Jack Kelly

The first major policy difference between third district Republican congressional candidates Jack Kelly and Chris Myers emerged today over how the United States should secure its border with Mexico.

Kelly said that Myers’s contention that “building solid walls” along the border “is not the answer,” which was published in a Philadelphia Inquirer story that ran today, puts him in line with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Myers said that high-tech solutions, like cameras and sensors, are a better solution.

“I could not disagree with Chris Myers more about building a fence at the US-Mexican border. While I agree that technology plays a part in securing our border, we must build a physical fence as well,” said Kelly in a press release. Chris is someone that Republicans simply can’t trust. Whether it’s donating to liberal Democrats, missing primary elections, or not supporting building a fence – Chris Myers is wrong.”

In a matter of weeks, the third district congressional contest has gone from gentlemanly to potentially litigious. 

Candidate Chris Myers took extreme offense today to Republican primary opponent Jack Kelly’s new television advertisement, saying that it is “false and defamatory” and having his lawyer write a scalding letter to Kelly.  Kelly, for his part, said Myers crossed the line with a mailer about him that features a pig wearing a crown. 

Although Myers did not explicitly threaten any legal action, his lawyer, Michael P. Madden, sent a stern letter to Kelly demanding that the commercial be “removed from the air waves immediately.”

The 30-second Kelly spot accuses Myers of “influence peddling” and dolling out “special interest money” on Capitol Hill on behalf of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, where he’s an executive.  The commercial notes thousands of dollars that Lockheed Martin gave in campaign contributions to prominent Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and includes a snippet of Myers from a press conference last week saying “that’s part of my job.” 

Medford Mayor Chris Myers 

TOMS RIVER: Two Republican Primary candidates in the 3rd Congressional District engaged in a verbal sidewalk scuffle after Medford Mayor Chris Myers took his frustration over opponent Jack Kelly’s public work record into the heart of Kelly’s home county.

It was a shift in strategy for Myers, who has mostly played defense for the past few weeks as Kelly hurled pointed critiques of Myers’s record across county lines. Today, Kelly, an Ocean County freeholder, was the object of his Burlington opponent’s counter-attack.

Trying to strike a contrasting pose to what he has described as Myers’s propensity to shrink behind surrogates, Kelly went to the Ocean County Courthouse to directly take on Myers’s complaints.

Myers had plenty of them.

South Jersey Democrats threw a punch at Chris Myers today, just as the third district Republican congressional candidate was getting ready to hold a press conference hitting back at Jack Kelly, his Republican rival for the nomination.

Burlington County Democratic Chairman Rick Perr today slammed Myers as a “pawn” of Republican bosses for accepting money from the “Corrupt Burlington County GOP Machine.”

At issue are two donations that show up in Myers’s Federal Election Commission filings: $2,300 from former Burlington County Republican Chairman Glenn Paulsen, and $2,300 former Burlington County Bridge Commission Chairman J. Garfield DeMarco.

They claim it’s a gentleman’s contest, and in a sit-down debate on Jack KellyNJN over the weekend they confessed to Jim Hooker that they would close ranks after one of them outworks the other to secure the Republican Party’s nomination in the 3rd Congressional District.

In the meantime, however, Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly and Medford Mayor Chris Myers continue to wage arguably the most acrimonious press release war in the state.

Already bolstered by news that his rival had donated money to U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Kelly today lashed out at what he said was Myers’s thin voting record.

"Now we find out that Chris did not even bother to vote in 70% of Republican primary elections since 1997 – including the Presidential primaries in 2000 and 2004," Kelly said.

Myers responded through campaign manager Chris Russell, who targeted 1997, the first of those years the Kelly campaign listed as one in which they contend Myers was missing in action.

Chris Myers"Is Jack Kelly looking to star in a remake of the Keystone Cops?" Russell asked.

"...His latest smear was attacking Chris Myers in a press release for not voting in the June 1997 Republican Primary, when Chris didn’t even live in New Jersey until August 1997 and register to vote in Medford until October 6, 1997," Russell said.

The Kelly campaign admitted they erred in including 1997 as one of the primaries in which Myers failed to vote.

But they stood by the other dates.

Medford Mayor Chris Myers 

In what is quickly becoming a dogfight, Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly this morning derided his opponent, Medford Mayor Chris Myers, for to date not submitting personal financial disclosure information required by the feds.

The Myers campaign answered that they intend to file in the next few days, and meanwhile took aim at Kelly as a government bureaucrat gorged for years on patronage jobs - a depiction that Kelly strenuously resisted.

Ocean County Freeholder John Kelly 

In their 3rd Congressional District GOP primary scrap, Jack Kelly this week pounced on Chris Myers’s claim to having cut wasteful spending and reduced the number of employees in Medford Township.

Seizing on Medford Mayor Myers’s recently released campaign mailer, Kelly, an Ocean County freeholder, said, "the truth is that from 2001-2007 Medford Township budgets show a 45% increase in appropriations – up from $14.6 million to $21.2 million."

Democratic U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg received a $500 contribution from GOP House candidate Chris Myers: Getty Images Photo
Third district Republican congressional candidate Jack Kelly took Republican rival Chris Myer to task today for donating money to Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

According to campaign finance reports, Myers, the mayor of Medford and an executive at defense contractor Lockheed-Martin, donated $500 to Lautenberg in January, 2007.

As someone who has dedicated their life to the Republican Party and public service, it baffles me how ‘a conservative Republican’ and ‘Washington outsider’ could personally contribute to the liberal ‘Washington insider Frank Lautenberg,’” said Kelly in a press release. “It is clear that I am the candidate in this race who truly believes in the principles of the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan, not the Democrat Party of Hillary Clinton.”

The moment Medford Mayor Chris Myers stepped into the third district congressional primary, most insiders picked himas the favorite Republican to continue retiring Rep. Jim Saxton’s legacy.

Even after Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly entered the GOP race with the support of his large Republican county’s powerful organization support , Myers managed to maintain the mantle of frontrunner, winning the coveted line in his native Burlington County, along with neighboring Camden County -- which only has one town in the district, albeit a large one: Cherry Hill.

But fundraising totals reported by the Press of Atlantic City on Wednesday suggest a race much closer than initially expected.

According to the report, Myers has raised $334,786.77 and has $288,000 on hand. Meanwhile, Kelly has raised approximately $306,000, and has $281,000 on hand.

A team of unlikely Republican allies surfaced in Ocean and Burlington counties today as the U.S. Senate campaign of Murray Sabrin merged with the 3rd District Congressional candidacy of Justin Murphy of Burlington, and freeholder candidate Suzanne Penna of Ocean.

"We have been organizing for the better part of two days," said Sabrin campaign spokesman George Ajjan, who would not comment on the specifics of the Sabrin-Murphy-Penna alliance or on slates his candidate is pulling together in other districts.