In the 14th, conservatives assured of winning at least one Assembly seat

Conservatives are almost guaranteed a victory in the 14th district State Assembly race, because three of the four candidates have taken fairly conservative stands on key issues. Democrat Wayne D'Angelo is pro-life, supports the death penalty, and opposes Governor Jon Corzine's plan to lease the New Jersey Turnpike, according to an issue survey D'Angelo submitted to the non-partisan Project Vote Smart.

According to the survey, D'Angelo says Abortion should be legal only when pregnancy results from incest or rape, or when the life of the woman is endangered, and he supports requiring clinics to give parental notification before performing abortion on minors.

He also supports voluntary prayer in public schools, and says he is undecided on New Jersey recognizing gay marriage or if he would support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman -- but he did say the state should continue to recognize civil unions between same-sex couples. He took no positions on gun control issues, other than say that gun owners should be licensed

D'Angelo is running on a ticket with four-term Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein, who is strongly pro-choice and criticized opponents in past campaigns for their refusal to support a woman's right to choose. Greenstein played a key role in helping D'Angelo secure the nomination at a Democratic convention last April, when he defeated former Hamilton Council President Daniel Benson, an unabashed progressive who ran with Greenstein in 2005, by just four votes, 41-37.

The day before the convention, the Inside Edge reported on the D'Angelo/Benson contest:

The convention contest tomorrow to pick a second Assembly candidate in the fourteenth district sets up a semi-epic battle between two separate but important wings of New Jersey's Democratic Party: organized labor and progressives. Competing for Hamilton Township's slot on the legislative slate are Wayne D'Angelo, an IBEW union leader and Mercer County Central Labor Council member, and Dan Benson, an academic (he works for the Center for Energy, Economic & Environmental Policy at Rutgers) and an activist in the Howard Dean-inspired Democracy for America group. D'Angelo is viewed as a centrist Democrat who comes out of the blue collar wing of organized labor, although in Mercer County he enjoys exceptionally close ties with public employee unions. Benson is a policy wonk whose network is aligned with the liberal (progressive) wing of the party.

Greenstein, speaking to a PoliticsNJ.com reporter, disagreed with the analysis: "I've always thought of our party as progressive and I've always thought the union movement was part of that. In the Democratic Party we will work hand in hand with union and newer, younger progressive movements."

Earlier this year, Greenstein upset progressive Democrats by her refusal to vote yes on an Assembly resolution opposing President Bush's surge of troops in Iraq.

Greenstein and Republicans Thomas Goodwin and Adam Bushman did not return the Project Vote Smart Survey. Republicans say Goodwin and Bushman are also pro-life.