Singh – Hank Kalet

Enough with the mud

This has gotten a bit too stereotypical — trading half-truths and ugly barbs, a seemingly desperate candidate, another staying above the fray but relying on his running mates to take the battle to his opponents and a venal outside group lobbing bombs from outside the playing field.

Voters need to remember the issues in this year’s campaign in the 14th legislative district:

1. Property taxes and tax reform
2. The governor’s monetization program
2. Ethics in government
3. The environment
4. Civil unions and same-sex marriage
5. Affordable housing
6. Infrastructure

This election is not supposed to be about the mud. When you go into the voting booth next week, remember that.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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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
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Labor goes for Singh, finally

After several notable unions, including the state AFL-CIO and several CWA locals, lined up behind Assemblyman Bill Baroni, a Republican, in his bid for the state Senate from the 14th District, the Middlesex County Central Labor Council , which is headed by Jamesburg Borough Councilman Joe Jennings, has lined up behind Democrat Seema Singh.

The union has 17,000 members in the county, but Middlesex makes up only about 45 percent of the district, so it is unclear what kind of impact this will have.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here