Garden State Patriot

The Lonegan campaign held a conference call with bloggers this evening to discuss the state of the campaign and how the Lonegan team sees this primary race shaping up in the final 8 weeks. Here is synopsis of tonight’s call.

Petition Drive & Donors

The Lonegan team has drawn considerable energy and confidence in the wake of this past weekend’s petition drive. Over 11,000 signatures were garnered in support of his nomination. This tally is a state record and also is more than Christie and Corzine combined.

Steve was particularly proud of the grassroots effort and “overwhelmed” by the turnout at yesterday’s petition drive events. Steve cited this as proof of the strength of the campaign’s organization.

At the same time, the Lonegan campaign touted the fact that it has received donations from some 8,000 individual donors (5,000 in-state, 3,000 out-of-state).  Mayor Lonegan deflected criticism of the out-of-state donations, saying that this is actually beneficial for the campaign as it looks ahead to a potential showdown with Jon Corzine in the fall. The campaign expects that the number of individual donors will soon increase to 10,000.

State of the Campaign

One very newsworthy item from the call pertained to polling results. The campaign was quite confident that Steve’s polling numbers are about to go up and rival Chris Christie’s. New polling results are due out shortly and Team Lonegan expects his support to be in the 30% range. If this transpires it will no doubt change the dynamics of this race.

Moreover, the Lonegan camp is now framing this as a “classic conservative vs. moderate” race. They rejected the idea that a conservative could not win in New Jersey. Mayor Lonegan said voters need to ask themselves: “Who is the best candidate?” and “Who can best govern and has the better vision?”

The campaign was very confident and enthusiastic about being able to get their message out in the next 8 weeks, particularly with the 2 mandatory debates coming up. Notably, Mayor Lonegan was critical of Christie’s proposal to include the other candidates in the debates and said he would oppose it. (Assemblyman Merkt and Mayor Brian Levine failed to qualify to participate in these debates.)

The Lonegan team firmly believes that the “time is now” for a conservative to win in New Jersey and that the state is “hungry” for new leadership. Not surprisingly, they don’t feel Mr. Christie will be true to conservative principles and will run as a moderate against Corzine. They speculate that this is part of the reason Christie will not come forward now and more openly and candidly state his positions or engage his opponents for fear that anything he says now could be used against him in the fall. 

Mayor Lonegan said he will not move to the middle in a battle against Corzine. He will remain true to his principles and run as a conservative.

When I asked Mayor Lonegan about unifying the party should he win the nomination, he likened this race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama last year. Ultimately, despite a clear division in the party, Democrats galvanized around Obama in order to win. Likewise, Mayor Lonegan feels he can and will gain the support of the party’s “establishment” and defeat Corzine in November.

Again, he said voters need to ask themselves: “What makes you think Chris Christie can win in November?” “What positions does he have that make him more electable?”

Setting the stage for these final 8 weeks, Mayor Lonegan pledged matter-of-factly that he would run the “most aggressive, active campaign the state has ever seen.”

Should be an interesting 8 weeks indeed.