Pennacchio campaign accuses Zimmer camp of 'thuggery'

How about a group 'huggery'

ref:

http://www.politickernj.com/skush/18812/zimmer-fails-distance-himself-sk...
Zimmer Fails Distance Himself Skullduggery

These so-called "moderate" Republicans see conservatives as bigger enemies than liberal Democrats. Gallic and Pennacchio are bigger enemies to them than Andrews and Lautenberg.

The amazing thing is that at the same time that Zimmer's campaign was going bonkers, filing the silly charges against Joe's campaign manager for practicing law without a license -- they were secretly working to cobble together a "legal" basis for holding a second endorsement vote in Hunterdon County.

On Wednesday night, at Republican HQ in Flemington, Chairman Henry suddenly announced that he had received a "legal opinion" claiming that the county rules provided that they must take a second endorsement vote.

But, when questions arose about it, Kuhl oddly refused to identify the author of the so-called "opinion." Under close questioning, it turned out it was written by none other than Zimmer's campaign lawyer, Mark Sheridan! Can anyone spell "conflict of interest?"

So, Zimmer's campaign got caught red-handed when the county chairman tried to pawn the "secret legal opinion" off on the assembled County Committee members as a legitimate basis for holding the new vote.  Sheridan was finally forced "rescue" Henry, and he admitted he was the one who wrote it.  That fact came out prior to the vote.

The upshot was that Zimmer ended up losing a vote of confidence in his own county! Caught engaging in such shenanigans, Zimmer couldn't even win in a place he had been repeatedly elected to years ago.  We'll never know whether the exposure of the opinion scam was the reason the vote went the way it did.  But it certainly cannot help Zimmer's case going forward that such a sneaky trick was tried by his campaign.

Henry Kuhl, said that that the reason they had to take another endorsement vote, was because there had been no "final vote" taken at the last meeting, where Joe had previously won over Anne Estabrook. The point is that that vote was taken before there was any talk at all of her leaving the race. In other words, Joe won the endorsement the first time while she was still a full-fledged candidate, and with a big fat purse full of her own dough to spend on the race.

Henry said that, since there were now three candidates in the race again, that he had called for the vote based on the so-called "legal opinion." When Henry was pressed as to who wrote the opinion, he simply refused to say, claiming that he had been asked not to divulge that information. Henry was pressed on the point of who wrote the opinion, and was asked what could possibly be a justification for keeping that a big secret.

Finally, Mark Sheridan had to step forward and concede he had prepared the opinion. Among other roles, Mark is indeed the campaign lawyer to Dick Zimmer, and is the same guy who made such a big stink about Gallic supposedly "practicing law without a license!"

When Joe Pennachio spoke prior to the vote being taken on Wednesday, he made the connection between Sheridan and Zimmer to the assembled county committee members. Having made his pitch for the endorsement, Joe then added as an aside, "Mark Sheridan is Dick Zimmer's lawyer."

Suffice it to say, there were a lot of red faces in the Zimmer camp as the ballots were passed out!

And, having looked at the tallied results, Kuhl at first said that there would need to be a second ballot taken, implying that no one had reached "50% + 1," per the rule.

Who knows what prompted that claim!  But he was immediately asked by several committee members what the actual vote tally was. He then looked down at the results again, and announced that there was a reason that the had the "50% + 1" rule. The vote, he announced, was 34 votes for Joe Pennachio, 30 for Dick Zimmer and 2 for Murray Sabrin.

In other words, there was no need at all for a second ballot. Joe Pennachio had indeed received "50% + 1" on that first ballot. Joe was announced as the winner, and Henry finally entertained a motion for a vote to "acclaim" Joe as the endorsed candidate of Hunterdon.  That was then adopted without any voiced dissent.

by Trochilus