John Ginty

New Jersey Right to Life-PAC, the state’s largest Pro-Life Political Action Committee is pleased to announce the endorsement of John Ginty for State Assembly in the 40th legislative district.

The Republican primary battle in that district echoes last week’s reverence for Ronald Reagan at the Republican Presidential debate, with both of the leading State Senate candidates evoking the Gipper to set them apart from the rest of the state’s Republican Party.

Former Bergen County Freeholder Todd Caliguire and Assemblyman Kevin O’Toole are the main contenders for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat of Henry P. McNamara, who’s retiring after serving as a Senator for 22 years. Caliguire is running with two Assembly candidates: conservative activist John Ginty and Wayne Councilman Joseph Schweighardt. O’Toole, the frontrunner, shares a line with incumbent Assemblyman David Russo and Wayne Mayor Scott Rumana. A third candidate, Wayne attorney Victor K. Rabbat, is in the race as well.

State Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. heads into next Tuesday as the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination for United States Senator over John Ginty, a banker from Ridgewood and retired U.S. Navy officer. Ginty entered the race late and has only about $20,000. His only exposure has been through true grass-roots contact with conservative activists, endorsements from pro-life groups, and the the relatively little small attention he's received from some daily newspapers.

Conservative challenges in New Jersey GOP primaries have often been more symbolic than anything else, although there have been some huge successes: conservatives upset a moderate-to-liberal Republican Governor in 1973 and U.S. Senator in 1978, and won the 2001 gubernatorial primary. There is some empirical evidence suggesting that the most conservative faction of the conservative wing of the New Jersey Republicans represents about 18% of the vote: in 1996, months after Bob Dole (not exactly a moderate) had already clinched the GOP presidential nomination, 18% of New Jersey's GOP primary voters cast their ballots for either Pat Buchanan or Alan Keyes. Two years earlier, Brian Kennedy, a former State Senator from Monmouth County, ran to the right of pro-life Assembly Speaker Garabed "Chuck" Haytaian in the GOP U.S. Senate primary; with no money or organization support, he captured 33% of the vote. In 1984, conservative Robert Morris, who had sought to expose communists in the federal government as a McCarthy-era Senate staffer, on 40% of the vote in the GOP Senate primary against the establishment candidate, former Montclair Mayor Mary Mochary. (Morris had the organization line in only his home county, Ocean.)

Way back in 1972, six years before Jeff Bell defeated Senator Clifford Case in the primary, James Walter Ralph, an unknown Bergen County physician, again with no money or organization support, captured 25% of the vote against Case.

The question for Kean is not if he will win, but whether he will be embarassed by his margin of victory. He must deal with Republican primary voters who either don't like him or did not like his father -- although their is no guarantee that those voters will be suffiently motivated to show up at the polls. Several Republican strategists say that for Ginty's symbolic campaign to be viewed as successful, he must get at least the 25% that Ralph did 34 years ago. But if Ginty can get to a third of the vote, as Kennedy in '94, the results may be interpreted as a severe weakness for Kean among the traditional Republican base vote he'll need to win a general election.

Ginty Pledges Support for Marriage Protection
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Ginty Encourages Bush Veto
Of Bloated "Emergency" Spending Bill

GOP Candidate Says Bush Must Stop Billions
In Runaway "Pork" in Bill Designed for Katrina Relief
And War Funding

Ginty Pushes Free Markets and
Increased Domestic Oil Production as Routes
to Energy Independence and Lower Prices

GOP Candidate Breaks with Kean
in Support for ANWR Drilling and More Nuclear
Power Plant Construction

Republican National Coalition for Life PAC
Endorses John Ginty in Republican U.S. Senate Primary

New Jersey Right to Life – PAC
113 North Avenue
Cranford, NJ 07016

Contact: Marie Tasy, Executive Director
(908) 276-6620

New Jersey Right to Life – PAC Endorses John Ginty for U. S. Senate

“We will urge every pro-life voter eligible to vote in the Republican primary to cast their vote for John Ginty on June 6th� - New Jersey Right to Life-PAC Executive Director

New Jersey Right to Life PAC
Endorses John Ginty in Republican U.S. Senate Primary

Candidate Defends Pro-Life Values
With No Compromise at Annual Convention Banquet

In referendums held throughout the state on Tuesday, voters in just over half (52%) of the municipalities approved proposed school budgets. For the record, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez and State Senator Thomas Kean, Jr., both say they voted in favor of their local school budgets. In Hoboken, where Menendez lives, the budget passed by a mere four votes -- 1,105 to 1,101. In Kean's hometown, Westfield, voters overwhemingly approved the budget -- 3,099 to 1,953. Kean's primary opponent, John Ginty, said he would keep how he voted in the Ridgewood school election to himself. Ridgewood voters passed their budget 1,969 to 1,216, and approved a referendum on spendig $629,000 to uprgade their HVAC system by a vote of 1,685 tp 1,570.