open seat

Jack Kelly and Chris Myers, the two leading candidates for the Republicans’ third district congressional nomination, have both indicated that they plan to keep their primary contest gentlemanly despite strong pushes from each of their counties’ Republican organizations.

“What you don’t want to turn this into is us against them,” Kelly, an Ocean County Freeholder, told PolitickerNJ.com in November. “We need to assure them that the needs of the district come first. Which one of us becomes a successful candidate comes second.”

But are the candidates merely paying lip service to civility this early in the race, or will they actually be able to live up to the idea?

If the 1984 primary race for the seat is any indication -- the last time there was a competitive primary in the district and Burlington and Ocean Counties went head-to-head – then yes, the contest may very well remain civil.

“We had a gentleman’s primary,” said retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton, who went on to narrowly win that primary and then serve 12 consecutive terms in the House. “We debated the issues. Ronald Reagan was a theme of the campaign. He was very popular at the time.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) was in New Jersey today to hype the upcoming congressional campaigns of Linda Stender and John Adler, emphasizing the need to bring the two in to boost the Democrats’ relatively narrow majority in the House.

“We’ve worked very hard over the last number of years since the republicans took over the house to take back the house – not just for political purposes. Obviously all of us want to be in the majority, but what we really want to do is change the direction that the Republican congress and the Republican president have taken this country,” Hoyer told PolitickerNJ.com. “If we lose 15 people we lose the proposition.”

During Stender’s 2006 congressional campaign, in which she raised about $2 million without a tremendous amount of support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and managed to come within one point of unseating Rep. Mike Ferugson, Hoyer came up to New Jersey to campaign for Stender several times.