Do You Support Trenton's A.C. Takeover? 
Halfacre Could Have An Abortion Issue
| March 11, 2010 Art Gallagher posted the next segment in his multi-part interview with Mike Halfacre late last night and oh boy is it a doozy, Save Jerseyans!
Mayor Mike originally told reporters that he was "pro-choice" with qualifications (there always are) back when he entered the NJ-12 race. That led to criticism from yours truly. Since then, I've been hoping Mike would come around and adopt a pro-life position. After all, his opponent Scott Sipprelle is also a pro-choice candidate. There was an opening in NJ-12 for a competitive pro-lifer. Most importantly, we desperately need representatives in Congress who seek to preserve and defend the liberties of ALL American citizens -- not just those citizens capable of speaking for themselves.
In his interview with Art, Mike does declare that he's now a pro-life politician. However, the Mayor's explanation for this relatively sudden transformation is, with all due respect, a bit hard to believe. Listen to the video clip below, and you'll hear Mayor Mike assert that he always held pro-life positions on various individual issues like parental notification. According to him, it was only through the course of his ongoing congressional campaign that he realized the aforementioned positions added up to a pro-life orientation.
I'm just not buying it, folks. Mike Halfacre is a middle-aged man and an accomplished local attorney. Don't tell me that he didn't give significant consideration to this extremely prevalent public debate at some point between now and his days in law school! And if he didn't deliberate over this issue by some strange happenstance, then he certainly should have done so before running for Congress. You don't need to possess advanced analytical powers to realize how uncomfortable this issues makes Mike, either. His circuitous, nervous answer did not clarify anything but still leaves much to be desired going forward.
The "life issue" discussion begins around the 3:22 minute mark. Leave a comment and tell me what you think:
Gee, Matt, you "hope he comes around" and when he does, you're not "buying it"? How else would you like him to come around?
Here's the key: he has promised to support a pro-life agenda. That's a heck of alot more than we'll ever get from Sipprelle. Hold him to that promise.
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I disagree. Abortion is a polarizing, stalemate issue and it always will be. It's never going to change. The best thing to do is to leave it alone with perhaps the occasional, "I hate abortion" platitude for the sake of keeping up appearances and focus on the foreign and domestic issues that REALLY matter.
Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others. That's the best possible stance to take.
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Anything is better than the bullshit stance he takes in the video! I mean wow! Talk about tap dancing around an issue. The guy is clearly lying.
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Funny, but for all of the ranting the Sipprelle bots do here, I NEVER hear anything about any of the supposedly wonderful things Sipprelle wants to do in congress. All I ever hear is, "Halfacre Sucks".
What has Scott Sipprelle ever accomplished to show that he's capable of holding ANY political office, nevermind a congressional seat? Not only has he NEVER been elected to anything and is a complete novice who's only been a registered Republican for two plus years, the Sipprelle bots attempt to spin Mayor Halfacre's experience as a good public servant into a negative by saying he's nothing but a career politician and as a result, is a hack.
I suppose when a candidate with no record, experience and have a resume thinner than Barack Obama's when he ran for President, you have to resort to such tactics.
I don't mind a candidate running for office with no experience necessarily. Infact, I'm all for candidates with big name recognition like a celebrity or pro athelete entering politics. That said, to attack an opponent BECAUSE of his experience is completely shallow and in the long run, is going to do a lot more harm than good.
One of the biggest reasons Steve Lonegan got trounced in the primary last year (other than the fact that he's a complete scumbag) was because he was trying to portray himself as an "anti-establishment" candidate and tried to paint Chris Christie as an establishment hack. It didn't stick due to the fact that Chris had spent eight years indicting establishment hacks and throwing them in jail.
Going negative by trying to turn a politician's good record into a negative NEVER works. For your sake, you better hope you learn that lesson before it's too late. As a Halfacre supporter myself, I hope you stay completely oblivious.
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Who is being negative??? I see no comparison between random comments on some guy's blog and the news postings on the other candidate's actual website. Halfacre's campaign has been constantly supplying negative news releases and ads, so that dog doesn't hunt Mr. Rivera.
By your logic, no candidate is qualified unless he has held previous public office, if so we would have legislatures loaded with career politicians and not a single NEW member because hey, if you haven't done it before you don't belong. If anything this is the year of the first-time candidates, or the "novices".
In comparing the issue papers and substance of the Sipprelle website and the Halfacre website there is not much comparison. Honestly, how can you argue Halfacre is the one bringing substance to this primary???
How many people do you suppose decided to become Republicans in 2007? Because clearly anyone who did must have just been an opportunistic ambitious fellow with aspirations of running for Congress three years later.
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"By your logic, no candidate is qualified unless he has held previous public office, if so we would have legislatures loaded with career politicians and not a single NEW member because hey, if you haven't done it before you don't belong. If anything this is the year of the first-time candidates, or the "novices"."
You clearly only read what you wanted to read. I also said the following:
"I don't mind a candidate running for office with no experience necessarily. Infact, I'm all for candidates with big name recognition like a celebrity or pro athelete entering politics. That said, to attack an opponent BECAUSE of his experience is completely shallow and in the long run, is going to do a lot more harm than good."
I am well aware that plenty of people run for office with no prior experience and that many people switch party affiliations all the time. That doesn't mean they should up and run for congress while denigrating a good public servant's record and experience.
Going negative is one thing, that's the nature of the beast. The negativity coming out of the Sipprelle camp however, is foolish, ignorant, baseless, bush league and quite frankly, comical, just as it was with Steve Lonegan last year. It's the kind of negativity a gadfly candidate with no chance of winning resorts to when he has nothing legitimate to criticize. The more Scott Sipprelle and his supporters open there mouths and the more we learn, the more transparent he becomes.
Just as Jon Corzine learned last year, money doesn't buy everything. Scott Sipprelle will learn that lesson in June as well.
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Halfacre will ALWAYS say the politically expedient thing; he is a political animal. What you have to examine are his actions...like what he did to a church last year in its quest to help struggling families affected by this economy. Check out the archives of www.redbankgreen.com in Oct.2009 under "Sadness and Bitterness Mark Closing" for a peek at how he 'does business'.
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I found this link: http://www.redbankgreen.com/2009/10/sadness-and-bitterness-mark-closing.html
What's the issue here? Mike wanted to keep a local church from rezoning their property to house transient families?
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"Transient" families? No. Google "Families First" and you will see that these are families just like yours and mine who fell on hard times in this economy. Rumson has at least one church who participates in this program with no problem--- but Halfacre wouldn't even listen to the minister, who pleaded with him to simply learn more about the program. You don't mention that from the article. He didn't bring it before his governing body for discussion. You didn't mention that either. Those families suffered at the hands of his self-serving arrogant abuse of power, and the church closed for good. The issue is the demagoguery of Mike Halfacre, and his willingness and ability to put the people first. You see, the church in question was on the street where he lives. So much for being a compassionate conservative. So much for regarding "life".
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How could you not realize your pro-life
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EXACTLY!
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Halfacre is lying. I sent him an e-mail when he first announced that he was running for Congress. I specifically asked him what his position was with respect to abortion. He wrote back that his position could be characterized as "restrictive choice." He went on to say that while he favored some restrictions on abortion (e.g., parental notification), he felt that government shouldn't interfere with a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy if she chose to do just that. I still have the e-mail letter that Halfacre sent me.
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Halfacre is lying. I sent him an e-mail when he first announced that he was running for Congress. I specifically asked him what his position was with respect to abortion. He wrote back that his position could be characterized as "restrictive choice." He went on to say that while he favored some restrictions on abortion (e.g., parental notification), he felt that government shouldn't interfere with a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy if she chose to do just that. That's a far cry from the BS that he told Art Gallagher in the video above.
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After watching this video, I'm ashamed that Halfacre is both a mayor and a municipal prosecutor here in New Jersey. Halfacre clearly doesn't have the character necessary to hold ANY position of public trust. He can't be trusted.
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