CRANBURY: Candidate announces write-in push

[Cranbury Press]

CRANBURY: Candidate announces write-in push
Monday, June 1, 2009 9:54 PM EDT

Cranbury Democrat Dave Cook announced this weekend that he would mount a write-in campaign for Tuesday’s Primary election, according to party Chairman Glenn Johnson.

He is seeking to run in November’s General Election, where he would vy for a three-year seat on the Township Committee.

[Guest]

This is a little biased isn't it? No wonder the Cranbury Press is losing readers. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Mulligan have worked hard, the Press refused to cover their announcement and now the Press is leading the charge announcing Mr. Cook's write in campaign. Seriously, if there was ever a doubt that the Press had an agenda this should put it to rest.

[Guest]

By the way, nice that they do this and make this post on primary day.

[Guest]

Yes it is all part of the plot. The Cranbury Press a major organ of the MSM is out to steal the Cranbury election! Hank Kalet is the illigitimate offspring of Ariana Huffington and George Soros. Hank is also a member of the Tri-lateral Commission and flies a Black Helicopter over Cranbury in order to hasten his plan of one world government.

I think what this actually shows us is that the Cranbury Democrats could not currently organize a two car funeral, not that they are capable of a conspiracy with the Cranbury Press.

[Guest]

Take it easy. It's an event worth reporting.

I am sure they will interview each TC candidate before the election.

[Guest]

[Guest]

The Cranbury Press liberal bias has always been evident. It is no surprise that the Press did this. What this shows is that the Democrat party found someone who would step up to the plate just because nobody else would, and that the people who are actually interested in being on the township council have been actively attending meetings, ie Dan Mulligan and Jay Thomas.

Remember that despite the Cranbury Press coverage (or I should say, lack of coverage) of Dan and Jay's announcement and the fact that they are running on the Republican ticket, they both have the best interests of the TOWN on their agenda, and that transcends partisan politics in our town. While some people will not cross party lines even at a township level, there are plenty who will in order to support these two candidates.

[CP]

The Cranbury Democratic Write in Ticket is Dave Cook and Shahnaz Shahidain

[Guest]

[Guest]

First saying something is evident does not make it so.

Second all one has to do to get something in the current Cranbury Press is send them a press release. They will basically print it verbatim.

So, the guy who said the Cranbury Democrats can't run a two car funeral is wrong. The ability to write a press release gives them a second car. A good question is why aren't the Cranbury Republicans able to write a press release?

[Guest]

Just to clarify one point. The Republicans did write a press release and were told that the filing prior to a Democrat was not newsworthy nor was it fair to the Democrats to announce the Republican candidates without their filing. While I understand that stance, I also believe that the original message by the press was then wrong to do as it showed a bias in terms of getting a message out. I believe both are newsworthy items.

[Independent]

I heard the Republicans did send a press release back in March or April however the press did not run it.

Form your own opinions based on that.

[Guest]

Everyone needs to relax. The insults are flying too fast and hot versus the reality of this issue.

The Republicans DID alert the Press of their candidacy announcement, and even paid for an ad with their picture announcing it, but did not get immediate coverage. My guess is the Press either was hoping the Dems would announce then too or decided it wasn’t urgent since the primary election was so far off. Either way, the relevant point is the Press DID end up interviewing them and running a long feature on them with extensive quotes. I think it’s a stretch to accuse them of bias just because they didn’t run a story within days of the announcement when the event was not timely, whereas it obviously was timely news now.

I have no idea why the Dems waited until the last possible second to announce candidates. Perhaps it was part of a master plan or perhaps they were just scrambling to get candidates to agree to run. It really doesn’t matter either way. The bottom line is everyone got coverage. I’m sure if the Republicans had skipped the proper registration time and announced at the last second they would have gotten coverage too. And they certainly would have gotten the handful of votes necessary to make it on the ballot…

[Guest]

That's not true. The press never ran an extensive feature article on the candidates nor did they interview them for any article.

There is no accusation against people in town, only how the paper chooses stories.

[Guest]

Maybe the poster is thinking of the letter to the editor they published where the candidates introduced themselves.

[Guest]

The information was run on the Web site as a service to voters to let them know that there would possibly be Democratic candidates on the ballot. We would have made the same decision had the Republicans failed to field candidates in time, although, I am going to reconsider that policy.

The Cranbury Press has rarely done extensive coverage of primary elections, particularly when there are no contested races. We have done no interviews with any candidates for local office and have not run their pictures. That includes last week's front page preview story (which listed the Republicans) and the last minute Web story. As is always the case, letters to our Town Forum page are welcome by anyone and candidates and their supporters are welcome to submit them.

If you have an issue with anything that runs in the paper I invite you to call, e-mail or write to us. We will not run letters without names and confirmation that they were indeed written by the author. Comments on our Web site also would be an appropriate response. Those comments can be made anonymously.

Questions about this post should be e-mailed to me jsaccenti@centraljersey.com.

John Saccenti