NJ Gubernatorial Candidate Returns To Race After Cancer Treatment

A Republican gubernatorial candidate who scaled back his campaign while undergoing cancer treatment said Tuesday he’s now cured and he’s citing his treatment in a political attack on two opponents.

Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, in an email to reporters, said that he has outlined clear plans, just as his cancer doctors did. He said that is different from his opponents in the race to succeed the term-limited Gov. Chris Christie.

Democratic candidate Phil Murphy “sold out” to interest groups by reversing views laid out in a 2005 report calling for raising public workers’ retirement, Ciattarelli wrote. And, Republican hopeful Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno’s plan to audit Trenton amounts to a platitude, he said.

“The difference between Murphy and Guadagno and me is that I have the courage to tell voters the truth and outline a clear prescription for how to fix our state,” Ciattarelli said. “I am glad Murphy and Guadagno were not my doctors.”

The pointed attack comes after Ciattarelli announced last month that he was scaling back his campaign due to neck cancer treatment.

He said he noticed a lump on his neck in early October and that doctors removed the cancer and lymph nodes on both sides of his neck in November. He underwent radiation starting in mid-December and said last month it’s no longer possible to continue to campaign every day.

The primary is in June. New Jersey residents will elect a new governor in November.

This article appeared in print on page 41 of the March 1st, 2017 edition of Hamodia.