decades. The close friend and advisor of Governor Chris Christie is also a former NJ GOP State Chairman. He chaired Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in New Jersey in 2008 and was Christie’s campaign chairman in 2009.
Kyrillos established an U.S. Senate Exploratory Comittee last June to evaluate the viability of a potential campaign to unseat Menendez in a presidential election year. His announcement today is an indication not only that he and his senior supporters see a path to victory, but that the highest levels of the NJ GOP believe that New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes are in play during the presidential election.
New Jersey has not elected a Republican U.S. Senator in 40 years and has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988.
Republican pollster Adam Geller, who has consulted with the Kyrillos Exploratory Committee says Menedez is vulnerable. Despite out polling Kyrillos, former Highlands Mayor Anna Little and a generic Republican, only 43% of New Jersey voters support the incumbent Senator. “That is Jon Corzine territory,” Geller said in a memo to the Kyrillos committee last week.
Prominent Republican pollster and FoxNews analyst Adam Geller says that today’s FDU poll which has U.S. Senator Robert Menendez beating either Republican State Senator Joe Kyrillos or former Highlands Mayor Anna Little by a 43%-31%, is very bad news for Menendez.
In a memo to the Kyrillos for Senate Exploritory Committee obtained by MMM Geller said:
The takeaway from today’s FDU poll is Bob Menendez is very vulnerable and this is a real opportunity for a good candidate to defeat him. Any incumbent under 50% is in trouble and Menendez is under 45%, which means he is in major trouble. That is Jon Corzine territory
Joe Kyrillos, even though not yet a candidate, would make a very strong opponent for Menendez because of his personal and fundraising base and his consistently strong fiscally conservative voting record in New Jersey.
I would also note that only 28% of voters think the country is headed in the right direction. That is a terrible number for an incumbent arguing that he ought to be re-elected.
The bottom line of this poll is that if Joe Kyrillos were to jump into this race, Bob Menendez is in serious trouble.
If all press is good press, then Anna Little’s fledgling U.S. Senate campaign got a boost this morning when The Star Ledger’s PolitFact gave her claims about Senator Robert Menendez’s spending and borrowing record a “MOSTLY FALSE” rating on the TRUTH-O-METER.
Little avoided the “PANTS ON FIRE” designation the Ledger gives for completely false claims, but earned the newly created Hot Pants designation from MMM.
What is most surprising about this morning’s PolitiFact post is that it has been up at NJ.com for two hours and it doesn’t have any comments from Rullo supporters, yet.
Senator Robert Menendez denies he is preventing Federal Magistrate Patty Shwartz’s appointment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals because her boyfriend is the federal prosecutor who lead the corruption investigation into the senator during his 2006 campaign, according to a report at Politico.
Menendez said it wasn’t appropriate to debate a potential judges qualifications in the press, before he went on to malign Shwartz:
“It is incredibly disappointing and unfortunate that my real concerns over the suitability of Judge Shwartz to serve a lifetime appointment as circuit court judge have been spun as some petty political vendetta by some of her supporters,” Menendez said in a statement to POLITICO.
“I proceeded to ask her substantive legal questions and was not fully satisfied with her responses,” Menendez said. “In my opinion, Judge Shwartz did not adequately demonstrate the breadth of knowledge of constitutional law and pivotal Supreme Court decisions such as Citizens United that we should expect from a United States Circuit Court judge.”
“In the interview with Judge Shwartz, in my opinion, she misapplied the application of strict scrutiny versus rational basis review to the questions at hand,” Menendez added. “She did not express substantive knowledge as to the scope of the rights of corporations under the Constitution or jurisprudence on the constitutional limits of Executive Branch powers.
Menendez lied to me personally and didn’t respond when I called him on it, in the months after Jon Corzine appointed him to the Senate. Thus my bias makes it difficult to believe anything he says. He’s just not trustworthy.
Character, scholarship, temperament and a demonstrated ability to do the job. One would hope that those are the most important qualities our U.S. Senators consider when they participate in the vetting of potential federal judges.
Evidently, who potential judges share their beds and bodies with are a more important consideration to New Jersey’s U.S. Senators; Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez.
Two weeks ago we read the news that Lautenberg passed over candidates expected to be nominated for federal judgeships in New Jersey and “out of nowhere” endorsed New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s brother-in-law to sit on New Jersey’s District Court.
Today we read that Menendez is using senatorial courtesy to block the nomination of U.S. Magistrate Patty Shwartz to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Shwartz has been in a relationship with James Nobile for two decades, according to The New York Times. Nobile is the head of the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s public corruption unit which investigated Menendez in 2006 while the Hudson County pol was running for his own term as Senator after having been appointed by Governor Jon Corzine.
Menendez was elected despite the news of the investigation. The investigation has been closed with no charges filed.
John Farmer, the tie breaking member of the congressional redistricting commission, chose the Republicans’ map because, in his view, it created the possibility of two more minority districts than they Democratic map did, according to a report by Mark Magyar at NJSpotlight.
The new 9th district’s population is 53.1% minority. Leaders of the minority community were pleased with the map, counting on it becoming a minority represented district once Bill Pascrell, who turns 75 this month, retires. But Steve Rothman, 59, challenging Pascrell in the Democratic primary makes eventual minority representation less likely, which could lead to a minority challenger entering the 9th district Democratic primary. That’s the point of Magyar’s piece.
The addition of all of Trenton and Plainfield in Rush Holt’s district, presumably makes the 12th the other potential minority district.
The NJGOP should identify and agressively recruit high quality minority candidates to run in these districts. A Hispanic in 9 and an African American in 12. Then the GOP should raise the money to make those campaigns competive.
The GOP should recruit and fund an Asian American to challenge Frank Pallone in the 6th, while they are at it, unless Diane Gooch decides to run.
If running competively in the 9th, 12th and 6th is considered a pipedream, than it is also a pipedream that Joe Kyrillos can beat Robert Menendez for U.S. Senate or that the GOP presidential nominee can win New Jersey.
If the NJ GOP uses the same old playbook it will get the same old result.
The dean of the Monmouth County legislative delegation is running for United States Senate.
Prominent Republican pollster and FoxNews analyst Adam Geller says that today’s 
If all press is good press, then Anna Little’s fledgling U.S. Senate campaign got a boost this morning when