Monmouth County Incumbents Have Early, Huge Lead

The first and early reports from the Monmouth County Board of Elections show Senator Joe Kyrillos beating Bayshore Tea Party Group backed challenger Leigh-Ann Bellew easily.

With 223 votes reported, Kyrillos has 195, or 87%.

The Assembly incumbents, Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon are winning by a similar margin.

In the Monmouth County Sheriff’s race, incumbent Shaun Golden has 82% of the vote with four precincts of 458 reporting.

Incumbent Freeholders Tom Arnone and Serena DiMaso are likewise dominating their challengers.

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Wake up call

Dirty Trick Alleged in LD 13

A robo call went out to Republican primary voters in the 13th Legislative District at 4am this morning urging people to vote for Senator Joe Kyrillos and Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon.

“You have four hours to get out and vote…” the call said.  The obvious impression was that the call was supposed to go out at 4PM.

The Monmouth GOP did not order the call.  Kyrillos, Handlin and O’Scanlon did not order the call. Both campaigns say they had no calls scheduled for 4PM.

The caller ID was a secondary number of Monmouth GOP’s, yet the call did not mention the county candidates, Sheriff Shaun Golden or Freeholders Tom Arnone and Serena DiMaso.

O’Scanlon said the call looks to be a dirty trick.

Monmouth GOP Chairman John Bennett is furious. He said the call was a crime. He’s gathering data and plans to file a complaint with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office this afternoon.

“We’ve never had this from the Democrats and they have not had it from us,” Bennett said, “I’m not accusing anyone, but we will get to the bottom of it and file a criminal complaint. This was a dirty trick and attempted voter suppression, pure and simple.”

Both Bennett and O’Scanlon said they became aware of the call before 4:30 this morning when they received phone calls from friends who had been woken up by the call.

MMM left a voice mail and a text with Bayshore Tea Party Group cofounder Barbara Gonzalez asking if she knows anything about the 4am robocall.  Gonzalez has yet to respond. The Bayshore Tea Party Group is supporting the slate of challengers running against the LD13 and Monmouth County Republican incumbents.

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Getting out the vote?

The Bayshore Tea Party Group had what they promoted as a SUPER MEGA ROADSIDE RALLY FOR TEA PARTY CANDIDATES this morning in Middletown.

Less than 10 people showed up.

Here, the group’s co-founder Barbara Gonzalez appears to be alone waving the Gadsden flag.

While Barbara was waving the flag on Route 35, her husband Frank was busy in the median installing their unreadable Column 3 signs in front of their competitor’s signs.

It is a good thing that the signs are unreadable.  One of BTPG’s  candidate’s name is misspelled.

Click on the photos for a larger view.

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NJ Right To Life Defends Kyrillos And Handlin Against Bellew’s ‘Misinformation’

Pro-Life Advocate Endorses O’Scanlon In LD13 Primary

Marie Tasy, Executive Director of New Jersey Right to Life issued a statement last night refuting the “misinformation” being circulated by State Senate Candidate Leigh-Ann Bellew and her Bayshore Tea Party Group backed running mates in the 13th legislative district Republican primary.

Tasy was quoted in a mailer sent by the Bellew/Bayshore Tea Party slate as saying that Senator Joe Kyrillos voted in favor of partial birth abortion.

In her statement to MoreMonmouthMusings, Tasy went into painstaking detail to list Kyrillos’s votes against partial birth abortion. She said that bill cited in Bellew’s mailer that Kyrillos voted for, S1909, was a “bill filled with very technical, scientific jargon that was rammed through the Senate at breakneck speed.” The bill legalized embryonic stem cell research and cloning, NOT partial birth abortion.  Tasy said that many Senators voted for the bill without fully understanding it.  Subsequently, Kyrillos voted against the funding of embryonic stem cell/cloning research with increased taxes and bonding.

Tasy noted that Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon were not legislators when the partial birth abortion and embryonic stem cell/cloning research bills were voted on.

Tasy’s statement is particularly extraordinary because Kyrillos is pro-choice on abortion.  Tasy said she is not defending Kyrillos, but setting the record straight on the misinformation campaign.

 I am not writing to defend Senator Kyrillos’ record and well known position on abortion, but to set the record straight on the misinformation campaign that is being circulated regarding his voting record and the positions of Assemblyman O’Scanlon and Assemblywoman Handlin.  It should be noted that Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Assemblywoman Amy Handlin were NOT  in the legislature at the time these bills were voted on and  therefore did  not vote on any of these bills.

“It says a lot about our opponents who call themselves conservatives that someone as highly respected in the Pro-Life community as Marie Tasy would take the time to refute the misinformation in their literature,” said O’Scanlon, “This is further confirmation of what I’ve been saying throughout the campaign, Bellew, her running mates, and the Bayshore Tea Party Group’s leadership have no integrity.”

Neither Bellew nor Bayshore Tea Party Group co-founder Barbara Gonzalez responded to an invitation to comment.

Tasy’s statement can be read in its entirety below:

I am writing to set the record straight regarding some misinformation that is being circulated in mailers to voters in the the 13th legislative district. Read the rest of this entry »

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The other GOP candidate for governor

By Seth Grossman

Gov. Christie is not yet running for reelection against state Sen. Barbara Buono (D., Middlesex). He is not officially the Republican party nominee until he defeats his GOP opponent in the June 4 primary election. That opponent is me.

With such a small percentage of voters taking part in primary elections, one vote carries more weight than in November general elections. That’s why primary challenges terrify the insiders who dominate the Democratic and Republican parties with big campaign contributions.

I am running for governor against Christie because I am far more qualified to shrink the size and cost of government, to cut taxes, business, and insurance costs, and to rebuild the New Jersey economy.

Growing up in Atlantic City, I heard stories of how the town thrived during the Depression because people who lost their jobs started new businesses. They never could have been successful if they were burdened with all the regulations and need for lawyers, consultants, permits, and political “access” that are par for the course for starting a business today.

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Why I am voting against Leigh-Ann Bellew on June 4

By Art Gallagher

Yesterday I was interviewed by The Star Ledger and went on the record saying that I would be voting for Joe Kyrillos for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District Republican primary on June 4th.   Consistent with my slogan of being fair and biased, it is appropriate that I tell you, my readers and the reason my opinion matters to The Star Ledger, that MMM is now part of the story and that I have made a decision that can’t help but color my coverage of the rest of the campaign.

MMM is part of the LD 13 story, instead of just covering the story, because we’ve provided the bulk of the media coverage of the primary campaign to date and because Kyrillos’ challenger, Leigh-Ann Bellew, attacked this site in a press release, according to The Star Ledger.

On many important issues, Life and The Right to Bear Arms in particular, I am in more philosophical agreement with Bellew than I am with Kyrillos.   Despite my philosophical differences with Kyrillos, the choice between him and Bellew has become a very easy one.  Kyrillos is a very good State Senator.  Bellew is a deeply flawed candidate.  She never should have exposed herself, her family, and friends who care about her deeply to the rigors and vetting of this campaign.

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Which candidates are better known?

Why either LD 13 slate could still win

Provolone is cheese

By Art Gallagher

Monday night at the Two Rivers Republican Club of Fair Haven Meet the Candidates night, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Assembly Candidate Edna Walsh got into it over which slate is better known.

While scolding the challengers for running against “the best, most conservative, delegation in the legislature,” and dismissing the Bayshore Tea Party backed candidates’ justification for running,  i.e., that Joe Kyrillos, Amy Handlin and O’Scanlon don’t share the conservative values of the district the challengers say,  O’Scanlon said, “Where have you been?  I haven’t heard from you and no body has heard of you.”

Walsh retorted, “As I go door to door, no one has heard to you.”  To which O’Scanlon scoffed.

Both O’Scanlon and Walsh are probably right.  Unless something has happened that nobody has accounted for in the last two years, very few of the legislative candidates in the district, and throughout the state, incumbent or not, are very well known.

In March of 2011, days before the new legislative map was announced, I was disgusted that Dr. Alan Rosenthal of Rutgers, the deciding vote on the commission that was designating the gerrymandered map that in all likelihood would determine the partisan composition of the legislature for the next decade, had on his own created a criteria by which the map should be determined; continuity  of representation.

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Kyrillos Camp: Bellew is silly, foolish. Questions his opponents conservatism

State Senator Joe Kyrillos’ campaign responded to Leigh-Ann Bellew’s recent press release denouncing Kyrillos’ condemnation of the IRS’s targeting conservative groups as hypocritical, by calling the release, and his challenger, silly and foolish.

The Senator’s spokesman, Niles Barnhart, issued the following statement to MMM:

It is a silly press release from a silly candidate who told people she was a lawyer, yet never went to law school, and tells people she is a conservative, yet court records show she took out 20 credit cards running up nearly $140,000 in debt and then filed for bankruptcy.

 Senator Kyrillos believes the IRS abuse is outrageous. He is preparing a resolution in the Legislature that urges the appointment of an independent counsel to get to the bottom of this unfair attack on Tea Party and conservative organizations.

Barnhart said that Kyrillos would not be responding “every time Bellew issues a foolish press release.

MMM did not call Bellew or her campaign for a response, because they haven’t returned our last 11 phone calls.

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Bennett: “We’re fighting this primary as if we’re down 25%”

Monmouth County GOP Chairman John Bennett sounded a rallying cry to about 125 Republican faithful on Saturday morning in Hazlet at a Armed Forces Day ‘friend raiser’ held at the Red Oak Diner for county candidates Sheriff Shaun Golden and Freeholders Tom Arnone and Serena DiMaso.

“We’ve had primaries before in Monmouth County that we did not take seriously,” Bennett said,”and bad things happened.  This time we’re running as if we are 25 points behind.”

State Senator Joe Kyrillos asked the assembled Republicans to make sure their friends and families come out and vote on June 4 for himself and Assembly members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon, in addition to Golden, Arnone and DiMaso.

Deputy Freeholder Director Serena DiMaso, former mayors Eddie Farve or Bay St. Louis, MS and Brett Warr of Gulfport, MS and former CNN correspondent Kathleen Koch

DiMaso introduced former CNN correspondent Kathleen Koch, former mayors Eddie Farve of Bay St. Louis, MS and Brett Warr of Gulfport, MS, as well as former Congressman Gene Taylor.  The group was visiting New Jersey to support the Bayshore Conference of Mayors, touring the destruction of Superstorm Sandy in Mantoloking and the rebuilding of the Seaside Heights boardwalk.

Golden used the presence of the guests from Mississippi to talk about his department’s response to Sandy. “We had no deaths or serious injuries in Monmouth County.  In Katrina, there were almost 2000 deaths,” he said.

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Praise for Kyrillos, Prayers for Bellew

By Thomas Stokes, Middletown

With the June 4^th primary rapidly approaching, I wanted to share why I’m supporting Republican Joe Kyrillos for State Senate.

I began working for Conservative candidates in High School when Barry Goldwater ran for President.  In college, I founded the first Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter at NYU.  I served as a Municipal Chairman of the NY State Conservative Party and worked hard to elect Ronald Reagan (Chair, Taxpayers For Reagan) before moving to New Jersey many years ago.

Joe and I have been good friends for a number of years. I have been proud to support him in every election.  Now, he’s facing a new primary opponent – and what I have discovered about his opponent is alarming, and is something that should also concern you. By the way, contrary to claims she’s an attorney, Joe’s opponent never even went to law school, let alone pass a bar exam.

Leigh-Ann Bellew claims she is a champion of fiscal responsibility. Unfortunately, it’s just not true. Three years ago, she racked up almost $140,000 in credit card debt on 20 different credit cards – including payment to a vacation timeshare company in Las Vegas – and didn’t pay the bills. Instead, she filed for bankruptcy.  How can we trust her to be the conservative leader we need when she can’t even be responsible for her own finances?

To make matters worse, the Monmouth County Democrat Chairman has now confirmed reports that Ms. Bellew’s campaign has sought funding and other assistance from the Democrats in this primary!

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