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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.” 

Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney endorsed fifth district Democratic congressional candidate Dennis Shulman today.

Shulman, a blind rabbi and psychologist, is running against primary opponent Camille Abate to take on conservative Republican incumbent E. Scott Garrett.   

“Dennis Shulman, unlike Scott Garrett, understands the challenges facing the hardworking men and women of Northern New Jersey,” said McNerney.

Representative Frank Pallone acknowledged today that Hillary Clinton is the underdog for the Democratic presidential nomination, but said that he will continue supporting her until she either wins or decides to end her run.

“I’m sticking with her. I think it’s her decision to decide what she wants to do,” he said. “As long as she’s running I’m supporting her.”

Pallone disputed the conventional wisdom that Barack Obama is virtually sure to win the nomination, saying that it’s “still possible for (Clinton) to win”

“You still have some primaries, you still have the superdelegates and you still have Florida and Michigan,” he said.

Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood)

The Sierra Club plans to highlight what the group sees as Assemblywoman Linda Stender's (D-Fanwood) environmental record with a primary season endorsement of the 7th Congressional District candidate.

"It's very specifically a primary endorsement," said the organization's executive director Jeff Tittel, a day before his press conference with Stender in Flemington. "We'll wait to endorse for the general election."

Although the assemblywoman has the full organizational backing of her party and is not in a primary contest, "We felt Linda deserved recognition now," Tittel said. 

Democratic congressional candidate John AdlerJohn Adler is the richest open seat congressional candidate in the nation, according to a report from Congressional Quarterly.

Adler, a Democrat, has approximately $1 million on hand in his quest for the open seat of retiring Republican Rep. Jim Saxton. Adler is unchallenged in the June 3rd Democratic primary, while three Republicans are enmeshed in a tough primary fight to take him on.

Meanwhile, 7th district Democratic candidate Linda Stender is the fourth richest open seat challenger, with about $845,000 on hand. Stender also faces no opposition in the primary, but there are seven Republicans competing for that party’s nomination, the richest of whom has amassed a little over one-third of Stender’s war chest.

Scotch Plains Mayor Marty Marks won the endorsement of New Jersey Right to Life for his 7th district congressional run.

Marks, a dentist who is running to the right of six other candidates in the hotly contested Republican primary, used the pro-life endorsement to bolster his conservative credentials. 

“This endorsement will provide a strong base of voters in both the primary and general election from which he can build for victory.  NRTL-PAC will utilize its various resources to help elect Martin Marks to Congress,” said the group’s director, Marie Tasy.

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.

United States Rep. Frank Pallone endorsed Dennis Shulman in the fifth district Democratic congressional primary.

Shulman, a rabbi and psychologist who’s been blind since childhood, faces Camille Abate for the nomination to take on Republican incumbent E. Scott Garrett.

"I find so much to admire in Dennis's story and message," said Pallone in a press release. "Residents of Northern New Jersey deserve much better representation than what they are getting from Scott Garrett. Dennis' passionate willingness to fight for hardworking families, to end the war in Iraq and to address critical environmental issues is exactly what we need to defeat Congressman Garrett this fall."

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.