There is a video circulating online today featuring former beauty pageant winner Hirsh Singh’s campaign consultant King Penna and Jack Ciattarelli’s wife Melinda. We aren’t going to share the video here, but will have more to say about it on the blog this evening. The bottom line is, true to form, Penna decided to pick on a woman because he’s too weak to go at a man. Reader’s may recall Penna once caused problems during a Morris County GOP Zoom meeting shouting at a woman and later, sources confirmed, threatened to destroy Morris GOP Chairwoman Laura Ali.

As to the video currently circulating the NJ Federation of Republican Women Chair released a statement on the matter. Her statements follows:

Today, the Chairwoman of the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women, Angelique Scholl, called on perennial, losing candidate Hirsh Singh to publicly denounce his campaign’s staged attack on the wife of his opponent during the gubernatorial debate.

“Once again, the Singh campaign has hit a new low.” said Chairwoman Scholl. “Spirited debates between candidates are a good thing. But I was horrified this morning when I watched that during the debate the Singh campaign barged into Mrs. Ciattarelli’s green room to launch a pre-planned and secretly recorded verbal assault on their opponent’s wife."

“That Singh supporters have since tried to use the incident to publicly embarrass Mrs. Ciattarelli is even more offensive,” Scholl continued. “Conveniently clipped from the post circulated online by Singh supporters this morning was his campaign operative’s initial obscenity-ridden tirade against not only Mrs. Ciattarelli’s husband, but also her family and her children - including a son on active duty in the military. Frankly, I applaud Melinda for her restraint. She had every right to go back at Mr. Penna and put him in his place. Some of our members I spoke to this morning said they would have needed to be restrained."

“Hirsh owes Mrs. Ciattarelli and her family an apology and should immediately denounce this cowardly attack," concluded Scholl. “Sadly, Hirsh knew what he was getting when he hired Penna. In fact, no one should be surprised given Hirsh's own past of slandering women online, joking about rape, and calling women bitches. The Republican Party can't have trash like this represent us in November."