Baroni v. Singh and the attacks begin

Earlier this week, state Senate candidate Seema Singh went after Assemblyman Bill Baroni, her Republican opponent, hoping to tie him to President George W. Bush and maybe alter a race in which the Republican has won all of the major progressive endorsements (Garden State Equality, environmental groups, labor unions).

Among her charges was Mr. Baroni’s apparent silence on the president’s veto of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The problem, however, is that Mr. Baroni wasn’t silent — as Politics NJ reports, he sent a letter to the president before the veto asking that the president sign the expansion bill.

“As a Republican state legislator, I am in the ‘trenches’ and I see what a great job FamilyCare does every day in our state to provide coverage to these kids,” Baroni wrote Bush. “I also see too many children who still lack access to basic health coverage. Not renewing this program would be irresponsible and would put over one hundred thousand children in this state at risk.”

The attack elicited this response from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Joint Council 73:

“We are shocked by recent attacks by Bill’s opponent calling him a ‘Bush Republican,'” said Teamsters President Cliff Nolan. “We know Bill Baroni–nothing could be further from the truth, and we call on his opponent to stop these senseless attacks.”

The attack is part of a larger strategic approach taken by Ms. Singh in the waning days of the campaign, with Mr. Baroni picking up union and other endorsements and Ms. Singh’s campaign apparently stalling.

I won’t say at the moment how the Post and Press plan to endorse (check in with the papers on Thursday and Friday) but I’ve been intrigued by the manner in which some Democrats have been willing to narrow Mr. Baroni’s record to a few votes — his lack of a vote on the Assembly resolution opposing the surge, for instance, or his abstention on a resolution opposing privatization of Social Security — without looking at the entire package.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet