By Sherry Conohan
FAIR HAVEN - Both newspaper owner Diane Gooch and Highlands Mayor Anna C. Little, who are competing for the Republican nomination for Congress in the 6th District, presented themselves as the best candidate to defeat incumbent Democratic Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. in a GOP forum last week.
In their effort to win votes for the primary election on June 8 from those attending the Two River Republican Club Candidates Night, both Gooch and Little went on to assail the burgeoning national debt and the health care bill. Speaking at The Raven and the Peach on Thursday, April 15, Gooch, who is the Monmouth County Republican vice chair, said the big spending by Congress is "taking away our opportunity, our children's opportunity, our grandchildren's opportunity.
"We are spending money like drunken sailors," she said, adding that she could see spending some stimulus money on needed roads and bridges "that go somewhere, that help us," but she didn't believe in wasting money.
She cited as an example of the worst government waste the spending of $217,000 to find out if females in college are more likely to hook up with boys if they are drinking alcohol. "Hello? This is not hard to figure out," she said. Gooch said she and her husband founded a company that created 1,700 private sector jobs.
"You know what? The stimulus package has not created 1,700 private sector jobs," she asserted. "Frank Pallone has never created a private sector job. Nor has he ever worked in a private sector job."
Gooch, Rumson, recalled how a friend told her if spending got us into this, he didn't see how spending is going to get us out. "I thought, you are right, you are so on. This is common sense.
What we are lacking in Washington is common sense." Little, a former Monmouth County freeholder, said that through her nine years of experience in local and county government, she has learned what she believes it takes for government to work. "And I don't think I need to tell all of you informed Republicans that government today in Washington simply does not work."
"Taxes are completely out of control," she continued. "We have the poor who have been taught by government to live on a handout rather than learning they are capable of supporting themselves. We have illegal immigrants who flood our hospitals for charity care, which we then have to subsidize. We then have the wealthy on Wall Street. When Wall Street managers mismanage funds or manage funds badly such that they are not accountable to their shareholders, our government has taught them that's okay. The government will bail them out.
"How does our government do this, ladies and gentlemen?" she asked the audience. "On our backs. The middle class. We're working. We're earning wages. They're being taxed and our tax dollars are being used to support the poor, to provide medical care to the illegals and to bail out the wealthy."'
To add insult to injury, Little went on, the government in March passed the health care bill telling Americans it is going to control their health care.
"They are going to obligate individuals and employers to obtain health care policies that are acceptable to the government - not your choice, not my choice, not our doctor's recommendation - but are acceptable to the government," she said.
"In essence the government is going to tell us what hospitals we can go to, what doctors we may choose, what treatments we might be eligible for and, in essence, whether we live or whether we die."
Gooch also said she was concerned about the health care legislation. She said her mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer at the age of 42. She noted there is now a pilot program of government and insurance companies that wants to start mammograms at the age of 50. "My mother got diagnosed at 42. We're going backwards in health care, not forward," she charged. "I find this absolutely frightening."
Gooch also said that while growing up on Long Island, in a very modest home with a loving family, her father lost his job. "I learned a lot from that," she said. "I have true empathy for people who have lost their jobs today."
Little, a lawyer, said she believes in the Constitution of the United States. "This document is the foundation of our government. It is instruction for how our government should operate," she said. "In the Constitution there are certain enumerated powers given to the Congress. Our federal government has extended itself well beyond those powers. What I intend to do in Washington is to bring the government back to the intentions of the founding fathers immediately.
"I believe that through the grass roots movement that I have become part of that we will elect enough conservative members of the House that we will accomplish that, beginning next year," she added.
"As the people of the United States, we are the government," she continued. "It is very important for each one of us to remember that in order for our government to work properly, we as a people have to direct it. We have to be in communication with our representatives and, even more importantly, our representatives need to be in communication with us.
"I want to march on Washington... for myself, for my family and for all of you," Little declared. "It's time to send a representative from Congressional District 6 with your voice, your direction.
"I plan on working very hard during this election season to convince you that I am the best choice to beat Representative Frank Pallone and to put a true representative of District 6 in Congress." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had said they would find out what's in the health care bill after it was passed, Gooch said, pledging that. if she's elected she will know what's in a bill before she votes for it.
"I will not pass a bill unless I read it and know what's in it," she said. "I think that's pretty important. Obviously some people today don't think that's important and we need to get them out. And Frank Pallone is one of them. He sponsored the health care bill. And you know what? My guess is he doesn't know everything that's in it. And that doesn't work for me."
She said she is connected to the community through her work in many charities and the newspaper she and her husband Michael own, The Two River Times.™ "I know what's going on," she said.
"I want to go to Washington because... they are not listening and I will listen," she concluded. "So I ask for your support and I will beat Frank Pallone."
The 6th Congressional District takes in a number of the Shore communities in Monmouth County, including Keyport, Union Beach, Keansburg, part of Middletown, Atlantic Highlands, Highlands, Sea Bright, Monmouth Beach, Long Branch, Deal, Allenhurst, Loch Arbour, Asbury Park, Neptune Township, Bradley Beach, Belmar, Avon, Lake Como, also Red Bank, West Long Branch, Ocean Township, Interlaken, Neptune City, Hazlet, Matawan, Aberdeen and part of Marlboro and Manalapan, as well as part of Middlesex County.
Fair Haven Mayor Michael Halfacre, who was formerly a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 12th congressional district, announced his endorsement of Gooch last week. Gooch has all four county organization lines in the 6th congressional district, which includes parts of Middlesex, Monmouth, Somerset and Union counties.
Little has received the endorsement of the Bayshore Tea Party Group.
