Bateman surveys the political landscape

Republican state Sen. Christopher "Kip" Bateman knows that, if he really does want to enter the U.S. Senate race, he'll have to make a decision very soon.

"It all happened very quickly. My head's spinning," said Bateman, whose father, Raymond, was state Senate President in the early 1970s and was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1977. "It's a little late in the game and Joe (Pennacchio) has gotten county endorsements already. I'm kind of testing the waters, quickly."

Bateman has toyed with the idea of running for a Senate seat before, and yesterday afternoon began to receive phone calls from people encouraging him to make a run for it to fill in for Anne Evans Estabrook, who abruptly withdrew from the race yesterday.

And while Bateman has until April 7th to file his petition, he'll need to get out even earlier to start lining up support from county committees. He's already thinking about showing up to the Bergen County Republican Organization's convention tonight, where they'll vote on which U.S. Senate candidate to endorse.

Bateman's name was floated as some Republicans explore options for alternatives to the two remaining candidates: state Sen. Joe Pennacchio and Ramapo College finance professor Murray Sabrin. Yesterday, Monmouth County Republican Chairman Adam Puharic organized a conference call with other county chairs to discuss prospects.

Bateman, who was just elected to the state Senate after serving in the Assembly since 1994, could fill the moderate niche left vacant by Estabrook. He's pro-choice, and helped spearhead the legislature's repeal of the death penalty – a move that didn't put him in the party's good graces.

So for now, he's calling county chairs across the state to see what kind of support is out there for him. He also needs to figure out whether he'll be able to raise the millions of dollars necessary to take on Democratic incumbent Frank Lautenberg in the general election. One enticement, he said, would be if the Estabrook's campaign support infrastructure of support remained largely intact. He's already talked with some of her advisors.

"Unfortunately I'm not independently wealthy, so I'll have to get some commitments from the heavy hitters," he said.

Bateman, 50, added that he's spent half his life serving in elected office – including five years on the Branchburg Committee (he was Mayor in 1986) and six years on the Somerset County Freeholder Board before entering the legislature.

While Bateman is concerned about getting support and raising money, he doesn't think that being named as a co-defendant in a sexual harassmentlawsuit along with former Acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco will hurt him. Bateman is accused of warning the plaintiff, a former lawyer at his firm, against reporting a judge who was allegedly "inebriated” on the bench.

"She was a disgruntled employee," he said. "There are lawsuits in every day and I haven't been named in anything involving sexual harassment."

Puharic, who had supported Estabrook, wouldn't reveal what was discussed during last night's conference call, and said that he wasn't necessarily going to encourage anyone to run against Pennacchio and Sabrin.

"Before Monmouth makes a decision on any candidate, I want to make sure that everyone who is interested in running for U.S. Senate and is serious about it is availed to our party leaders before we make a recommendation to our county committee," he said.

Puharic added that he isn't necessarily reaching out for a more moderate candidate. If the race was based on ideology alone, he said, he'd be perfectly happy with the two current candidates.

"It's a matter of who can launch and sustain the best campaign in its entirety," he said.

But conservative strategist Rick Shaftan, who said he will probably vote for Sabrin, said that the party's refusal to coalesce around Pennacchio reeks of elitism. Although Puharic had raised the name of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to run for the seat, Shaftan thinks that the party is hesitant to run Catholics like Pennacchio.

"I just think it's disgusting the way they're treating Pennacchio," he said. "So they think by running the same kind of candidate they've run for 35 years, they'll get a different result than they have for the last 35 years….This is the five families of New Jersey: the Keans, Frelinghuysens, Littels, Todds and the Batemans."