Until a few days ago, the Republican opposition to NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg appeared to be a joke. Boozing rich boy Andy Unanue was the likely candidate.
Then along came the GOP's knight in shining armor John Crowley. As pointed out Saturday, Crowley sounds like a modern-day Frank Capra movie: Navy officer has kids with rare disease--> starts biotech company to fight disease --> finds treatment for children's disease--> sells story to Hollywood--> runs for US Senate.
Then he decided to edit out the last part.
Despite reports to the contrary, he is not running. As the NYT just reported:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
But after fielding calls from Senator John McCain of Arizona and other prominent Republicans in recent days, he reconsidered.
The golden touch! Actually, his reason was quite noble: his children are still fighting the disease. Sounds like a good guy-- glad he isn't running for Senator though.
The GOP was so desperate to get a non-clown on the ticket, they evidently didn't even know where he stood on major Republican issues.
For Republicans, though, Mr. Crowley had been an especially attractive candidate — even though most conceded that they did not know where Mr. Crowley, a Navy reservist with a law degree from Notre Dame and a business degree from Harvard, stood on key issues, like the war in Iraq, the economy and abortion rights.
But all is not lost for the pubbies, Andy Unanue is willing to cut his partying short in order to actually file:
There had been speculation that Mr. Unanue — who has been criticized for refusing to leave an extended family vacation in Vail, Colo., to meet with Republican Party faithful in New Jersey — would drop out if Mr. Crowley (who had been his classmate at Bergen Catholic High School) entered the race.
But on Sunday night, Republicans said that Mr. Unanue was en route to the East Coast, and would file his petition to run before the 4 p.m. deadline on Monday.
“He will be in Trenton tomorrow,” said Robert Ortiz, a friend of Mr. Unanue’s who is the chairman of the Bergen County Republican Organization. “Andy has every intention of filing his petitions.”