Democrat who wanted to challenge Leonard Lance fails to get on ballot

Democrat who wanted to challenge Leonard Lance fails to get on ballot (via NJ.com)

TRENTON — Clinton Mayor Janice Kovach had planned to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Leonard Lance in November, but she failed to get on the ballot. A Kovach aide showed up to the State Division of Elections in Trenton on Monday to file for the June…

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A Kumbaya Moment

      Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Barbara’s Tea Party Group co-founder Barbara Gonzalez announced on her APP blog that she approves of the Monmouth GOP’s nominations of Anthony Wilkinson in CD-6 and Rich Pezzullo for U.S. Senate.

Someone’s laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone’s laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone’s laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Barbara’s Tea Party Group says they will work with Republicans to save the nation, so long as the Republicans do as BTPG says and nominates candidates that pass their litmus tests.

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Meanwhile at the Monmouth Democratic Convention….

….there were no surprises out of the IBEW Local 400 Union Hall in Wall this morning.

Senator Cory Booker was endorsed for the nomination to seek his first full term in the U.S. Senate.

Congressman Frank Pallone was nominated for his 14th term in the House of Representatives.

In the 4th congressional district, criminal defense attorney Ruben Scolavino has agreed to take another one for the Democratic team.  Scolavino lost to Sheriff Shaun Golden, 64%-36% last year.  He will likely face a worse fate against Congressman Chris Smith who running for his 18th term.  Scolavino is probably angling for a Judgeship.

For Monmouth County Freeholder, Larry Luttrell, a Holmdel attorney who came in last against Freeholders Tom Arnone and Serena DiMaso in 2013, hopes to do better this year against Freeholder Director Lillian Burry and Deputy Director Gary Rich who were renominated by the Monmouth GOP this morning.  Joining Luttrell on the County Democratic ticket for freeholder is Joe Grillo of Asbury Park.  Grillo is making his first run at elected office.  He is the municipal chairman of the Asbury Park Democrats, the former executive director of the Monmouth Dems, and works for his family’s tile business.

CD-4 Candidate Ruben Scolavino, Larry Luttrell, Senator Cory Booker, Joe Grillo, Congressman Frank Pallone, NJ Democratic Chairman John Currie and Monmouth Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal. Photo via Pallone’s facebook page.

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Hari Eppanapally Withdraws From CD-6 Race

In an email to Middlesex and Monmouth County Republican Chairmen Sam Thompson and John Bennett, Hari Eppanapally withdrew his name from consideration for the nomination for Congress from the 6th congressional district this afternoon.

In his letter which can be read in its entirety here, Eppanapally said he made the decision to withdraw in the best interests of the GOP so that the party can put up a united fight against the incumbent, Congressman Frank Pallone, by rallying behind one candidate.

“Looking at the big picture and being a responsible leader, I feel the party’s time and energy  should be spent on the main election to win this race rather than diluting it on a primary which may divide the party.”

Anthony Wilkinson, an attorney from Old Bridge, is now the only candidate seeking the Republican Party endorsements at the Middlesex and Monmouth GOP conventions which will be held tomorrow morning. Monmouth’s convention is at Freehold Township High School at 9am, Middlesex’s at Royal Albert’s Palace in Fords at 10..

Eppanapally said the GOP in CD-6 and nationally should focus on Health Care, Education and the Economy.

Click for larger view

Eppanapally offered an explanation for his support of Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula’s 2012 congressional candidacy against Congressman Leonard Lance in the 7th congressional district.

I want to clarify my support to Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula during his 2012 Congressional race from NJ CD7. He is a
very close long-time friend of mine. I decided to support him purely on a personal level, not because of his Party affiliation. I
want to stand corrected on this so that people do not have any misunderstanding on my belief in Republican principles.

Eppanapally did not offer an explanation of his $2500 contribution to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in his letter.

MMM stands by its endorsement of Eppanapally for the Democratic nomination in CD-6.

Pallone can be beat in a primary, as Cory Booker proved last August in the Special Senate Primary.  More importantly, Pallone’s campaign war chest was depleted by about 75% in that primary last year.  Eppanapally can force Pallone to spend his resources while defending his Democratic nomination while the GOP candidate, presumably Wilkinson baring an unknown primary contestant, raises funds for the fall campaign.  If Eppanapally agrees to enter the Democratic Primary, MMM will lead his petition drive to get him on the ballot.

UPDATED

Eppanapally told MMM that he became interested in challenging Pallone after being approached by the National Republican Congressional Committee. NRCC presented Eppanapally with statistics showing that almost 300,000 Indian Americans live in Middlesex County, over 100,000 of them in CD-6 and argued, based upon Anna Little’s 2010 performance against Pallone, that an Indian American candidate could swing enough votes to beat Pallone.  Eppanapally said that he would only seek the nomination if there was no primary challenge.  When Wilkinson got in the race and made it clear he would run a primary campaign regardless of the outcome of the Monmouth and Middlesex GOP conventions, Eppanapally bowed out.

Labels and List’s analysis of the 2010 U.S. Census Data indicates that there are 21,069 voters of Indian/South East Asian descent in CD-6.

Eppanapally told MMM that his $2500 donation to President Obama’s reelection campaign was the price of a ticket to an event at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 2011 that he attended as an employee of Financial Policy Council Inc.  Obama spoke at the event.  He said he was unaware that the event was an Obama fundraiser when he attended.

Eppanapally said he would not challenge Pallone in the Democratic primary.

UPDATED AGAIN

Eppanapally called to clarify his earlier remarks about his $2500 contribution to President Obama’s reelection campaign and the event at the Waldorf-Astoria. He said that his attendance at the event was “on the personal level” and not as an employee of Financial Policy Council Inc.  He said he wrote a personal check to the Obama campaign to attend the event.  Asked how he could not know that he was contributing to the Obama campaign or attending an Obama fund raisers if he wrote a check to the Obama campaign, Eppanapally said, “It doesn’t matter.”

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Old Bridge Attorney Seeks GOP Nomination in CD-6

Anthony Wilkinson, 48, of Old Bridge, will compete with Hari Eppanapally for the Republican nomination to represent the 6th Congressional District on Saturday, March 22 when the Middlesex and Monmouth County Republican organizations convene separately to nominate their candidates.

Wilkinson, the married father of two children, 26 and 17, is a partner at CoffyLaw, an Intellectual Property and Business Law firm in Freehold.

A Michigan native, Wilkinson moved to New Jersey in 1990 upon his graduation from Yale Law School where he was an editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review, a director of the Yale Moot Court of Appeals, and a founding director of the Yale Civil Rights Law Association.  He received a undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1986.

Wilkinson started his legal career as a Judicial Law Clerk for Chief Justice Robert N. Wilentz of the New Jersey Supreme Court before moving on to the elite Dewey Ballantine where he was an associate in the project finance group. In 1993, Wilkinson left the practice of law to embark on a career as a high school teacher.

In 2007, Wilkinson returned to the practice of business law as an Associate at Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer where he practiced until joining CoffyLaw last month. He serves as an Educational Consultant to the Seton Hall University Academy for Urban Transformation, an Adjunct Professor of Business Law at Pillar College and as a Volunteer Teacher at the Monmouth Worship Center in Marlboro.

Wilkinson has not previously sought elected office. He told MMM that he has never contributed to a Democratic congressional or presidential candidate. He was recently appointed to the Old Bridge Township Ethics Board.

Wilkinson bested Eppanapally before the Middlesex GOP Screening Committee last week, 20 votes to 11.

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Candidate For GOP Nomination Against Pallone Is Democratic Fundraiser/Donor

Hari Eppanapally of Livingston will be seeking the Republican nomination for congress in the 6th congressional district next Saturday at the Monmouth and Middlesex nominating conventions. His prior political experience is as an active fundraiser for Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula’s 2012 congressional run against Republican Congressman Leonard Lance in the 7th congressional district.

Eppanapply contributed $2500 to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

MMM hereby endorses Eppanapally for the Democratic nomination for congress in CD-6.

Really.  Eppanapally has a better chance of beating Frank Pallone in the Democratic primary than he does of beating Pallone in the general election.

The Vice President and member of the Board of The Financial Policy Council, a free market oriented non-profit think tank and policy advocate, Eppanapally would be a much better congressman than Pallone.

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Latest Obamacare change – not an option for most NJ policyholders

Latest Obamacare change – not an option for most NJ policyholders (via NJ.com)

The two-year extension for people whose individual health insurance policies don’t comply with requirements of the new health care law, announced yesterday, will have little impact in New Jersey. Here, all but one of the six insurers selling plans…

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Lonegan Should Challenge Pallone

Steve Lonegan is not going to win the GOP nomination to replace the retiring Congressman Jon Runyan in New Jersey’s third congressional district.

The party bosses in Ocean and Burlington Counties that comprise the district have settled on endorsing former Randolph Mayor Tom MacArthur.  Ocean County Republicans with the stones to defy Chairman George Gilmore are lining up behind Toms  River Councilman Maurice Hill, a retired Navy rear admiral.  If Lonegan continues to compete for the nomination in the party conventions, he’s likely to come in third in Ocean and second in Burlington.  Lonegan does not have an organization to compete with the Ocean and Burlington Republican organization should he run a primary race against MacArthur.

Lonegan should stop fighting fellow Republicans in Ocean and Burlington and come north to Monmouth and Middlesex where we need his considerable talent.  If Monmouth GOP Chairman John Bennett and Middlesex GOP Chairman Sam Thompson have not been on the phone pleading with Lonegan to take on ObamaCare author Frank Pallone in the 6th Congressional district, they are missing an opportunity.

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Cullari will not challenge Pallone

He had pledges for the $30,ooo he wanted to raise in thirty days and said Monmouth GOP Chairman John Bennett reacted enthusiastically to his potential candidacy, but at the moment of choice his heart was not in it.  Ernesto Cullari, a GOP primary candidate for the CD-6 nomination in 2012 told MMM he will not seek the nomination to challenge Frank Pallone this year.

Cullari said he recently signed a deal to author a series of novellas, the first of which will be released later this year, and that his commitment to that project and his partners was the major stumbling block to mounting his second campaign for public office.

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The race for Senate: Republican assemblyman declines to run

The race for Senate: Republican assemblyman declines to run (via NJ.com)

TRENTON — State Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli said today that he has decided not to run for U.S. Senate, leaving the Republican Party with no elected officials who want to challenge the Democratic incumbent, Cory Booker. Ciattarelli, who briefly considered…

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