Pennacchio stays home from convention

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. While New Jersey Republicans gather for their convention, one person who’s staying home is state Sen. Joe Pennacchio, who was supposed to be a delegate.

Speaking to PolitickerNJ two weeks ago, Pennacchio (R-Montvale) said he wouldn’t be attending for a number of reasons. For one, he decided after his U.S. Senate primary campaign to spend more time with his family. He also wants to spend more time focusing on his legislative career and his dental practice. But there’s something else too.

“To be honest with you, I didn’t want to party with the party leaders. The leaders everyone was talking about in my campaign,” said Pennacchio, whose delegate spot has been replaced by former Morris County Freeholder John Inglesino. “I have an indifference towards them as much as they have an indifference towards me.”

During his U.S. Senate campaign earlier this year, Pennacchio watched two more mainstream, moderate candidates withdraw, while he was flanked on the right by Ramapo College professor Murray Sabrin. But instead of throwing their support behind Pennacchio, a back bench state Senator, they settled on recruiting former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer into the race. Pennacchio still feels that sting, as do some of his Morris County allies.

Larry Casha, a businessman and formerly Assembly candidate from Morris County, is attending the convention. A former Pennacchio supporter, Casha said that some of Pennacchio’s allies still do have hard feelings about the way the Senate primary went down.

“I wasn’t pleased with the way the party handled it, and of course the party said that it wasn’t them – that somebody wanted to jump in the race, and forever reason, couldn’t fill his duties and then Mr. Zimmer got in,” said Casha. “Don’t get me wrong, Zimmer’s a great individual. I cast no aspersions on him…. It just seemed like it was anybody but Joe, and Joe is a really qualified individual. I was kind of disappointed about that, because that’s not what our party is all about.”

The party differences pale in comparison to the Democratic convention, where the talk of last week was lasting enmity between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton camps. But there is at least a small fracture.

“It certainly has the appearance that within the bowels of the party there’s a rip of some sort. I don’t know that to be a fact,” said Casha. “ Maybe it was because they think only a moderate can win in New Jersey. I’m not of that opinion. I think if you have the right issues, people are going to vote for you.”