Candidates for governor spent week of Passover and Easter slinging insults
The two front-runners for their party's nomination took diverging, but still disparaging, tactics during Holy Week. While Democrat Phil Murphy trained his focus on Gov. Chris Christie and President Donald Trump, Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno aimed to take out her biggest threat — but missed the mark.
That and other happenings in the 2017 primary campaign below.
Who's running?
DEMOCRATS: Bill Brennan, Jim Johnson, Ray Lesniak, Phil Murphy, John Wisniewski, Mark Zinna.
REPUBLICANS: Jack Ciattarelli, Kim Guadagno, Steven Rogers, Joseph Rullo, Hirsh Singh.
INDEPENDENTS (no primary): Seth Kaper-Dale, Gina Genovese, Jon Lancelot, Mike Price, Peter Rohrman, Vincent Ross.
Guadagno swings and misses
Guadagno's supporters challenged the validity of more than 700 of the 1,674 signatures on the petition of Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli. Had all those signatures been invalidated, Ciattarelli would have fewer than the requisite 1,000 signatures and be taken off the primary ballot — and Guadagno would have knocked off her biggest primary threat.
But an administrative law judge tossed out about 180 signatures, allowing Ciattarelli to stay on the ballot while giving him an opportunity to swat back at Guadagno. He called the petition challenge "desperate and sad."
"Competition is supposed to be a healthy thing. Is there a side of the Lt. Governor that’s revealing itself?" Ciattarelli said in a statement.
What Ciattarelli didn't say is that he also challenged signatures on Guadagno's petition.
Ricky Diaz, a spokesman for Guadagno, said Ciattarelli's petition had legitimate issues, evinced by the judge's decision to invalidate some of the signatures.
"These challenges are meant to make sure people play by the rules," Diaz said.
Despite their attempts to delegitimize each other, Guadagno and Ciattarelli will both be on the June 6 primary ballot. But a slate of candidates will appear with Ciattarelli on the ballots in Bergen, Monmouth, Ocean and Passaic counties, where Guadagno won the "county line," or preferred ballot position. Still, Guadagno will appear on the ballot in those counties as well as the others she won with the candidates endorsed, as she has been, by the local party organization.
Murphy rolls over Christie, Trump
After the recent train derailment at Penn Station, Murphy continued his line of criticism against Christie and Trump, vowing infrastructure improvements that include the roughly $24 billion Gateway tunnel project below the Hudson River. And he held a transit round table "to discuss ways the state can make NJ Transit and other mass-transit options more effective and efficient," his campaign said.
In a Facebook Live session promoted to focus on "growing the middle class while also fight back against President Trump and Governor Christie," Murphy said he was disappointed to learn that Trump's budget proposal strips funding for the Gateway project, since Trump had "talked a pretty strong game related to infrastructure." But Murphy said he still expects the tunnel project to happen and that the federal government "can, should and will play a role in big infrastructure projects."
"We're going to get going whether they're with us or not, and God-willing they'll be with us," he said about Gateway.
In that same question-and-answer session, Murphy pinned at least some of the blame for recent transit issues on Christie. Even though Amtrak took responsibility for two recent incidents at Penn Station, Murphy used them as springboards to condemn Christie's leadership on transportation issues.
"NJ Transit used to be held up — like a lot of things in New Jersey — as a national model, viewed to be one of the premier commuter rail entities in the United States. But that was before the state subsidy has been cut under Governor Christie by 90 percent," he said, and, referring to the project that preceded Gateway, "before the ARC tunnel was canceled — I think the biggest public policy blunder in the modern history of this state," he said.
Earlier in the week in a sit-down with The Record's editorial board, Murphy further contrasted himself with Christie. Without naming Christie, Murphy said the current administration hasn't done enough "slugging" for the state's interests at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
"We are not getting our fair share," he said.
More money
The Election Law Enforcement Commission approved another round of matching funds for candidates, giving them $2 for every $1 they raise.
Two candidates received matching funds for the first time: Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, was approved for $663,010 in public funds, while Ciattarelli got $650,996, according to the commission.
Guadagno got another $333,560, bringing her total to $1.164 million in public funds. But Guadagno is now slightly behind Democratic candidate Jim Johnson, the little-known former federal treasury official. He now has $1.65 million in public funds, more than any other candidate — Democratic or Republican — in the public-financing program (Murphy, who has donated $10 million of his own money to his campaign, is not participating).
Ciattarelli gets loud on "Silent Kim"
With some money in the bank now, Ciattarellli released a new ad against Guadagno. With the title "Kim Guadagno: Blowing in the Wind," the ad's narrator portrays "Silent Kim," as Ciattarelli has taken to calling her, as a typical Trenton politician who is "always blowing in the wind." The ad specifically takes her to task on the gas tax deal struck by Christie and the Democratic-led Legislature last year. Being against the 23-cent increase, Guadagno could have vetoed it on any of the days she filled in for Christie as acting governor, Ciattarelli argues.
Diaz, the Guadagno spokesman, said Ciattarelli's campaign has been regularly attacking Guadagno and that it gives insight into its standing in the race.
"We think that is a sign of his desperation, being so low in the polls," Diaz said. "He's really trying to get any attention he can to his campaign, even if that means negative attacks."