TRENTON — Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign for New Jersey governor now has two websites. One is its official page. The other is to needle his top opponent in the Republican primary, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.
Ciattarelli (R-Somerset) recently launched SilentKim.com to press his rival to accept his challenge to debate him in all 21 of the Garden State’s counties.
It’s only one page. At the top are headlines about Ciattarellii’s challenge. At the bottom is a ticker tracking the days, hours, minutes, and seconds that have passed since he issued it. And in the background is a distorted photo of Guadagno standing next to her boss, Gov. Chris Christie, the Republican whose approval rating in New Jersey has dipped into the teens.
Who is running for N.J. governor in 2017?
Ciattarelli, who issued the challenge on Jan. 18, also wrote an open letter to Guadagno this past week, asking her again to take part in the debates “so Republicans in every corner of our state can hear substantive discussion and judge for themselves who is best to lead our party and beat Wall Street’s Phil Murphy.”
Murphy, a millionaire former Goldman Sachs banking executive and ex-U.S. ambassador to Germany, is the early favorite for the Democratic nomination to succeed Christie.
Ciattarelli noted that the other two candidates for the Republican nomination — Nutley township commissioner Steven Rogers and Ocean County businessman Joseph Rullo — agreed to participate in the debates.
“Ultimately, 14-plus days later, there is no word from you,” Ciattarelli wrote to Guadagno.
Technically, there aren’t usually primary debates in a gubernatorial election until April or later. Candidates have until April to hand in their petitions to run and the primary isn’t until June.
Ricky Diaz, a spokesman for Guadagno’s campaign, told NJ Advance Media it sounds like Ciattarelli’s campaign “is really struggling to get attention in the media.”
“We have said numerous times that unlike Phil Murphy, who wants to buy every vote, Kim Guadagno intends to earn every vote and she fully intends to debate,” Diaz added. “Not only does the public financing law require it, she is eager to participate in debates.”
Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
