Forget about slaying dragons.
New Jersey's Republicans are having a difficult enough time trying to knock off someone they say is a dinosaur -- 84-year-old Frank Lautenberg, the state's senior US senator, who has given every indication he plans to run for re-election, despite the public's wariness.
No sooner had the most mainstream candidate dropped out of the Republican race this month than two counterpunchers from the party's conservative flank began lacerating each other.
Now Andrew Unanue, a political novice who is a former chief operating officer at his family's business, Goya Foods, is hoping to make a late splash. And although Unanue, who owned a Manhattan nightclub, has been photographed far more often with socialites than with senators, he does have one attribute that the Republican establishment says is crucial to wage a battle against Lautenberg: a lot of money to finance a campaign.
"He's the only one who can raise the money necessary to defeat Senator Lautenberg," said Mark Campbell, a Republican political consultant who sounded ebullient at the idea of Unanue.
Whether the fortunes of a cash-strapped party that has lost every statewide election since 1997 can be revived by Unanue, a resident of Alpine, a wealthy pocket in Bergen County, who has never held public office is a large imponderable. But with an April 7 primary deadline approaching, some Republicans have been itching, almost obsessively, to attract a moderate candidate to fill the place of Anne Estabrook, a wealthy real estate developer who dropped out this month after suffering a minor stroke.
Hardly a day has passed since Estabrook's withdrawal without rumor of a possible candidate, preferably one with deep pockets, taking on the two remaining candidates from the conservative wing of the party, state Senator Joseph Pennacchio, a dentist and veteran legislator from Morris County, and Murray Sabrin, a finance professor at Ramapo College who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2000.
After initially throwing up their hands in the face of an anticipated Democratic rout at the polls in November, there has been a clear sign that Lautenberg is vulnerable. His recent poll numbers have been underwhelming, with one finding that while a plurality of residents approved of the senator, 58 percent preferred that someone else be elected.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
Africa has established the continent’s first space agency to boost Earth observation and data sharing at a time when a more hostile global context is limiting the availability of climate and weather information. The African Space Agency opened its doors last month under the umbrella of the African Union and is headquartered in Cairo. The new organization, which is still being set up and hiring people in key positions, is to coordinate existing national space programs. It aims to improve the continent’s space infrastructure by launching satellites, setting up weather stations and making sure data can be shared across
RSS