Working mostly under radar, Kyrillos hopes close national race sparks NJ …

ROSELLE – He’s not getting much press as he tours plants throughout the state and talks about a beached whale economy and what he would do differently in the way of making it easier for businesses to stay open.

But state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, (R-13), trusts that downbeat times will work politically in his favor. He trusts a competitive national election for the presidency will trickle into the collective bloodstream here in New Jersey and turn a bore snore race that most insiders see as a clear-cut advantage for incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, (D-NJ), into a captivating showdown.

“The government must stop imposing regulations and taxes that make it difficult for us to compete,” he said this afternoon on his tour of a local printing plant.

For three years, insiders have dismissed this 2012 GOP challenge of Menendez as a non-starter, arguing that in a blue state like New Jersey, all Menendez has to do is ride Obama’s coattails to victory. But veteran Republican Kyrillos is convinced that Obama has done a sufficiently terrible job to soften up the top of the ticket terrain in N.J.

If the Senate contest doesn’t look action-packed now, he’s ready for it to turn into a dogfight. He sees Menendez as a Hudson County boss born of politics, suckled in government structures and grown plump on the processes of patronage, who knows little or nothing about business and private enterprise.

“That’s why I’ll win,” Kyrillos said, hoping this ongoing montage of handshakes with business owners, techs and workers translates into some kind of traction by the fall. So he keeps driving this circuit, mostly out of range of notepads and pens at this point, and usually out of the penetrating glare of cameras, doing small circle huddle-ups with embattled business owners, many in the manufacturing line.

On this particular afternoon, Kyrillos did a walk-through at Images Inc., a family-run business founded 45 years ago by Janet and Arnold Greebel. Now the grown Greebel children, Aaron and Lisa, run the 25-employee operation with Brian Yeats, which they hope to expand into an adjoining building here at the gnawed edges of the City of

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