"Pete the Picture Framer" meets "Squire" Jon Runyan

Independent "Tea Party" congressional candidate Peter DeStefano, who said he is tired of trying to prove that he is real, insists that he is just a “regular guy” who just decided to become a Congressional candidate, and he said he wants nothing more than to start being treated like one.

“You know like Joe the Plumber?” he asked with a smile on his face. “I’m Pete the Picture Framer.”

After November he can stick to framing pictures.

Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

GOP congressional candidate Roland Straten, opposing incumbent Bill Pascrell, held an outdoor rally in Montclair because the municipality denied his request to hold the rally inside the Municipal Building or the Fire Headquarters. During a short stump speech as the rally started, Straten told his supporters he didn't mind having to "contend with the rain and darkness."

"This is not about Roland Straten," he said. "It's about politicians who do not listen, but do nothing but raise taxes and enact unnecessary regulations."

Maybe the politicians aren't listening, but I doubt anyone is listening to Roland Straten either.

Christie hosts fundraiser for "Squire" Jon Runyan

Chris Christie addressed about 200 Republicans invited to a fundraiser for GOP congressional candidate and farmland-assessed estate owner "Squire" Jon Runyan. Berkeley Councilman Carmen F. Amato, one of the guests, said Christie emphasized the importance of Ocean County in his election as governor last year. "And how important Ocean County will be to the election of Jon Runyan over career politician John Adler," Amato said, referring to Runyan's incumbent Democratic opponent.

Considering all the "career politicians", including Christie, who attended the fundraiser that would be like the owner of a brothel calling their competitor a "whore".

GOP congressional candidate "on the waterfront"

Republican congressional candidate Dale Glading is attempting to reach First Congressional District urban voters in the midst of Camden's struggles - and at the expense of 1st District incumbent U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews.

“It’s time that Rob Andrews and the South Jersey Democrat Machine stopped taking the people of Camden for granted,” said Glading, who's challenging Andrews for the second time. “Investments along the waterfront and at Cooper Hospital may make for good photo ops, but that’s not where the people of Camden live.”

I agree not many residents of Camden live at the Tweeter Center or Cooper Hospital, but I'll bet a lot of them work there.

TNut candidate says GOP & Dems are full of it

Independent Tea Party Congressional candidate Peter DeStefano admits he became disillusioned with the Republican Party over the economy and war in Iraq. "I got very bitter at that time with the Republicans. They weren't doing anything," he said.

After the 2008 general election, DeStefano switched to the Democratic Party. "It didn't take me much longer to find out it was worse," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, they are both full of crap."

Sounds like he wants to give both political parties an enema.

Peter DeStefano "chooses" his ideology

Independent Tea Party candidate for Congress Peter DeStefano told The Press of Atlantic City — while on his way home from campaigning on Long Beach Island — that he entered the race because he was “fed up” with partisan politics.

“The tea party movement is an ideology, it’s not an actual physical party … I believe that I, like every other American, have the right to run for office with whatever ideology I choose,” said DeStefano.

Even if he chooses insanity?

Dave Larsen has more money to burn on another run at Len Lance

David Larsen wouldn't deny that he's prepping for another primary run at GOP Congressman Leonard Lance in 2012, but said he does not intend to make a formal announcement until after Nov. 2nd. Addressing previous comments he made at a forum in Red Bank, Larsen admitted he may have said "Lance is not a real Republican."

"I don't like the word 'RINO' (Republican in name only)," he told PolitickerNJ.com. "I don't even use the word 'fake.' My point was if Leonard Lance was down south, past the Mason Dixon Line, he'd be known as a Democrat."

And if Dave Larsen was anyplace else he'd be known as a crackpot

TNut has a "touching" experience

As Congressman Bill Pascrell spoke to about 90 people assembled at a townhall meeting, Tea Party activist Mark Kalinowski handed out fliers linking Pascrell unfavorably to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. According to Kalinowski Pascrell's field representative, Ann Mega, attempted to stop him and he objected loudly, causing members of the audience to shush him and order him to leave the chambers.

The 4-and-a-half-foot-tall Mega "put her hands on me," Kalinowski told reporters.

Maybe she was just trying to feel his pain.

Scott Garrett on Barack Obama: He's no "Founding Father"

Campaigning in Bergen County GOP Rep. Scott Garrett wouldn't call President Barack Obama a socialist, but said Obama stands in a political tradition different than his predecessors in the White House.

"I see him standing for a different framework from the Founding Fathers and from the previous presidents we've seen, both Democrats and Republicans," Garrett told PolitickerNJ.com.

Yeah, opposing slavery, support for voting and civil rights would put Obama into a different framework from the Founding Fathers.

Jon Runyan worries about his "retirement"

GOP Congressional candidate Jon Runyan admits he was not a political junkie in college, or even when his career brought him to Tennessee and later Philadelphia, but he claims his conservative values were growing stronger as his NFL career was coming to an end.

"When you get close to retirement you think, I've made a good chunk of money and they just want to take more and more and more of it," he said. "I'm not going to have this income for the rest of my life. I've worked my butt off my whole life to obtain this. How do I keep it? That's when you start picking apart policy and what is actually going to affect you in each bill."

Nice to know he was thinking about his bank account when he decided to run for Congress.

Roland Straten dreams the "impossible dream"

Whipped in 2008 GOP congressional candidate Roland Straten is back this year to challenge incembent Bill Pascrell, the first on a list of GOP opponents to run a campaign against the congressman after taking a beating the first time. "That's the reason I'm running again," the businessman acknowledged when PolitickerNJ.com asked him if the times changed in the two years since Barack Obama won the presidency. "This time, I've got a shot. The Left doesn't know what to make of the Tea Party movement."

Neither does anyone else.