Martin Marks

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dick Zimmer as he appeared in ABC television debate on Sunday.SOMERVILLE - State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Morris) never convinced party leaders that he could be the darling of the GOP, most of whom instead backed former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer for U.S. Senate.

Now, with a full day remaining before Election Day, maverick conservative leader Steve Lonegan, a former mayor of Bogota and gubernatorial candidate, says he will vote for Pennacchio, while questioning Zimmer’s ability to generate energy among rank-and-file Republicans.

Clockwise from lower left: Leonard Lance, AD Amar, Martin Marks, Darren Young, Kelly Hatfield, Thomas Roughneen, Kate Whitman. 

MOUNTAINSIDE - The seven Republican candidates for Congress in the 7th District debated at Town Hall here on Thursday night in a one-hour forum moderated by Fred Rossi of the Westfield Leader and Scotch Plains Fanwood Times.

As expected, most of the criticism flew in the direction of state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon), who in turn directed his ire at the $10 trillion national debt.

Iraq War veteran Thomas Roughneen of Watchung attacked Lance’s environmental advocacy, while Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks and businesswoman Kate Whitman of Peapack-Gladstone blasted him for not being a more effective fighter in state government for property tax relief.

MOUNTAINSIDE - Martin Marks, mayor of Scotch Plains for the past nine years and a candidate for Congress in the 7th Congressional District, spent mush of the evening targeting presumed front-runner state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon).

"I am unafraid to stand up to members of my own party when they don't act, when they should have," he said.

But when Iraq War veteran Thomas Roughneen and busineswoman Kate Whitman went after Marks on taxes, the mayor chastised both of them.

MOUNTAINSIDE - Kelly Hatfield gets the crowd in Town Hall here toFormer Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield clap for the "great Republican farm team we have," while Martin Marks takes verbal slaps at Kate Whitman and Thomas Roughneen and praises Hatfield.

"You two are the probably the youngest people on this dais," Marks tells Whitman and Roughneen, seated to his right and left.

"Why don’t you walk a mile in our shoes?" he asks, referring them to local elected officials.

MOUTAINSIDE - Sen. Leonard Lance goes for in-the-chamber gravitas inSen. Leonard Lance and his wife, Heidi, on Thursday night after the debate his closing remarks, and goes after Assemblywoman Linda Stender, the Democratic candidate for the 7th Congressional District.

After fielding blows from Roughneen, Whitman and Marks, Lance compliments them all for their various professional qualities, and makes positive comments about the other candidates, including Professor AD Amar and former Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield.

"What I would like to think I bring to this race is experience in Trenton on the transcendent issue of our time - fiscal responsibility," says the state senator, who wants to take a shot at reducing the country’s $10 trillion debt.

MOUNTAINSIDE - With State Sen. Leonard Lance staying out of theState Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) line of fire, Martin Marks and Thomas Roughneen let off some steam.

As part of a two-minute statement, and in a clear diss of Lance, Scotch Plains Mayor Marks says he has been "unafraid" to confront leaders in his own party.

"Anybody in the Legislature is by definition a failure on the critical issue of property taxes," Marks says. "Republicans held it (power) in 90s, Democrats held it in this decade, and I ask you why do we keep going back tot he people who fail us?"

Roughneen piggy-backs on that, but expands the criticism to include Marks.

"I have not been part of this," Roughneen says of the leadership by both parties that has created what he says is a property tax crisis in New Jersey.

MOUTAINSIDE - Newspaper editor Fred Rossi asks Kate Whitman toKate Whitman grade George W. Bush as a commander-in-chief.

"The important thing is not how we got there but what we would do now that we’re there," she says.

Likening herself to the Speaker of the House, Whitman says, "I don’t think I or Nancy Pelosi" should second guess the decision by generals in the field.

Then Sen. Leonard Lance takes a question about whether we are winning the war on terror.

Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks"Yes," he says. "We have not had another attack since 9/11. But we have to be vigilant."

He blasts the president of Iran and urges alertness in the face of aggression by Iran. He gives a shout-out to Sen. John McCain and his "magnificent" service in the Vietnam War.

Now it’s Martin Marks’s turn to talk about the Middle East.

"This will continue to be an unstable region," he says. "I don’t think it’s been made more problematic by our presence there."

MOUNTAINVIEW - The 7th Congressional District debate has begun. 

Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks fields a question from moderator Fred Rossi about why he has placed so much emphasis on social issues in his campaign.

"I'm not sure I've put an emphasis on social issues," says Marks. "Anyone of us will defeat an out-of-tocuh with the district Linda Stender, but our present congressman is a pro-life conservative."

He calls last year's near loss for U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-7) an anamoly.

"He has won quite handsomely (in the past)," says Marks. "There is no reason why we shouldn't be promoting a conservative candidate. All too often we like to go with the comfortable shoe."

Democrat Linda Stender continues to outpace the field of seven Republicans in the seventh congressional district.
Stender raised $135,000 between April 1st and May 14th, and has approximately $900,000 on hand. 

The next best fundraiser in the district is Kate Whitman, who wasn’t too far behind Stender during the same period.  She raised $102,000, bringing her total raised to $547,989.  As of May 14th, Whitman had $205,384.81 on hand. 

State Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) in Flemington.

FLEMINGTON - Ask a Bush-era Republican to name an American statesman he admires and more times than not he will invoke Ronald Reagan. But State Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) invariably gives a different answer to the question.

"I have self-identified with Dwight Eisenhower as an ideal to which I will strive," says the 7th Congressional District candidate. "Dwight Eisenhower brought people together. He was a uniter not a divider, who strongly believed in balancing the federal budget and not robbing our children and our grandchildren of their future."

The Eisenhower model has particular relevance now, according to Lance, who calls fiscal responsibility the transcendent home-front issue as America stares at a $10 trillion debt. The state senator further praises Eisenhower for extracting American forces from Korea when he did, and for not involving the country in other foreign wars, unlike his successors.