Thomas Roughneen

Clockwise from lower left: Leonard Lance, AD Amar, Martin Marks, Darren Young, Kelly Hatfield, Thomas Roughneen, Kate Whitman. 

MOUNTAINSIDE - The seven Republican candidates for Congress in the 7th District debated at Town Hall here on Thursday night in a one-hour forum moderated by Fred Rossi of the Westfield Leader and Scotch Plains Fanwood Times.

As expected, most of the criticism flew in the direction of state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon), who in turn directed his ire at the $10 trillion national debt.

Iraq War veteran Thomas Roughneen of Watchung attacked Lance’s environmental advocacy, while Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks and businesswoman Kate Whitman of Peapack-Gladstone blasted him for not being a more effective fighter in state government for property tax relief.

MOUNTAINSIDE - Martin Marks, mayor of Scotch Plains for the past nine years and a candidate for Congress in the 7th Congressional District, spent mush of the evening targeting presumed front-runner state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon).

"I am unafraid to stand up to members of my own party when they don't act, when they should have," he said.

But when Iraq War veteran Thomas Roughneen and busineswoman Kate Whitman went after Marks on taxes, the mayor chastised both of them.

MOUNTAINSIDE - Kelly Hatfield gets the crowd in Town Hall here toFormer Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield clap for the "great Republican farm team we have," while Martin Marks takes verbal slaps at Kate Whitman and Thomas Roughneen and praises Hatfield.

"You two are the probably the youngest people on this dais," Marks tells Whitman and Roughneen, seated to his right and left.

"Why don’t you walk a mile in our shoes?" he asks, referring them to local elected officials.

MOUTAINSIDE - Sen. Leonard Lance goes for in-the-chamber gravitas inSen. Leonard Lance and his wife, Heidi, on Thursday night after the debate his closing remarks, and goes after Assemblywoman Linda Stender, the Democratic candidate for the 7th Congressional District.

After fielding blows from Roughneen, Whitman and Marks, Lance compliments them all for their various professional qualities, and makes positive comments about the other candidates, including Professor AD Amar and former Summit Councilwoman Kelly Hatfield.

"What I would like to think I bring to this race is experience in Trenton on the transcendent issue of our time - fiscal responsibility," says the state senator, who wants to take a shot at reducing the country’s $10 trillion debt.

MOUNTAINSIDE - With State Sen. Leonard Lance staying out of theState Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) line of fire, Martin Marks and Thomas Roughneen let off some steam.

As part of a two-minute statement, and in a clear diss of Lance, Scotch Plains Mayor Marks says he has been "unafraid" to confront leaders in his own party.

"Anybody in the Legislature is by definition a failure on the critical issue of property taxes," Marks says. "Republicans held it (power) in 90s, Democrats held it in this decade, and I ask you why do we keep going back tot he people who fail us?"

Roughneen piggy-backs on that, but expands the criticism to include Marks.

"I have not been part of this," Roughneen says of the leadership by both parties that has created what he says is a property tax crisis in New Jersey.

Tom Roughneen 

MOUNTAINSIDE - With his campaign manager vigorously shaking her head ‘no,’ Sen. Leonard Lance complies and doesn’t respond to Tom Roughneen’s opening blast in the 7th Congressional District GOP debate.

Roughneen ridicules Lance’s Sierra Club endorsement and criticizes him for mentioning the use of corn husks as an energy alternative.

"We have oil, we need to drill it and we need to take care of ourselves," says Roughneen.

Ignoring the Iraq War veteran, Lance keeps with a question from moderator Fred Rossi about whether he would support making the Bush tax cuts permanent. He responds in the affirmative.

State Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) in Flemington.

FLEMINGTON - Ask a Bush-era Republican to name an American statesman he admires and more times than not he will invoke Ronald Reagan. But State Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) invariably gives a different answer to the question.

"I have self-identified with Dwight Eisenhower as an ideal to which I will strive," says the 7th Congressional District candidate. "Dwight Eisenhower brought people together. He was a uniter not a divider, who strongly believed in balancing the federal budget and not robbing our children and our grandchildren of their future."

The Eisenhower model has particular relevance now, according to Lance, who calls fiscal responsibility the transcendent home-front issue as America stares at a $10 trillion debt. The state senator further praises Eisenhower for extracting American forces from Korea when he did, and for not involving the country in other foreign wars, unlike his successors.

Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks 

SCOTCH PLAINS - There sits Mayor Martin Marks at his desk in Town Hall and he doesn’t look as ruffled as he might.

It’s not that he isn’t in a fight, or unwilling to start a scrap in the lulls that are fewer and fewer now with 14 days to go in this 7th Congressional District Republican Primary. Indeed, the self-described "across the board conservative Republican" seizes every opportunity to bash the record of presumptive frontrunner state Sen. Leonard Lance.

"Nice guy, a gentleman," admits Marks. "But people like Leonard Lance play fast and loose with the term conservative. A moderate? All right. But not conservative. He’s pro choice. And he’s going around bragging that he’s gotten the endorsement of the Sierra Club. That’s not conservative."

Kate Whitman 

BRANCHBURG - Next door to the pizza parlor where Kate Whitman pauses before working the backroom of local Republicans two weeks before Election Day stands a Cryan’s Ale House.

Someone throws the name of the tavern owned by the family of State Democratic Party Chairman Joseph Cryan in her direction, and the 31-year old daughter of former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman smiles with recognition.

"I grew up just up the street, and I went to Cryan’s all the time," says the 7th Congressional District candidate.

But if she pleasantly surprised some of her opponents who thought she would come into the race with riding crop and foxhounds, she also encountered a party that gave her and her family a jolt bordering on disrespect, as she failed to secure party backing based on her mother’s clout and lost three of the district’s four organizational lines in the pre-primary.

Tom Roughneen 

In his dogged fight to stay relevant and competitive against the reality of state Sen. Leonard Lance’s big organizational advantages heading into their 7th Congressional District primary, Thomas Roughneen tonight talked strategy with his allies in a conference call.

The former Essex County prosecutor and Iraq War veteran faces a Thursday night debate with the other competitors in this Republican Primary fight, including businesswoman Kate Whitman, former Summit Council Vice-President Kelly Hatfield, Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks, Seton Hall business professor A.D. Amar, Murray Sabrin-running mate Darren Young, and Lance.

The debate will be the last of the cycle with two weeks to go before Election Day.