Booker campaign ready for another battle; challenger Bell says right issue can spur an upset
JUNE 4, 2014, 2:18 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 2014, 11:19 PM
BY HERB JACKSON AND MICHAEL PHILLIS
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD
Democrat Cory Booker made a strategic decision before last year’s special U.S. Senate election not to engage his Republican opponent Steve Lonegan, and the conservative firebrand savaged the carefully polished image Booker had built during two terms as Newark’s mayor.
Though Booker won by 11 percentage points, the margin was seen as a disappointment.
This year will be different, Booker’s campaign manager, Brendan Gill, said Wednesday.
“We don’t want to just win, want to win decisively,” Gill said. “We want to make sure, as we have been, that Cory is paying close attention to issues in the state and spending lots of time in |the state.”
Instead of facing the hard-charging Lonegan, Booker will square off for a full six-year term against the more policy-focused Jeff Bell, who won Tuesday’s primary without the support of any of the county Republican organizations, just as he did in 1978 when he defeated Sen. Clifford Case, a moderate, in that year’s primary.
Bell, 70, moved back to New Jersey in February after 30 years in Virginia, where he worked for think tanks and advocacy groups, because he couldn’t persuade policymakers to take up what he sees as the solution to the nation’s economic problems: a return to the gold standard in setting the value of the dollar.
“The congressmen I was talking to and federal candidates were afraid and unwilling to take up the issue, so I felt that there was a chance that even with limited resources, that I could communicate the issue to average voters,” Bell said Wednesday.
Unofficial results showed Bell won 30 percent of the total vote against three opponents who also struggled to get attention.
“It is possible, if you have the right issue in the right year, to upset the incumbent U.S. senator of New Jersey,” he said at a news conference in Freehold, where he was endorsed by second-place finisher Richard Pezzullo.
“In order to get this fight going, I’m going to throw all of my support behind Jeff Bell,” said Pezzullo, who had refused to concede Tuesday night as unofficial tallies showed him with about 35,000 votes to Bell’s 42,000.
Brian D. Goldberg and Murray Sabrin, who finished third and fourth, respectively, also called Wednesday for the party to unite.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/second-place-finisher-endorses-bell-in-senate-race-against-booker-1.1028840#sthash.XCDNAAV0.dpuf
