Murray Sabrin Presumptive GOP Nominee to be the next U.S. Senator from New Jersey

Please spread the word to NJ-newspapers that Murray is the nominee. Let's unify the GOP behind him and work to defeat Frank Lautenberg. Paul Maulshine writes a great article and knows that Murray is the most principled and educated candidate running. Low taxes, less government spending and more freedom -- support Murray Sabrin for U.S. Senate.

Springtime for Sabrin in the GOP by Paul Mulshine 3/20/08

Today is the first day of spring. And this spring offers a spectacle that I thought I'd never see in my entire life: Murray Sabrin has a chance to win an election.

I've been following Sabrin's career ever since he ran for governor in 1997. He was outspoken and principled, which of course made him persona non grata in either of the major parties. So he ran on the Libertarian Party ticket and managed to qualify for public funding and a spot on stage during debates with Republican incumbent Christie Whitman and Democratic challenger Jim McGreevey.

Sabrin stood up there and proposed doing what in retrospect even Gov. Jon Corzine now argues had to be done: cutting back the size of government to the size of revenues. That won him 5 percent of the vote. He gave the same spiel when he ran for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2000 and got about the same results.

And I confess I didn't expect things to be any different when Sabrin announced he was entering the race this year for the GOP nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

But then something happened. Ann Evans Estabrook, the contender backed by the mainstream party who has enough money to be self-funding, displayed a talent for self-immolating. During a debate, she was asked about abortion and stopped everything to rummage around for a piece of paper on which someone had apparently written down her views for her. The clip was posted on YouTube, and she pulled out of the race after suffering a mini-stroke.

That left just one other contender, state Sen. Joe Pennacchio of Morris County, who has the backing of the Trenton Republicans in a race against Sabrin.

But then the other day we heard from Dr. Joseph Penn. Penn was the pen name (get it?) of this mild-mannered dentist in 1991 when he wrote a 94-page manifesto for the Nationalist Party, which he founded and which disappeared soon afterward when he decided to become a Republican.

Sabrin got his hands on the screed recently and began circulating copies. In a press conference on the Statehouse steps Monday, Sabrin made much of Penn's call for the homeless to be sequestered on old military bases and a proposal to eliminate poverty through "a coordination of all aspects of society."

Penn came out for some fairly strict gun control laws as well as creation of a "National Health Organization." And in his section on family planning, Pennacchio managed to give the pro-lifers a poke in the eye, never a good idea in a Republican primary.

Sabrin, meanwhile, has been on solid ground with the anti-abortion movement and is loved by the gun crowd.

Sabrin is a professor of finance at Ramapo College, so he actually knows what he's talking about in the field of economics. That's what got him in trouble in past primaries, when he was making predictions about how the feds and the Fed would ruin our economy.

Now that those predictions seem to be coming true, a Sabrin victory in the June 3 GOP primary would be tremendous fun. But the idea of putting forth a candidate who actually has some principles frightens party leaders, and the April 7 filing deadline is coming up fast. Expect some empty suit to be pressed into service.