Little For Senate: On Again

One day after The Star Ledger’s Auditor reported that Anna Little said she was going to look at the congressional redistricting map before deciding whether to run for U. S. Senate or take another run at Congress, she sent out fundraising email for her Senate campaign.

Please join me, my family & “Anna’s Army” as we begin this amazing journey to help New Jersey, America and each of our own families futures.

Thank you!

Anna Little
Conservative Republican Candidate
for the U.S. Senate (R-NJ) 

 

The redistricting map has not be determined yet.  Won’t be before Wednesday, at the earilest.

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Could Congressional Redistricting Impact the U.S. Senate Race?

New Jersey’s congressional redistricting commission has a deadline of January 17 to determine the lines of the state’s 12 new districts.  One incumbent congressman will be out of a job as a result of the 2010 U.S. Census determination that New Jersey’s population did not grow enough over the last decade to retain its 13 members of congress.

The commission’s chairman, Rutgers Law School Dean and former New Jersey Attorney General John Farmer, has stated that he wants the commission’s work to be completed by Wednesday of this week.   The commission of 6 Democrats, 6 Republicans and Farmer is meeting today in New Brunswick.

While no one will say with certainty which incumbents will be pitted against each other, the most likely scenario according to several reports has the commission merging the 5th Congressional District, now represented by Republican Congressman Scott Garrett, and the 9th Congressional District, now represented by Democratic Congressman Steven Rothman.  Garrett lives in the Sussex County township of Wantage in the northwest corner of the state.  Rothman lives in the Bergen County borough of Fair Lawn.  Unless the commission creates a district that is more gerrymandered than the current 6th, it is hard to imagine a new district that combines the current 5th and 9th and that includes both Wantage and Fair Lawn, that is not predominantly currently represented by Garrett.

Despite that apparent advantage to Garrett, based on this scenario, conventional wisdom is that the advantage would be Rothman’s.

Here’s the question that no one is asking:  If Garrett is redistricted into a race against Rothman, would he forgo that battle in favor of seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Robert Menendez for New Jersey’s junior seat in the U.S. Senate?

If Garrett determines that his new district is unwinable or too close for comfort, why wouldn’t he take a shot at the Senate race?   As one of the most conservative members of congress and a Tea Party favorite, Garrett does not have close ties to New Jersey’s moderate GOP establishment.  That the party establishment has apparently lined up behind State Senator Joe Kyrillos for the U.S Senate nomination would not phase Garrett.

Garrett had $1.6 million in cash on hand in his congressional campaign kitty as of September 30.  As Chairman of the House Sub-committee on Capital Markets and Vice Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Garrett has a valuable fund raising Rolodex.  He would be a formidable primary opponent for Kyrillos.

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Little Backing Off Senate Bid

The Star Ledger’s Auditor reports that former Highlands Mayor and former Freeholder Anna Little is backing off her bid to challenge State Senator Joe Kyrillos for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate next year.  Her eyes may be back on Congress.

For now, a tea party favorite, Anna Little, appears to be leaning toward a run, but she also has her eyes on Congress. She has set up a “Little for Senate” website, although she hasn’t declared her candidacy. “We’re thinking about looking at the redistricting maps before we do it,” she said.

The congressional redistricting map, which will reduce the number of congressional districts in New Jersey from 13 to 12, is expected to be announced this week.  

The Auditor also reported that former Roxbury councilman Tim Smith will not be a candidate and that State Senator Michael Doherty will probably not be a candidate.

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“The next senator from the state of New Jersey”

~ Lewis Eisenberg referring to State Senator Joe Kyrillos

While introducing keynote speaker Governor Chris Christie to the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidates Forum this morning, Lewis Eisenberg, the group’s chairman, gave a shout out to State Senator Joe Kyrillos as “the next senator from the state of New Jersey,” according to Herb Jackson at northjersey.com.

While in Washington with Christie, Kyrillos told The Hill,

“I am looking at it really closely,” Kyrillos said Wednesday in a brief interview with The Hill. “I feel a strong calling.”

Kyrillos does not have endorsements from Eisenberg or Christie, for past work, past runs for office, or for U.S. Senate, listed on his website.

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Little Endorsements

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Little Opening A U.S. Senate Campaign Account. Shakeup In Her Army

By Art Gallagher

Anna Little, the former Mayor of Highlands, former Freeholder and the 2010 GOP nominee in the 6th Congressional district is one step closer to challenging Monmouth County State Senator Joe Kyrillos for the GOP 2012 U.S. Senate nomination.

Little told Politickernj that she would be filing with the FEC today to open a campaign account for her U.S. Senate bid.

An embarrasing Little For Senate fundraising letter dated November 28, arrived in former donors’ mail boxes this week.

Atlantic Highlands Municipal Chairwoman Jane Frotten has resigned as Little’s campaign treasurer.  Atlantic Highlands Mayor Fred Rast has resigned as president of Anna’s Army Foundation,  “a non-profit educational foundation created in the image of Anna Little and her campaign for Congress in the 6th Congressional District of NJ.”

Until recently, the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Robert Menendez was seen as battle between Kyrillos and fellow State Senator Michael Doherty.  Kyrillos has a Senate Exploritory Committee.  Doherty has been traveling the state touting his Fair School Funding plan.  MMM has learned from very reliable sources that Doherty is leaning against entering the Senate primary.   If Doherty does stay out of the race, a head to head match up between Kyrillos and Little could be in the making.

Little should take a reality check and reconsider before her dreams of a political future are irreparably shattered.

Little made a name for herself with the stunning upset victory over Diane Gooch in the primary for the 6th congressional district nomination in 2010.   Little’s margin of victory was 84 votes out of roughly 14,000 cast.

What Little has failed to realize, and she stops talking to anyone who tells her the truth, is that she didn’t win that primary so much as Gooch lost it.

Not that her victory was an accident.  The strategy of the Little primary campaign was to sneak up from behind.  I know because I, then still a close confidant of Little, helped design the strategy.   None of the “experts” took Little’s challenge of the county party lines and the uber funded Gooch seriously going into the primary.  That was the key to victory.  Build a ground game to bring out new voters and count on the fact that the “experts” don’t see the Tea Party wave coming.   Even the Tea Parties were shocked by the depth of the 2010 tsunami.  David Corsi’s inexplicable primary victory over Scott Sipprelle in the Monmouth County portion of the 12th congressional district proves that the party establishment was caught with their pants around their ankles.

They won’t be caught off guard again.

The Gooch campaign’s primary strategy was to ignore Little and run against incumbent Congressman Frank Pallone.   It was a good strategy for a conventional time.   Conventional times ended in 2010 before the establishment realized it.

It wasn’t until the final weekend of the 2010 primary campaign when Little managed to get onto TV, that the Gooch campaign realized that they might have a problem.  They tried legal maneuvers, that failed, to get Little’s ads pulled.  It was too late to respond.   Little had successfully used the “surprise them” and  “get the last word” strategies that we had successfully used in Highlands campaigns many times.

The problem with a “don’t let them see you coming” playbook is that it only works once.

A key political operative with close ties to both Gooch and Kyrillos has been keeping a close eye on Little since she declared her rematch with Pallone on election night 2010.

“She won’t get a free ride next time,” said the operative on the condition of anonymity, “we had a thick opposition research file on her in 2010 but didn’t use it because we weren’t taking her seriously and didn’t want to hurt her needlessly.  The file has gotten a lot thicker in the last year.”

With their discharge from Anna’s Army, Frotten and Rast join the growing brigade of Monmouth County politicos who will no longer go to battle for Little. 

Roughly a year ago, this blog compared Little to Jon Corzine over a policy position she took in one of her final acts as the mayor of Highlands.   Unfortunately, it is becoming apparent that Little also shares a personality trait with the former governor.  She surrounds herself with people who tell her what she wants to hear and burns bridges with those who tell her what she needs to hear.

Little had a bright political future ahead of her on election night in 2010.   Then she started talking. 

She declared her rematch with Pallone, announced the formation of Anna’s Army and challenged Gooch, who had funded independent anti-Pallone ads, to a rematch.  She failed to thank her supporters, Tea Party and establishment, who were caught off guard by her lack of humility. 

She’s on the verge of crossing a line from which there will be no return.   She should reconsider and start mending fences.  Many of her old friends are forgiving.

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Is New Jersey the next Delaware?

By Art Gallagher

Is New Jersey the next Delaware?   That’s the question Politickernj raised earlier this week regarding the 2012 U.S. Senate race in NJ.  Politckernj is wondering if the 2012 U.S. Senate race in New Jersey will be similar to the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Delaware.

The short answer to that question is no. An incumbent was not running in Delaware in 2010. 2012 is a presidential year. 2012 will not be a repeat of 2010.  New Jersey is not Delaware.  More on that later.

As you might imagine, I have a unique perspective about the differences between New Jersey and Delaware, which is not related to electoral politics.  If you’re a reader of this site or The Asbury Park Press, you’re probably aware that I was arrested in my home in Highlands after 10PM on Friday October 14 on a fugitive warrant out of Delaware.  I’ve been charged with two felony counts of theft over $100,000 and two misdemeanor counts of forgery.  The charges will not be further discussed on this site, other than to say that I am confident of a favorable outcome.

The real reason I was arrested on a fugitive warrant is that the Delaware attorney I had engaged to arrange my surrender in Delaware failed to communicate with the investigating detective in a timely manner.   I have a different attorney now.

3 hours vs. 3 weeks

So far the biggest difference between my experiences in New Jersey and Delaware is time.  I arrived, as scheduled, to surrender in Delaware this Wednesday at 11am and was on my way home by 2PM.   As in Monmouth County, most of that time was spent waiting. 

I wasn’t handcuffed, patted down or locked up in Delaware.  The actual processing, (being photographed, finger printed and signing some papers) took about 10 minutes.   Then my attorney and I hung out until the fugitive warrant was removed from the system. We waited for a Justice of the Peace to finish his lunch and to appear via video for my bail hearing. The video bail hearing took less than five minutes.  My bail was set at $12,000.

Technically, I was detained until my family members posted my bail.  But I wasn’t really detained.  My attorney and I waited in the lobby of the police station for the bail to be posted.  I was even allowed to step outside of the building for a smoke, twice.

After about 40 minutes, I signed the bail receipt and was released from my detention in the lobby.  It took about a ½ hour to meet up with my family members who had posted my bail.   The clock in the car read 1:46 and we were on our way home.

That entire experience is very different than what I experienced in New Jersey.

At about 10PM on Friday October 14 I was arrested at my home in Highlands.  I was frisked and handcuffed.

At the Highlands police station I asked to call an attorney.  “We’re not questioning you.  We’ll let you call your attorney when we know what you can tell him,” was the reply.   I was photographed by the arresting officer twice.   My belt, shoes, cash, wallet and blackberry were confiscated and I was put into a cell.

A few hours later a sergeant came into the holding area to tell me what was going on.  A Monmouth County judge had set my bail at $250,000 with no 10% option.  “But there’s really no bail,” he said, “even if you post the $250,000 the fugitive warrant is still in place and you’ll be arrested again.”   “Your wife called, we’ll let you call her back in the morning before we transfer you to the county jail.”  “What are the charges?” I asked.  “Some kind of theft,” was his answer.

I managed to get some sleep on the thin plastic mattress and with the lights on.  In the morning an officer sat with me while I called my wife from a police station line that was being recorded.  I was given access to my blackberry to read her phone numbers for my attorney, family members and friends that she should call. I sent a text to my attorney.

Then I was transferred to the Monmouth County Correctional Institution where I spent the next three weeks.

$12,000 vs. $250,000 or $150,000

Why my bail was set so high in Monmouth County compared to the bail required in Delaware (where I am not a resident and have no ties to the community) remains a mystery to me.

At my bail reduction hearing in Monmouth County, which occurred after I had already been incarcerated for almost two weeks, the judge who reduced my bail to $150,000 with no 10% option said that such bail would be appropriate for like charges levied in New Jersey. 

The Asbury Park Press reported this morning that a former attorney was arrested for stealing over $200,000 from a client.  Those charges are somewhat similar to those levied against me. The former attorney’s bail was set at $35,000.

On November 1, The Asbury Park Press reported that a Wall Township attorney and her paralegal were indicted after a three year long investigation for stealing $800,000 from wards whose interests they were assigned to protect.  The attorney and the paralegal were each released on $75,000 bail.

In comparison, my bail in Monmouth County seems like an injustice and I realize that I sound like I am complaining.  That is not my intention. It is a mystery.

This experience has been incredibly difficult for me, perhaps more so for those who love me.  It has been life altering, yet I have faith that in the long run it will be for the good.

Over the next few days or weeks I’ll be writing more about my experience and some of the other differences I have noticed between New Jersey and Delaware.  

I’ll get back to writing about the political happenings in Monmouth, the State and the Nation. I’ll be writing about some of the things I missed while was away.  I may write about topics other than politics too. 

I won’t be writing about the charges against me.  Comments about the charges will be removed and those commenters blocked.  There are other sites that will accommodate my naysayers.

I am happy to be back. 

I am extremely grateful to the many, many people who have supported me throughout this ordeal and to those who have been supportive since my release two weeks ago.   In times of crisis like the one I have faced, you quickly learn who your friends are.

I am grateful to, and for, my friends and family.

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Who is Joseph Rullo?

A couple of MMM commenters have taken issue with the fact that we have not mentioned Joseph Rudy Rullo as one of the candidates for the 2012 GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.

Rullo, of Ocean County, has registered with the FEC as a candidate.

From the looks of his website, its hard to tell if Rullo is running for Senate or if he is promoting his solar energy business.

He says he loves the GOD of Abraham and JESUS CHRIST.  That he is a boy scout and likens himself to Mr. Smith who wants to go to Washington to make the real estate market stable, and end political and corporate corruption so that all Americans can be confident once again as players on a level playing field in our economy.

He says the focus of his campaign will be to give jobs to the unemployed, to turn consumer inconfidence into booming economic growth, to hold corporate and political leaders accountable to the constitution of the United States of America, to redirect financial and legal power to working legal Americans, to reward companies that employ Americans and tax companies that outsource to foreign countries, to freeze funding of countries like Pakistan that support terrorists and give that money back to America, to tax countries like China until they trade fairly and ethically in the United States, to identify every source of energy this country can produce within its borders and put America back to work, to support WTC victims and responders who are not being helped by the government with cancer and other related health problems, and to hand back government back to the people.

Rullo had ambitions to run for Congress in 2010.  He owns the website rullo4congress2010.com, the content of which promotes his solar energy company.

Forgive us for not taking Joseph Rullo seriously and including him in the posts about the U. S. Senate race.

Heretofore when covering the Senate race we will mention Rullo with a link back to this post, if we remember to do so.

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Menendez raises over $10 million

New Jersey Senator Has $6.9 million cash on hand

The Record’s Herb Jackson reports that U.S. Senator Robert Menendez has raised over $10 million in special interest contributions for his 2012 reelection campaign.   A look at the Senator’s FEC reports reveals that $5.3 million of that money was raised last quarter and that he had $6.9 million in cash on hand on September 30th.

Despite Menendez’s weak poll numbers, whoever the GOP nominates to challenge him will have a heavy lift.  New Jersey voters are split 40-38 percent over whether the Hudson County poll deserves another term, according to Quinnipiac, yet they favor him 43-39 percent over an unnamed Republican.

Most  All of the Republicans vying for the nomination are unnamed in the minds of New Jersey voters.  Joe Kyrillos, Mike Doherty and Anna Little are names well known in political circles and to readers of this site, but are not households names throughout New Jersey.   At the pace Menendez is raising money, the GOP nominee will likely need to raise $25 million or more to compete.

Little Impact

Anna Little’s fliration with the Senate race has many Republicans shaking their heads.  Others are scratching their heads.   Little’s FEC reports indicate no money raised in 2011 for her announced rematch against Frank Pallone. Yet Little has been sending fund raising letters,”paid for” by Anna Little for Congress 2012, the expenses for which are not reported, and is traveling the state and the country seeking support and singing God Bless America.

Should Little actually enter the Senate race and forsake a potential rematch against Pallone, her candidacy in the primary will ironically benefit State Senator Joe Kyrillos.   Little would split the hardline conservative/Tea Party/Loneganite vote with State Senator Mike Doherty, making what is already expected to be a smooth ride for Kyrillos, should he choose to seek the nomination, even easier than previously anticipated.

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