Pennacchio reflects on Senate run

While dozens of candidates were making last minute appeals on primary day, Republican Senate candidate Joe Pennacchio spent the afternoon working on dental fillings and root canals. The next day, about 12 hours after congratulating rival Dick Zimmer on his victory, Pennacchio was at his Mount Arlington dental practice again, engaging in his pre and post-election routine: going to work.

“I make a habit of working my regular job on election day and the next morning,” he said. “It grounds me. It tells me who I am, gets me back with the people and in the mix.”

Pennacchio, a conservative, lost to the more moderate Zimmer, 46% to 40%, with Murray Sabrin, a finance professor at Ramapo College, taking 14% of the vote. But despite a respectable showing, Pennacchio was true to the persona he cultivated during the campaign, exemplified by his “Jersey Joe” moniker and the slogan that accompanied it: “He’s one of us!”

“Basically what I want to do is watch TV, eat too much and love my family – basically what everyone else does,” said Pennacchio.

Pennacchio began exploring the Senate run last summer, when businesswoman Anne Estabrook and conservative Assemblyman Michael Doherty were both preparing to mount campaigns. After Doherty declined to run in August, any relief Pennacchio felt at not having another conservative to sap his votes was short-lived, as Sabrin entered the race in January on the wings of presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Pennacchio hoped that, after Estabrook dropped out in March due to suffering a minor stroke, the establishment GOP would rally around him. But rather than become the default choice of the Republicans, Pennacchio watched as prominent members of his party searched vigorously to field a more moderate, self-funding candidate, going through a series of potential choices before settling on the three week ill-fated candidacy of Goya heir Andy Unanue and, after that didn’t work out, drafting Zimmer from Washington, where he worked as a lobbyist.

Pennacchio admits that, without Sabrin in the race, he might have been able to attract enough of his voters to beat Zimmer. But Sabrin was more than just a drain on Pennacchio’s votes – he was an active critic who publicized a collection of policy papers Pennacchio had written in the early 1990s, dubbing it a “fascist manifesto.”

And although Pennacchio prefers not to blame his loss on anyone, there’s still a sense of bitterness that the Republican Party’s leadership failed to rally around him – or at their failure least remain neutral.

“(Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson) told me that he was going to remain neutral and I was going to have a fair shot,” said Pennacchio, who felt that Wilson was active in recruiting other candidates. “I don’t think that’s honorable for him to do.”

Pennacchio also remains angry about Sabrin’s campaign tactics – especially the fascism charge.

“To me it’s an Italian-American slur,” he said. “Murray Sabrin has to speak for himself. I sleep very nicely at night, my head hits the pillow… We always knew he was going to be a spoiler. Everyone knew it but him.”

Meanwhile, Pennacchio is convinced that the message of his campaign resonated and that, even if he lost, he helped build a foundation for future Republican statewide candidates – which may or may not include himself. In the campaign, Pennacchio highlighted his background as the working-class child of Italian immigrants who made his way through dental school by working at a Brooklyn pizzeria. He presented himself as the America Dream incarnate.

“That message was a shot across the bow to the leaders of the party, the party that basically knows what’s good for the voters, and were saying we have to change,” he said. “And that’s why it was very difficult and the party went against me. We have to become more of a blue collar/white collar party. We can’t keep anointing candidates with a sense of elitism, because voters don’t like that.”

On policy, Pennacchio said he made the energy issue a cornerstone of his campaign “before it was fashionable,” and now offers words of advice to Zimmer: “Energy, energy, energy.”

Pennacchio doesn’t rule out a future bid for statewide office, and won’t run for Congress as long as Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen remains committed to running in the district. But he promises to stay active in shaping his party’s message, even as a back-bench legislator.

“I’ll put our party back on the right track. And I’m not going away. I’m still a state Senator.”