Bellew Needs To Come Clean On Her Credentials

State Senate primary candidate Leigh-Ann Bellew owes her supporters, and the voters of the 13th Legislative District, the truth about her resume.  Any candidate’s educational and employment history is an important consideration for voters to take into account when choosing their nominees and elected officials.  Bellew is asking Republican voters to fire an long term and distinguished incumbent in Senator Joe Kyrillos, and to hire her instead.   In order for her candidacy to be taken seriously, she needs to be transparent about her education, career and character.

Bellew has gone into hiding since the questions about her resume and education have become public.  When the questions about her legal education arose in early April, Bellew told MMM that she graduated from law school in Texas but never took the bar exam.  She said she went to work in customer service for American Express rather than pursue a career as a lawyer, and then exited the work force to raise her children.

However, since PolitickerNJ questioned the veracity of her resume, Bellew has stopped returning MMM’s repeated phone calls.  Her campaign manager, Dwayne Horner, has not been able to provide answers.

Bellew, her running mates and campaign volunteers have been distorting Kyrillos’s record. Kyrillos is a moderate, but he is not a tax and borrow liberal as the Bayshore Tea Party Group backed ticket is claiming.  Kryillos does not support partial birth abortion and death panels, as the duplicitous literature the BTPG backed campaign has been distributing claims.

If a candidate or campaign is going to take liberties with the truth about their opponent’s record, they at the very least should have the decency to be transparent about something as basic about their own education and career.

Leigh-Ann Bellew can put an end to all of this nonsense over her past by simply proving she has the degrees she has claimed she has.  She should do that immediately.  If Bellew has embellished her past, she should come clean about that and explain herself.

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Bellew’s Credentials, Conservatism Questioned

By Kelly Ann Hart

In 2010 I was a manager in Anna Little’s campaign for Congress.  I worked with Leigh Ann Bellew, who was the campaign’s initial manager and then became the campaign’s Chairman.  I am a conservative Republican who has been active with the Tea Party.

During that campaign Leigh Ann Bellew led me, as well as and all the rest of us who were working on Anna Little’s campaign, to believe that she was “a lawyer who didn’t practice”.  We also got the impression from what she told us that she had studied law and had a degree of some kind in Constitutional studies.  None of this has turned out to be true.

Leigh Ann Bellew also misled us about her involvement with national conservatives like Dick Morris, telling us that she had been his “communications director”. This isn’t true either.

I wasn’t aware of her answers to a Project Vote Smart (http://votesmart.org/candidate/political-courage-test/59968/leigh-ann-bellew/#.UYeWJXzD-M8) questionnaire in 2006, none of us were, but have had the opportunity to read it since.  I am concerned by a number of her answers and most concerned by her answers to the questions on the 2^nd Amendment and Abortion.

On the 2^nd Amendment, if Leigh Ann is a “constitutionalist” as she claims, how is her support for the federal licensing of all firearms in line with the 2^ndamendment?

On Abortion she claims to be Pro-Life, but told Vote Smart that an abortion should be legal when the mother’s life is involved.  How this fits with her “Pro-Life, Christian” values?  You are either for the death of a baby or you are not.

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I Know Leigh-Ann Bellew

By James C. Granelli

But first, please understand that I thought long and hard about writing this commentary. After all, Bellew is running in a primary in another district than my own and I have my hands full rebuilding our home after Sandy. I would have loved some peace and quiet right now; instead of what I expect will be coming; harsh criticism from some Tea Party people who will attack me as a faux Conservative. I could have simply sat this out. But then, people that know me; know most of all that I am indeed a Conservative and I would feel ill at ease for not doing the right thing. I will let my resume and references speak for themselves should those attacks come.

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Mystery Robo Call In LD 13

Someone commissioned ‘phone ID’ calls in LD 13 that went out yesterday asking Republican primary voters if they planned to vote for Republican Senator Joe Kyrillos, Tea Party challenger Leigh-Ann Bellew or if they are unsure.

Listen to the recording here.

It was left as a voice mail at an MMM reader’s home.  The caller ID said the call came from 602-357-5922, a Phoenix, AZ landline listed to Danny Crosby.

None of the competing campaigns or candidates will cop to paying for the call. There was no ‘paid for’ disclosure.

‘Phone ID’ calls are not polls, per se.  The data collected is used for get out the vote (GOTV) planning.

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Fitzsimmons responds to Pekarsky’s “real republican” manifesto

Ed Pekarsky

Matawan Councilman Tom Fitzsimmons responded yesterday to Bayshore Tea Party backed freeholder candidate Ed Pekarsky’s  email to the Monmouth Young Republicans email list.

Both Fitzsimmons and Pekarsky have expressed a desire for MMM to publish Fitz’s response.  We’re happy to oblige.  Pekarsky and BTPG leaders expressed a desire that we use another of Pekarsky’s photos.  We’re happy to oblige that request as well.

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Freeholder Challenger Claims “real republican” Mantle

Amateur nutjob Ed Pekarsky. facebook photo

Bayshore Tea Party backed freeholder candidate Ed Pekarsy responded to an email invitation to a Monmouth County Young Republicans social event with a rant disparaging the Monmouth GOP.

While I am glad to see that Monmouth county YR’s are continuing on our traditions and prescribing to our republican principals, I did want to inform your group that over the past several years, what I knew as Republicans have changed. In many ways, old guard establishment republicanism now means larger government spending and more legislating against our freedoms while an arrogant elitism have captured the party that WE all dislike and we all have come to associate with the left in this country.

The email distribution list includes numerous Monmouth County Republican elected officials, Municipal Chairs, a state GOP staffer, a State GOP Committeeman, county employees, and former elected and party officials.  Note to YR Chair Jessica Reyes…bcc is your friend.

Pekarsky went on to tell his audience that they are alienating “our own republican brothers and sisters.”

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Low turnout is a major risk for LD 13 incumbents

LD 13:Aberdeen, Atlantic Highlands, Fair Haven, Hazlet, Highlands, Holmdel, Keansburg, Keyport, Little Silver, Marlboro, Middletown, Monmouth Beach, Oceanport, Rumson, Sea Bright, Union Beach

The idea that State Senator Joe Kyrillos and Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon could be defeated by their Tea Party challengers, Leigh-Ann Bellew for Senate and Edna Walsh and Stephen Boracchia for Assembly, in the June 4 primary is unthinkable, even laughable, to many Monmouth County Republicans.

But recent history and a look at the numbers indicate that an upset with statewide consequences could very well be in the making if the challenge is not taken seriously.

With only nominal competition in the governor’s race, voter turnout in the Republican primary on June 4 is likely to be very low.   Therein lies the danger for the incumbents. Even “good Republicans” rarely vote in primaries.  Even fewer if there is no perceived competition.

There are 34,216 registered Republicans in the 13th district. In the 2011 primary, the last time the legislature was on the ballot, only 2,274 Republicans voted.   The challengers know that.

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Why is the Bayshore Tea Party Group Challenging Monmouth County Incumbents?

Bayshore Tea Party Group Co-Founders Bob Gordon and Barbara Gonzalez took to their Asbury Park Press blog yesterday to attempt to explain why they are challenging the 13th Legislative District and County Republican incumbents.  In this post I’ll attempt to explain their explanation with the benefit of having spoken to them and having attended the meeting where they introduced most of their candidates.  If I get any of it wrong, I suspect they will correct me in the comments.

Gordon and Gonzalez would probably object to the characterization that they are challenging the incumbents.  They would say they are supporting the challenge, not doing the challenging.  Just as senate candidate Leigh-Ann Bellew said she is not the BTPG’s candidate, but anticipates the group’s support.  This a linguistic distinction without a practical difference.  The challenge is a Tea Party challenge.

THE PROCESS

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Bellew says she’s not the Bayshore Tea Party Group’s candidate

Republican challenger for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District told MoreMonmouthMusings that she is not the Bayshore Tea Party Group’s candidate, as we have been reporting.

“While Bayshore will likely support me, I am not their candidate,” said Bellew, “I have a professional team running this campaign and much of my support will come from outside the tea party.”

Bellew is running against Senator Joe Kyrillos for the GOP nomination in the June 4th primary.

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Bennett: Tea Party Primary Challenge Is “Ludicrous”

Monmouth County Republican Chairman John Bennett said that “it is ludicrous to me that these individuals are being challenged” in the primary.  Bennett was speaking to MoreMonmoutMusings about the primary challenges to his 13th legislative team of Senator Joe Kyrillos, Assembly members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon, as well as Sheriff Shaun Golden and Freeholders Tom Arnone and Serena DiMaso.

John Bennett

“I have no idea what their agenda is,” Bennett said of the Bayshore Tea Party Group and their slate of candidates who filed to challenge the incumbents today,” our candidates are doing great jobs and are conservatives.”

“We will treat this challenge like any other election against our good, strong incumbents and return these good people to office with every resource at our disposal.”

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