Pennacchio: GOP had no direction in '08 campaign

State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Montville) says that Republicans find themselves with "no message, no money and no direction" going into the 2009 gubernatorial election.

After reading newspaper accounts of New Jersey Republican leaders downplaying the seriousness of John McCain’s loss in New Jersey, the loss of a Congressional seat and the loss of Senate candidate Dick Zimmer to “an octogenarian who barely put up a fight,” Pennacchio says he had to take exception with a public statement.

“If our party publicly expressed satisfaction with New Jersey and National Republican results in Tuesday’s election, all they were doing was  reinforcing rank and file Republican cynicism for our party’s leadership,” he said.  “Once again Republicans find themselves with no message, no money and no direction going into next year’s gubernatorial election.  To say our Republicans 'Ship of State' was run aground by our captain, would imply that it had a direction.  That simply was not so.”

Pennacchio felt slighted earlier this year after establishment Republicans searched far and wide for a U.S. Senate candidate to replace Anne Evan Estabrook after she dropped out, rather than settle on his own candidacy.  That search led them first to a nightclub owner, and then to Zimmer, who had left Congress 12 years ago.

Pennacchio resigned his place as a delegate to the Republican National Convention partly in protest.

Pennacchio did not get specific in his statement today, instead reinforcing the need to a radical change in local Republican politics.

“Our party finds itself adrift and rudderless.  We should stop being “Democrat right” and start defining and offering our citizens a distinction between Republicans and Democrats,” he said. “Some of us believe a difference does exist.”