The Presidential primary season comes to an end today and it’s expected that Hilliary Clinton will basically suspend her campaign after expected losses in the final two contests of North Dakota and Montana. But there are some other elections going on tonight that are worth watching.
Most notable, in my mind, is the New Jersey Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Three candidates are facing off for the right to take on Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg. They are Former Congressman Dick Zimmer (the front-runner), State Senator “Jersey” Joe Pennacchio (the plucky underdog), and college professor Murray Sabrin… who a complete wild-card in this race.
Sabrin, as many of you may remember, ran for governor of New Jersey in 1997 as a Libertarian. He ran a spirited campaign and captured nearly 5% of the vote. Now, he’s running as a Republican for Senate with the blessing and support of Ron Paul. In fact, Sabrin has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars by tapping into the Ron Paul movement… allowing him to air television commercials and wage a pretty competitive campaign.
This should be a pretty good indicator of how similar attempts to co-op the Paul base will work in other down-ballot races around the country. We’ll know in a couple of hours how he fares.
With 94% reporting, it’s Zimmer with 46%, Pennachio with 40%, and Sabrin with 14%. Sabrin ran a great campaign, and hopefully brought attention to these issues. 14% for a liberartarian in a Senate race is pretty good. We can only hope great anti-establishment candidates like this keep running such competitive campaigns.
My point being that he’s not the type of candidate worth giving every ounce of your being to in a no-hope race (like Ron Paul).
Gene – I agree that it would be great IF he can get elected. If he wins tonight, then his odds (though still long) will be decent. However, Sabrin’s platform is disappointing to people looking for a Rn Paul part 2.
He may be a close second, but he’s a damn sight better than the status quo in DC. We need more people like Sabrin in office to start changing the tide.
I’m not a big Sabrin fan. If he can win, that’d be great. He’d easily be the second most libertarian person in D.C., but he’d be a distant second.
Sabrin’s platform is one of the most liberty-friendly platforms in the entire country. He is more liberty-minded than some Libertarians.