John Ensign

Win a steak dinner from Jersey Joe PennacchioHow would you like to have Jersey Joe Pennacchio buy you a steak dinner?

When the Morris County State Senator entered the race for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination last week, PolitickerNJ.com reporter Matt Friedman asked him what he thought about Anne Evans Estabrook receiving campaign contributions from Senate Minority Leader Mitchell McConnell (R-KY) and U.S. Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), the Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“I’m a Jersey Joe. I’m an average Joe. Ask the average person who Ensign and McConnell are. If you get one person out of a thousand who knows who they are who’s not an insider, I’ll buy you a steak dinner,” said Pennacchio.

That’s a fair challenge. Sometime over the next week, ask people you know -- non-insiders – to tell you who Ensign and McConnell are. If you can get one out of the first 1,000 people you ask to get it right, e-mail us your name. We’ll pass your name on to Sen. Pennacchio, with the hope that he’ll keep his word and buy you a steak dinner. And since this is basically an honest state, we’ll take your word for it.

Less than an hour before state Sen. Joe Pennacchio is to formally announed his run for U.S. Senate, one of his likely primary opponents has trumpeted the support of two powerful out-of-state Republican Senators.

According to a press release from Anne Evans Estabrook’s campaign, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign (R-NV) contributed $5,000 and $10,000 to her campaign, respectively.