Report: Dems planted NJ tea-party House candidate

AP, Yahoo ^ | 10/08/2010 | GEOFF MULVIHILL

[iowamark]

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. – A New Jersey Republican congressional candidate criticized his Democratic opponent Friday amid mounting evidence that Democratic officials planted a tea-party candidate in the race to siphon off conservative votes.

"My opponent, John Adler, represents everything that is wrong with politics in our country today," Republican Jon Runyan said. "I would ask for an apology. But frankly, an apology from someone like Congressman Adler would be so meaningless that it's not worth seeking."

He spoke at a news conference Friday as Adler, a first-term Democratic lawmaker, and his campaign remained mum about a report in the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill in which Democratic operatives speaking on the condition of anonymity confirmed what Republicans have believed for months: That tea-party candidate Peter DeStefano was put on the ballot by Democrats.

The operatives said a county Democratic employee is running at least the Web elements of DeStefano's campaign.

Tea party organizations, which have denounced DeStefano since he entered the race in June, called on him Friday to quit. About 50 tea party activists gathered in protest outside a restaurant in Medford where DeStefano had scheduled a fundraiser Friday night.

DeStefano arrived at the fundraiser after the protesters left and told reporters he would remain in the race, but he would not answer specific questions about the newspaper's report, dismissing the allegations as "hearsay."

"I'm an average guy who's running for Congress on the independent ticket," DeStefano said.

One tea party group, the West Jersey Tea Party, said it plans to file a voter-fraud lawsuit against Adler next week.

[iowamark]

CourierPostonline: Dems picked spoiler candidate

[freespirited]

I’m shocked (but happy) to see this in the lamestream media!

[iowamark]

http://www.northjersey.com/news/politics/elections/092910_Poll_Rep_John_Adler_leading_Republican_challenger_Jon_Runyan_by_9_percentage_points.html
“”...Adler’s lead over Runyan narrows to 41 percent to 39 percent when the poll uses a likely voter model – a lead within the survey’s margin of error.””

[Huck]

"My opponent, John Adler, represents everything that is wrong with politics in our country today," Republican Jon Runyan said. "I would ask for an apology. But frankly, an apology from someone like Congressman Adler would be so meaningless that it's not worth seeking."

Nicely done!

[luvbach1]

Hopefully this disclosure has come early enough to alert conservative-minded voters and thwart the Dem dirty trick.

[Gay State Conservative]

There's a lot of this $hit going on with RATS these days.In the last week or so it's become clear that the RAT candidate for Governor of Massachusetts has been coordinating his campaign with that of the RAT-turned-”Independent” candidate against the Republican candidate.

[catnipman]

“I’m shocked (but happy) to see this in the lamestream media!”

Yeah, me too. I didn’t think the leftist media would cover this.

[EQAndyBuzz]

“Yeah, me too. I didn’t think the leftist media would cover this.”

Friday news dump.

[MillardFillmore]

This pisses me off. Even though it’s almost midnight here, found my credit card I just gave Jon Runyan $50 at his website

http://runyanforcongress.com/

C’mon Freepers don’t let the Dems get away with this kind of crap. Give Runyan some dough.

[af_vet_rr]

Hopefully this disclosure has come early enough to alert conservative-minded voters and thwart the Dem dirty trick.

Probably not, it would not surprise me if there were more Dem plants floating around in some of the races right in front of our faces. I expect it will be worse in 2012 as they get more desperate. The sad thing is that GOP candidates need to be challenged in the primaries, and with the Dems doing this, they are going to make a lot of Conservatives reluctant to support primary challengers.