George Ajjan

In ten years, Roland Straten went from being Bill Pascrell's contributor to his opponent
When news broke that Republican Roland Straten would run for the 8th  Congressional District seat, Straten got a call from his old acquaintance and new opponent, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson).

According to Straten’s recollection, the exchange went something like this:

Pascrell: “Rollie, are you mad at me?”

Straten: “Bill, no.”

Pascrell: “Why are you running against me?”

Straten: “I don’t agree with your votes and your policies.’

Pascrell: “Then I’m going to beat your tail.” 

If Straten’s campaign turns out like those of Pascrell’s five previous challengers, then Pascrell probably will beat his tail. Since Pascrell narrowly unseated Republican Bill Martini in 1996, no Republican has gotten more than 35 percent of the vote against him.  Last year, Republican Jose Sandoval only got 28 percent to Pascrell’s 71 percent.

It's almost a month after the primary, but former Republican Senate primary candidate Murray Sabrin's unorthodox campaign continues to produce reverberations.

James Hogan, who ran for the Republican congressional nomination on Sabrin's slate in the 6th District, wrote a blog entry
excoriating the campaign for its unusual strategy and press release blitzes, which he said ultimate hurt both Sabrin and his down-ballot candidates.

Hogan placed third in the primary with a little over 1,000 votes, behind Robert McLeod, the winner, and Peter Cerrato.

Still, Hogan professes no bitter feelings towards Sabrin - just a slight feeling of bamboozlement.

Claiming to have nailed down the likely identity of someone who pretended to be him in email correspondence at the height of the Republican Primary, State GOP Chairman Tom Wilson today sent out a message to Republicans fingering a key supporter of Senate candidate Murray Sabrin.

"Efforts to trace the source of the emails were hampered by the inability of the Internet service providers to provide the details necessary," Wilson told Republicans in his email message sent today.

"However, the account was re-opened at some later point and was successfully traced to the former residence of Patrick Donohue, who owns Max Consulting in New York City," Wilson said of the early April transmissions.

Max Consulting is listed on Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports as having received more than $123,000 from the underdog campaign of Sabrin, who confirmed Donohue was the campaign’s fund-raiser.

Stakes are too high to allow Lautenberg to win

Lobbyist Boss continues non-inclusive trend

Sabrin for Senate spokesman George Ajjan won 29% of the vote against Rep. Bill Pascrell in 2004
If Murray Sabrin’spress releases from the primary campaign were to be taken literally, the New Jersey political scene would have been even more of a Bizarro World than it already is.

Republican Senate nominee Dick Zimmer would have been under federal investigation. Sabrin would have been endorsed by Gannett, or rather, the corpse of newspaper mogul Frank Gannet. Joe Pennacchio would have been a fascist. Tom Wilson would have resigned in disgrace from his post as Republican State Chairman. Chris Christie would not be the favorite potential GOP candidate for Governor next year. And Sabrin, who ultimately got 14% of the vote on primary day, would have been the clear frontrunner throughout the Republican Senate race and would have won every debate he participated in.

“Throughout this campaign we employed a creative strategy to try to cut through in a race where the press was paying very little attention to Murray Sabrin,” said George Ajjan, a former Republican kamikaze congressional candidate and frequent Republican pundit/blogger who worked as Sabrin’s communications director.

Ajjan was the operative who devised Sabrin’s unorthodox communications strategy that was at times clever and funny – like the time that Sabrin managed to get a blog entry on the Wall Street Journal’s Web site for letting $20,000 in campaign contributions ride in a 20-1 shot in the Kentucky Derby – but also earned ridicule from members of the Republican political establishment who bore the brunt of many of Sabrin’s press releases.

Ajjan won’t call his communications strategy misleading. He prefers the term “creative,” and notes that the press releases went out to the press and political insiders, as opposed to the general public, which saw a polished, mild-mannered candidate with a good grasp of economic issues.

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE

The award for the most ridiculous press release of the year – so far – goes to George Ajjan of the Murray Sabrin for U.S. Senate campaign. Ajjan claims Sabrin is the front runner for the GOP nomination, and points to a PolitickerNJ.com poll where he leads Dick Zimmer by twelve percentage points as evidence of his electoral success so far. This website enjoys our online polls, which are for the amusement of our readers and not at all scientific. Most of the time our readers get things right, but on this one, Sabrin might be better served by looking to Patrick Murray for analysis on this one: in a Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll released today, Sabrin was at 4% among Republican voters.

Senate candidate Murray Sabrin was presidential candidate Ron Paul’s biggest advocate in New Jersey.  And tonight, Paul, a Texas representative, returned the favor by visiting the self-proclaimed Republican frontrunner for a fundraiser at the Hilton next to Newark’s Penn Station.

The event, which attracted about 100 supporters, cost $250 per head and $100 for the under 30 crowd, who made up about a quarter of the audience.  Though the campaign wasn’t certain exactly how much they made tonight, spokesman George Ajjan announced with great fanfare that the campaign has raised a total of $500,000 so far. 

The general theme of the night was an impending economic collapse if the government doesn’t radically alter its fiscal policy.  But Paul, Sabrin and economist Peter Schiff – Paul’s economic advisor --  all said that the Paul’s presidential campaign ignited a movement that has continued with Sabrin’s Senate candidacy, which Paul referred to as “the strategically most important Senate race that’s going on in the country.”