U.S. 1 doesn’t normally cover political races. As a weekly newspaper with a readership that spans six or seven municipalities in three counties, we would have to have more political writers on our staff than all the state newspapers combined currently have assigned to cover state government.
But this issue is an exception. New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District runs through the front yard and back yard of most of the greater Princeton business community. The two candidates both have substantial Princeton-area business connections. Incumbent Rush Holt is the former assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, one of the major technology centers in our community. He formally announced his candidacy last week at the offices of Princeton Power Systems, a company that we have covered since its inception and featured on our cover just this past January.
Challenger Scott Sipprelle bases his investment banking business in Princeton, where he lives in the former home of Grover Cleveland. And U.S. 1 has already made the acquaintance of Sipprelle’s mother, who knocked on our editor’s door last fall while campaigning for Borough Council and who showed up at this year’s Summer Fiction reception.
Our assignment to freelance writer and communications consultant John Heenehan was to simply find out who the candidates are and what they stand for. Heenehan reports that both candidates were gracious, accessible, and answered all his questions in telephone interviews that lasted well over an hour with each candidate.
All the photographs of the candidates were supplied by the respective campaign staffs, who — as far as we know — did not confer with each other prior to the shoots that produced the quite similar photos for our cover.
#b#To the Editor:#/b#
Nice article (“Prerequisite for This 100-Mile Ride: A Lot of Heart,” cover story, September 1)! Well written — but it’s 200 miles from Gettysburg to Trenton [not 100, as stated in the story]— no big deal, what’s another 100 miles. : )
Thanks for the press.
Rich Armington, Software engineer, SciTec
These [Battle Against Hunger riders] are some of the finest people I have ever met. On behalf of the organizations that receive Battle Against Hunger support, thank you so very much for your commitment and dedication to improving our community by doing something you love.
Jaime Parker, Trenton Soup Kitchen
Editor’s Note: On our cover last week we misidentified one rider: it was not Chris Flecknoe of Halter’s Cycles in Monmouth Junction, but John Kopitz from the Montclair area, who is involved in the Montclair food ministry’s Toni’s Kitchen.
