Friday, February 14, 2014

Murray Sabrin, free-market advocate, declares GOP primary candidacy to oppose Obamaphile Booker

02.14.2014


Murray Sabrin, who ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in 2000 and 2008, announced Thursday he will seek the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Cory Booker in this year’s race on a platform of economic freedom and individual liberty.

Sabrin, a professor of finance at Ramapo College, also ran for governor as a member of the Libertarian Party in 1997.
“The problem with all government programs: They are based upon tax and spend,” Sabrin said in an interview Thursday afternoon. “There is no relationship between taxes you pay and benefits you receive.”

From the start of his initial announcement, earlier in the day, he went on the attack against Booker.

“Corey [sic] Booker is a celebrity politician,” Sabrin said in a statement. “A master of the sound bite and the slogan. But behind it all are more of the failed policies of a government too big to get out of our way.”

Sabrin’s release misspelled the senator’s first name. “That was just an oversight, to say the least,” he said later.

Sabrin said he was a sharp contrast to the Democratic senator who won his seat in a special election last year after the death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Sabrin said he has taught about the dangers of government intrusion for three decades.

He outlined five major points for his campaign: the repeal of Obamacare, reining in national surveillance, cutting federal spending, defending freedom and ending crony capitalism.

Sabrin, 67, of Fort Lee is an author and has focused his efforts on the promotion of small government and free markets. In an interview posted on his website, he talked about how the government was slowing down the recovery effort, adding that some programs such as Social Security were comparable to Bernard Madoff’s infamous Ponzi scheme.

He said he has been a longtime supporter of former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who advocates for small government and was a contrarian voice during multiple presidential runs.

Four GOP hopefuls

Sabrin isn’t the first Republican to challenge Booker this year. Other declared candidates in the Republican senatorial primary include businessman Brian Goldberg, late-1970s Republican senatorial candidate Jeffrey Bell and technology specialist Rich Pezzullo.

John Currie, chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, reacted to the announced candidacy by saying, “New Jerseyans have already soundly rejected Professor Sabrin’s discredited and out-of-touch ideas in two separate statewide elections. It’s clear the only ‘serious, mature discussion’ in this year’s Senate election will be between New Jerseyans and Senator Cory Booker.”

Sabrin and the other GOP hopefuls will be fighting to overthrow one of the most recognizable new faces in the Democratic Party.

Booker won his special election for Senate over Republican Steve Lonegan by about 10 percentage points. As mayor of Newark, he accumulated an avid Twitter following and broke into the national scene with a personality some described as earnest.

Sabrin and Booker have few economic areas where they agree. Booker supports the Affordable Care Act, for example — Sabrin considers the law an affront to free-market principles.

In his announcement email, Sabrin outlined his appeal as a longtime free-market defender.

“I believe in freedom,” Sabrin said, “and I believe that most Americans believe in freedom, too.”


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