Joe Pennacchio

Dennis Shulman in Denver last month.: Politicker photo 

They say there are about two or three enduring storylines in world literature, and over the last year there have proved to be two or three storylines in New Jersey politics..

In the U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett/Dennis Shulman Fifth Congressional District contest, the Shulman campaign argues that it’s the Ellen Karcher story all over again, with Garrett receiving a $41,000 tax break on a piece of land that yields approximately $700 per year in income.

In a television ad that went up today on Channel 5 in the district, Shulman charges that by enjoying the tax loophole, Garrett proves he is just another "corrupt politician."

State Sen. Joe Pennacchio gave up his delegate slot to stay in New Jersey for Labor Day weekend
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. While New Jersey Republicans gather for their convention, one person who’s staying home is state Sen. Joe Pennacchio, who was supposed to be a delegate.

Speaking to PolitickerNJ two weeks ago, Pennacchio (R-Montville) said he wouldn’t be attending for a number of reasons. For one, he decided after his U.S. Senate primary campaign to spend more time with his family. He also wants to spend more time focusing on his legislative career and his dental practice. But there’s something else too.

“To be honest with you, I didn’t want to party with the party leaders. The leaders everyone was talking about in my campaign,” said Pennacchio, whose delegate spot has been replaced by former Morris County Freeholder John Inglesino. “I have an indifference towards them as much as they have an indifference towards me.”

State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio lost his bid for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination
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!”

Sabrin for Senate spokesman George Ajjan won 29% of the vote against Rep. Bill Pascrell in 2004
If Murray Sabrin’spress releases from the primary campaign were to be taken literally, the New Jersey political scene would have been even more of a Bizarro World than it already is.

Republican Senate nominee Dick Zimmer would have been under federal investigation. Sabrin would have been endorsed by Gannett, or rather, the corpse of newspaper mogul Frank Gannet. Joe Pennacchio would have been a fascist. Tom Wilson would have resigned in disgrace from his post as Republican State Chairman. Chris Christie would not be the favorite potential GOP candidate for Governor next year. And Sabrin, who ultimately got 14% of the vote on primary day, would have been the clear frontrunner throughout the Republican Senate race and would have won every debate he participated in.

“Throughout this campaign we employed a creative strategy to try to cut through in a race where the press was paying very little attention to Murray Sabrin,” said George Ajjan, a former Republican kamikaze congressional candidate and frequent Republican pundit/blogger who worked as Sabrin’s communications director.

Ajjan was the operative who devised Sabrin’s unorthodox communications strategy that was at times clever and funny – like the time that Sabrin managed to get a blog entry on the Wall Street Journal’s Web site for letting $20,000 in campaign contributions ride in a 20-1 shot in the Kentucky Derby – but also earned ridicule from members of the Republican political establishment who bore the brunt of many of Sabrin’s press releases.

Ajjan won’t call his communications strategy misleading. He prefers the term “creative,” and notes that the press releases went out to the press and political insiders, as opposed to the general public, which saw a polished, mild-mannered candidate with a good grasp of economic issues.

Can’t wait until tomorrow night to see who wins the major U.S. Senate and Congressional primary contests?

Below are some predictions from pollsters, political science professors and observers who track Garden State politics.

The observers were unanimous in their predictions for the Democratic Senate primary, foreseeing a relatively easy victory for incumbent Frank Lautenberg. On the Republican end, the outlook was not so clear cut, with observers split between state Sen. Joe Pennacchio and former Rep. Dick Zimmer. Ramapo College Finance Professor Murray Sabrin will have the support of presidential candidate Ron Paul’s fans, and could take some conservative voters away from Pennacchio.

In the heated Republican primary in the 7th congressional district, state Sen. Leonard Lance is the clear favorite. The 3rd district congressional primary, however, is a toss-up. In what has been perhaps the nastiest race of the election cycle, it was tough decide who had the edge between Medford Mayor Chris Myers and Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly.

These races will likely be determined by a very small number of voters. Even the most optimistic of outlooks puts voter turnout at approximately 30%, and most say they expect significantly less than that.

The Republican Senate candidates will participate in their fourth tomorrow evening at Stockton College.

The 90-minute debate is sponsored by Stockton’s Hughes Center for Public Policy and The Press of Atlantic City, and will begin at 7:00 p.m. at the Townsend Residential Life Center on the college’s Galloway Township campus. It’s open to the public and free.

So far, this is the only Senate debate scheduled to be held in South Jersey.

Former Rep. Dick Zimmer appears to have the most cash of the Republican Senate candidates, although Murray Sabrin has raised the most money so far.

Since officially entering the race a little over a month ago, Zimmer has raised about $478,000 and has approximately $446,000 cash-on-hand, according to Campaign Manager Mark Duffy.

And although Zimmer doesn’t plan to self-fund the whole race, $300,000 of that total is from a personal loan.

State Sen. Joe Pennacchio received the endorsement of New Jersey Right to Life today for his U.S. Senate campaign.

The organization is the state's most prominent pro-life advocacy group.

Pennacchio is running for the Republican nomination against Dick Zimmer, who’s pro-choice (with some exceptions), and Murray Sabrin, who is also pro-life. At a recent debate, Pennacchio laid out the strictest case against abortion, saying he thinks it should be banned at a federal level.

The NARAL Pro-Choice America Political Action Committee endorsed incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg for Senate today.

A press release from the organization cited Lautenberg’s support for the Freedom of Choice Act and the Prevention First Ac -- which it said were the “pro-choice community's two flagship pieces of legislation” – along with his opposition to President Bush’s policies on abstinence-only education and his authoring of legislation to prevent pharmacists from refusing to fill birth control prescriptions.

United States Senate candidate Joe Pennacchio hit rival Republican Murray Sabrin for “religious bigotry” today.

At issue is a press release Sabrin put out yesterday, the Catholic holy day of Ascension Sunday. In the release, Sabrin bolstered his pro-life credentials by reflecting “on the millions of unborn children whose lives are destroyed each year through abortions.”

Sabrin went on to criticize his two Republican rivals: Dick Zimmer for being pro-choice, and Joe Pennacchio for having written in favor of distributing the abortion drug RU-486 in his 1991 work A Nationalist Agenda -- which Sabrin referred to as a “fascist manifesto.”

“I, as a Catholic, take offense to Murray Sabrin using my religion to make a political point. He used the Ascension to make a point which was shameful and subtly bigoted. It shows his total lack of respect and tolerance for my Catholic faith,” Pennacchio said. “Even for Murray this crosses the line.”