Taking a page out of Lautenberg's 1982 playbook, Zimmer pushes for debates

TRENTON -- The debate over debates is not over.

Just 12 hours after scoring a relatively narrow victory in the Republican Senate primary last night, Republican nominee Dick Zimmer immediately turned his attention to incumbent Senator and Democratic nominee Frank Lautenberg by asking him to participate in a series of debates, starting next Friday.

It was déjà vu all over again, with Zimmer taking a page out of Democratic challenger Rob Andrews's playbook. But Zimmer said that the idea came not from the Andrews camp, but from Lautenberg's 1982 campaign against Republican Millicent Fenwick, when he demanded 21 debates - one in each county in the state - something Andrews also said on the campaign trail.

"Twenty-six years ago, Frank Lautenberg said that candidates have, and I quote, ‘an obligation to let citizens make their own decisions through more debates.' I agree with that philosophy."

It would start with one hosted by the New Jersey Association of Counties, which has invited Zimmer and Lautenberg.

"I ask Sen. Lautenberg to join me immediately in accepting the debate as part of a framework that was agreed to two years ago between incumbent Sen. Bob Menendez and his challenger, Tom Kean, (Jr.)," said Zimmer.

Zimmer, 64, pledged that he would not bring up Frank Lautenberg's age of 84, as Andrews said. He added that the negative tenor of the Democratic race was a result of the two candidates having few philosophical differences, whereas he and Lautenberg have much to disagree on. Take, for instance, his opposition to earmarks that he's based his short campaign on so far.

"It will be a spirited debate between Sen. Lautenberg and myself, the un-Lautenberg. We have diametrically different philosophies," said Zimmer. "Sen. Lautenberg thinks it's ok to send $250 million to Alaska for a bridge to nowhere, and accept and exchange a few hundred thousand dollars for blueberry research in the state of New Jersey."

Instead, Zimmer said that the campaign will focus on what Lautenberg said mattered all along: effectiveness, and said that the only bill Lautenberg wrote that became law was the renaming of the West Milford post office.

"I have no problem with Frank Lautenberg's character. I think he does the right thing by his own likes and has accomplished some good things in his years in the senate, but has not been an effective advocate for the people of New Jersey."

The Republican primary which Zimmer entered into late did take a negative turn, with rival Joe Pennacchio blasting Zimmer for taking a farmland assessment tax break and Zimmer pushing back with radio ads excerpting Pennacchio's controversial 1991 policy paper called A Nationalist Agenda.

But Zimmer said Pennacchio and Murray Sabrin both called him with gracious concessions last night and offered to help him in his general election campaign. And he said that he wasn't afraid of the tax break he gets on his Hunterdon County farm would be an effective attack against him by Lautenberg.

"According to New Jersey farm bureau, it's the most successful agricultural protection program there is in New Jersey," he said.

Zimmer also categorically denied that he ever used controversial ‘angry black man' robocalls during his 2000 congressional campaign against Rush Holt, a charge outlined in the book How to Rig an Election by former political operative Alan Raymond.

"That is an untrue statement made by a convicted felon. It didn't happen," he said.

Zimmer wouldn't say what his fundraising goals are, but thinks that he will have enough money to get his message out.

"We expect to be outspent, but we expect to win," he said.

Lautenberg spokeswoman Julie Roginsky also sounded a campaign theme that's been familiar over the last couple months: she tied Zimmer to President Bush.

"Dick Zimmer is a long-time Washington Republican who eagerly signed on to Gingrich's failed Contract for America. Now he marches in lockstep with George Bush by opposing a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and therefore supports giving this Administration a blank check to continue this misguided war indefinitely. New Jersey and the nation have voted time and again for a change from the failed Bush policies that Dick Zimmer so wholeheartedly endorses," she said in a statement.

Roginsky said that Lautenberg would participate in debates with Zimmer, but did not offer any commitments.
We believe that debates are an integral part of any campaign and we look forward to contrasting Senator Lautenberg's progressive record of delivering for the state of New Jersey and with Dick Zimmer's support of Bush Administration policies, but we will not be debating debates with our opponent."