HUNTERDON: Leonard Lance faces challenge from right

By Gene Robbins, Packet Media Group
   Two-term Congressman Leonard Lance, himself a lifelong conservative, is facing a challenge from the right in the June 5 Republican primary for Congress in the 7th District, which includes Hunterdon County’s Lambertville, Stockton and East and West Amwell and Somseset’s.Hillsborough and Montgomery.
   ”I’m a principled conservative,” Mr. Lance says in a TV spot. I’m a fiscal conservative, he says in one mailer. I’ve voted 32 times again President Obama’s health care plan, he stresses in another.
   All that’s not good enough, says David Larsen, his challenger in the Republican primary on June 5.
   Mr. Larsen is portraying Mr. Lance as a moderate, and chastising him for it.
   Rep. Lance has high-profile endorsements, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican and House Budget Committee chairman.
   The governor said Mr. Lance was a “great representative” for the 7th District and New Jersey. Mr. Lance was fighting to restore vibrancy to the private sector economy, fiscal responsibility and common sense, said the governor.
   Rep. Ryan said, “Few in Congress are better prepared to reform our tax code, repeal and replace Obama Care, balance the federal budget and create new jobs that Leonard Lance is.”
   Mr. Larsen has been endorsed by the American Conservative Union’s political action committee and “supports the mainstream conservative position” of issues like reining in spending, energy independence and rights of the unborn, the group said.
   The ACU ranked Mr. Lance as taking its position on 11 of 25 issues on its scorecard, “showing he is clearly out of the mainstream for conservatives,” said ACU Chairman Al Cardenas.
   The Republican National Coalition for Life, Gun Owners of America, N.J. Right to Life PAC and Conservative Party of New Jersey also back Mr. Larsen.
   At a May dinner for Mr. Larsen, radio personality Steve Malzberg rallied the crowd by citing what he said was a pattern of Lance votes that broke from the conservative orthodoxy.
   Mr. Malzberg said Mr. Lance was one of eight Republicans to vote for American Clean Energy and Security Act, which included the so-called “cap and trade” approach to limiting carbon-based emissions that might be warming the environment. He said there were other votes when Mr. Lance was one of a handful of Republicans to vote against the dominant party position.
   ”When you have that kind of record of extreme liberalism, it’s time to go,” he said.
   Both men live in Hunterdon County. Mr. Lance, of Clinton Township, served in the state Assembly for 11 years and the state Senate for seven (including four years as minority leader) before being elected to Congress in 2008.
   He’s proud of being the author of a state constitutional amendment that prohibits the state from borrowing money without voter approval.
   Mr. Larsen, who lives in Tewksbury Township, has spent 35 years in business, where he proved himself as a job creator, he said.
   ”I experienced firsthand how the heavy hand of government can destroy business and our economy,” he said.
   He says he is “campaigning to cut spending, create jobs and restore the American Dream.” He calls himself “an outspoken champion for less government.”
   The two faced off in 2010, with Mr. Lance winning 56 percent of the vote to Mr. Larsen’s 31 percent in a four-man race.
   The winner will face 11-year state Assemblyman Upendra J. Chivukula, of Franklin Township (Somerset), who is unopposed in the Democratic primary.