Garden State Patriot

My friends, the Republican Party is currently adrift. Shellshocked from the past two elections on the national level and bewildered by the radical turn of Obama’s America, the party is desperate for conservative change and conservative leadership.

I only see one viable candidate in this primary who would provide us with the conservative change and leadership we need and that is Mayor Steve Lonegan.

I first met Steve when I joined Americans for Prosperity, a grassroots organization that Steve helped build into a powerful voice for disenfranchised conservatives. Since then I have met Steve a number of times and heard him speak eloquently about the state he loves. There is no person I know who understands the issues confronting the state better and who has put forth clearer solutions on how to tackle them.

As Mayor of Bogota and State Director of Americans for Prosperity, Steve not only demonstrated that he was a man of ideas, but a man of strong leadership. Where other Republican politicians have cowered and acquiesced to special interests and the Democrat machine, Steve stood up to them and often times emerged victorious such as in leading the fight against Corzine’s scheme to monetize our roads.

While my friend, Mr. Rooney at SaveJersey rightfully points out that there is a fight within the Republican Party for its future direction, I disagree with his assessment that this is between liberal Republicans and ‘liberterian-leaning’ Republicans. This is a pure choice between a moderate and a conservative. It is also a choice between reform and revolution.

Throughout this primary, I have said that Mr. Christie has an admirable record as a prosecutor. However, as a candidate for Governor, Mr. Christie owed us more than platitudes and generalizations. He told us he was going to ‘gut COAH’ but never told us what that meant. When asked about his plan to cut income taxes, he could not give a number. When he was asked how he could cut income taxes and keep the property tax rebates, he was evasive and did not answer.

We Republicans pride ourselves on being deep thinkers. We expect our candidates to speak with us openly and be specific on their plans. We also pride ourselves on promoting serious candidates while objecting when people treat elections as a popularity contest. For many Christie supporters, I fear they have succumbed to this mindset. When we ask why they are supporting Mr. Christie, we are simply told ‘he is electable.’

Well, I am not seeking someone who is merely electable. I am seeking a conservative candidate who will face the voters squarely and will explain to them what is ailing our state; then boldly pursue the right course to fix the problems. I am certainly not seeking someone who is capable of winning but will fail to govern according to these principles. I do not want a governor who will not stand tall because the polls tell him otherwise or because he feels he must ‘cooperate’ with the Democrats in the legislature. I fear this is what Mr. Christie will do.

We the people deserve better than that. New Jersey is in dire straits. Our problems are serious and require more than inconsequential reforms; they require drastic changes. We don’t need to gut COAH, we need to end it. We don’t need across-the-board tax cuts, we need a new system. We don’t need to change the Abbott District formula, we need to deconstruct it.

If you agree that this is the kind of agenda New Jersey needs, then there is only one candidate in this race truly committed to doing so. There is only one candidate up to the task and that is Mayor Steve Lonegan.

I hope he has your vote.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude! and Red County.

As I mentioned over the weekend, I had a chance to catch up with Mayor Lonegan after his appearance at the Arena Diner in Hackensack. During my interview with Steve, we touched on a number of issues including his tax plan, school funding and eminent domain. Additionally, we talked about his position on Gitmo terrorists and his being snubbed by Sean Hannity. To the Mayor’s credit, no question was out of bounds and, as you’ll see, Steve is as always direct in his responses. With that I will let the interview speak for itself. And I would like to once again thank Steve for allowing me this time to speak with him.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude! and Red County!

Former Massachusetts Governor and Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is about to throw his support behind Chris Christie. Interestingly, Wally Edge at PolitickerNJ seemed to think this would help Romney in New Jersey should he run again for President – as expected – in 2012.

Mitt Romney’s decision to pick a horse in the New Jersey Republican gubernatorial primary likely accomplishes two things: it boosts former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie’s standing among conservatives, and it strengthens Romney’s chances of picking up organizational and fundraising support in New Jersey if he seeks the 2012 GOP nomination for President.

I disagree. In fact, I find this to be a calculated gamble by Romney that could easily backfire; a gamble probably not worth taking.

Mayor Lonegan has loyal grassroots support among conservatives in this primary. He is ahead of Christie by a wide margin among conservatives, many of whom are dubious of Christie’s conservative credentials.

In fact, Romney fought hard last year during his presidential bid to convince conservatives that he was one of us. Many conservatives, myself included, voted for him because he was the closest thing we could get to a true conservative last year.

So, for Romney to inject himself into this race and back Christie he is more likely to have turned off conservatives than inspired them to vote for him in the next presidential primary in this state. As a Lonegan supporter I sure as heck won’t forget that Mitt Romney did not back the true conservative in this race. It’s one vote he will lose if he follows through with his endorsement tomorrow.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude! and Red County.

Here is my analysis of today’s Lonegan-Christie debate:

 vs.

The second one-on-one debate between Lonegan and Christie just finished airing on WABC. This debate seemed to take on a bit of a different tone than the first one. For one thing, Mayor Lonegan seemed a bit more at ease and himself in this debate. I also think that some of the differences between the candidates emerged/became more pointed and Mayor Lonegan displayed superior knowledge of some of the issues facing the state. So, rather than go through point-by-point and question-by-question, I will try to highlight some of the key differences.

Taxes

Income Taxes – By now, we all know that Christie is proposing across-the-board income tax cuts and Lonegan is proposing a flat tax — a proposal criticized by Christie has criticized as being a tax hike on 70% of taxpayers. But perhaps the most interesting moment in the debate was when Mayor Lonegan asked Christie what his rates would be. Christie delivered no specifics. How far will he drop the top rate? Will he simplify the structure by reducing the number of brackets? How much lower will folks paying a 1.4% rate be cut? We don’t know because Mr. Christie didn’t tell us.

Property Taxes – Obviously, several things factor into why our property taxes are so high in New Jersey – none more than Abbott District funding. So, it was interesting that neither candidate really made that connection in today’s debate.

That said, Christie continues to support the property tax rebate program citing it as the only current meaningful relief. Lonegan criticiced Christie on this issue, essentially saying that Christie could not simultaneously cut spending and keep the rebate program.

Mr. Christie also supported consolidating services to help relieve property taxes. To me this is merely a band-aid. Mayor Lonegan, of course, is a strong proponent of home rule and quite simply made the point that smaller government is more efficient and less costly. He even said that a better solution would be breaking Newark up into 3 districts.

Sales Tax – Mr. Christie did not propose a change to the sales tax. When asked about Corzine’s sales tax increase he laid into the Governor for misusing the the proceeds form the sales tax to fund earmarks and pay off Democrat cronies. Mayor Lonegan, on the other hand, pointedly said he would roll the sales tax back to 6%.

Corporate Tax – Mayor Lonegan proposed eliminating the corporate tax while Chris Christie wants to cut it but did not say by how much.

Terrorism

A couple of questions arose regarding terrorism. Interestingly and surprisingly, Mr. Christie took the opportunity of his chance to question Mayor Lonegan to ask about Gitmo terrorists. With President Obama obviously proposing to close Gitmo, it opens up the possibility of those terrorists needing to be imprisoned in the U.S. and potentially here in New Jersey. Mayor Lonegan initially didn’t answer Christie’s question directly, but said he would allow Gitmo detainees to be imprisoned in New Jersey facilities. Christie said he would fight this if Governor. On this particular issue, I think the devil would be in the details as I do not know what the administration’s plans are for Gitmo detainees, let alone if state governors would be forced tot take them.

Later, though, one of the panelists asked what each candidate would do in the event of a terrorist attack. Mr. Christie mentioned that he had dealt with this before after 9/11 as U.S. attorney but I’m not sure how this connected to overseeing or being involved with a coordinated response to a terrorist attack on metro area bridges and subways.

Mayor Lonegan displayed better knowledge on this subject, pointing to plans that are already in place amongst cities, towns, state police and the Department of Homeland Security.

The candidates clashed on several other issues, including greenhouse gas emissions and mass transit. In each case, Mayor Lonegan appeared to me to be more specific and on point. He asked Christie why he didn’t stand up with him to oppose the recent utility rate hike. He was more extensive in his remarks regarding mass transit and the forthcoming light rail project. He brought up the issue of the Highlands Act and how it was hurting the state.

So, on whole, I felt that Mayor Lonegan won this second debate. And lest anyone accuse me of being biased towards Mayor Lonegan, I called the first debate a draw.

Finally, the best dig of the debate came near the end when Mr. Christie remarked that he became a lawyer because he wasn’t as good at science and math. In response to that, Mayor Lonegan quipped, “and that reflects in your plan for cutting taxes.”

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude! and Red County.

“How can Steve Lonegan be against government, as he says he is, when under his tax plan, 70% of the state is going to pay more money in income taxes?” 

Governor Corzine?

Joe “The Tool” Doria?

Joe “I’m Always” Cryan?

Nope. This quote comes from Mr. Chris Christie, stolen right out of the Democrat playbook on the chapter called ‘How to attack the Flat Tax.’

Gee, I wonder what flat tax advocate and Christie endorser, Steve Forbes, thinks of this?

Lonegan campaing pollster Rick Shaftan releeased an internal poll to the press today claiming the GOP primary race is a dead heat. Not surprisingly, some questioned the results of theses internals. Via Politicker NJ:

So is the race really as competitive as the Lonegan poll — which was conducted by the firm of Lonegan chief strategist Rick Shaftan — says it is?

Any internal campaign poll released to the press should be taken with a grain of salt, said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

“It’s a piece of propaganda.  That’s what all campaign communications are,” he said.

Murray said that the information available from the poll raised a couple red flags: that the poll publishes results within a tenth of a percentage point, giving it “an aura of more precision than these polls have,” and that, using a statewide sample size of 687 voters, it includes results for just one legislative district in northwest New Jersey.

“It raises the question for me if it over-sampled from the more conservative areas,” said Murray.

Shaftan, for his part, said that “the sample was drawn randomly and no part of the state was singled out for overcalling.”  He included numbers within a tenth of a percentage point for emphasis.

As for the 23rd Legislative District, Shaftan said the trend in Northwest New Jersey, which between Morris, Sussex, Warren and Hunterdon Counties accounts for about 25% of Republican primary turnout, was very much in Lonegan’s favor.

Moreover, Shaftan said, the survey did not describe the candidates before asking whether respondents preferred Lonegan or Christie.  In fact, he said his poll’s method of only polling Republicans who voted in at least two of the last primaries, if anything, favored Christie.

“Somebody who is not a two-of-five and who is voting in the primary is probably a Lonegan voter,” he said.  “New people come to us.  They don’t go to Christie.”

Shaftan disagreed that Schundler’s 2001 victory had anything to do with his opponents’ ballot switch, and said that Lonegan is running better at this point in the campaign than Schundler was running against Franks.

Christie Campaign Manager Bill Stepien argued that the poll’s results in Morris County, where Christie is from, diminishes its credibility.

“A poll that shows Lonegan up nearly two to one in Chris’s home county?  Seems a bit fishy,” he said.  “The next thing you’ll tell me is that Lonegan’s own consultant conducted the poll.”

Here’s my take. I do b

So is the race really as competitive as the Lonegan poll — which was conducted by the firm of Lonegan chief strategist Rick Shaftan — says it is?

Any internal campaign poll released to the press should be taken with a grain of salt, said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

“It’s a piece of propaganda.  That’s what all campaign communications are,” he said.

Murray said that the information available from the poll raised a couple red flags: that the poll publishes results within a tenth of a percentage point, giving it “an aura of more precision than these polls have,” and that, using a statewide sample size of 687 voters, it includes results for just one legislative district in northwest New Jersey.

“It raises the question for me if it over-sampled from the more conservative areas,” said Murray.

Shaftan, for his part, said that “the sample was drawn randomly and no part of the state was singled out for overcalling.”  He included numbers within a tenth of a percentage point for emphasis.

As for the 23rd Legislative District, Shaftan said the trend in Northwest New Jersey, which between Morris, Sussex, Warren and Hunterdon Counties accounts for about 25% of Republican primary turnout, was very much in Lonegan’s favor.

Moreover, Shaftan said, the survey did not describe the candidates before asking whether respondents preferred Lonegan or Christie.  In fact, he said his poll’s method of only polling Republicans who voted in at least two of the last primaries, if anything, favored Christie.

“Somebody who is not a two-of-five and who is voting in the primary is probably a Lonegan voter,” he said.  “New people come to us.  They don’t go to Christie.”

Shaftan disagreed that Schundler’s 2001 victory had anything to do with his opponents’ ballot switch, and said that Lonegan is running better at this point in the campaign than Schundler was running against Franks.

Christie Campaign Manager Bill Stepien argued that the poll’s results in Morris County, where Christie is from, diminishes its credibility.

“A poll that shows Lonegan up nearly two to one in Chris’s home county?  Seems a bit fishy,” he said.  “The next thing you’ll tell me is that Lonegan’s own consultant conducted the poll.”

Here’s my take. I’m not sure if it is as tight as the Lonegan camp’s internals are showing, but I do believe that Mayor Lonegan is continuing to gain on Christie and will continue to do so.

Ultimately, this primary is going to be decided by turnout and whether the grassroots conservatives will vote en masse for Mayor Lonegan on June 2nd.  

It’s important to also keep in mind that many voters have yet to take a full interest in this primary. With the debates right around the corner, though, that should certainly change things. By mid-may I think we’ll have a very clear idea of how this race truly stands.

Cross-posted at Red County.

A couple of new polls are out from Quinnipiac and Strategic Vision.

The Quinnipiac poll confirms that Governor Corzine remains in deep trouble in his bid for re-election. His approve/dispprove is the wors they’ve ever recorded: 37% approve; 54% disapprove. 50% feel the state is worse off since he became Governor and a majority of voters feel he doesn’t deserve re-election (55%-33%). To me this is devastating for Corzine. If most people want you out it will be tough to overcome.

In head-to-head matchups, Chris Christie still leads Corzine by a healthy margin, 45%-38%, while Steve Lonegan is tied with Corzine at 41%.

In the GOP primary, Christie still leads Lonegan but the gap has decreased significantly. In the last Quinnipiac poll, Lonegan trailed Christie 41%-19%. Now, Quinnipiac has Christie and Lonegan separated by just a margin of 46%-37%.

The Strategic Vision poll shows Christie leading Corzine 47%-36% and Lonegan trailing Corzine 44%-39%. Christie leads Lonegan 40%-15% in the Strategic Vision poll – a considerably different result from the Quinnipiac poll. Suffice it to say this makes me a little skeptical of the Strategic Vision results, particularly as the Lonegan campaign indicated recently that their own polling was more in line with the Quinnipiac results.

As a Lonegan supporter, these numbers are a positive sign. The biggest obstacle the campaign has been facing is name recognition and Mayor Lonegan appears to be gaining in that area.

With the debates coming up next month, there is plenty of time for the GOP primary to further tighten. For Mayor Lonegan to win, he will need to continue to build name recognition in these closing weeks and the campaign should continue to stick to its positive pro-taxpayer message. Steve’s message is one that will resonate with voters in this state who are overtaxed and have had enough.

I believe the campaign can and should draw distinctions with the more moderate Christie on the issues, but need not continue to harp on questions about Christie’s ethics. These issues will play themselves out and voters will make up their own minds about Christie’s character. The important thing is for Mayor Lonegan to prove to voters that he is the candidate with better solutions and that he has the fortitude to fight for the ideas he believes in.

Cross-posted at Red County.

Steve Forbes is just the latest so-called conservative to endorse Chris Christie.

Yesterday, Steve Forbes appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show. In the course of the discussion, Forbes brought up the New Jersey Governor’s race indicating that Republicans have a good chance to win this year. He mentioned that he had met with Christie and likened him to none other than former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In fact, here’s what Forbes had to say in his column at Forbes.com.

I had the opportunity recently to spend a little time with Christie. He comes across as a leader who has the smarts and determination to get big things done. Like Giuliani, Christie won’t let conventional political wisdom deter him from his course, and he has the political savvy and persistence to make the needed breakthroughs.

Now, I ask you – and especially those claiming that Christie is a conservative - do any of you actually believe that Mayor Giuliani is a conservative? Because I don’t know anyone who believes that; and I sure don’t believe that anyone would liken Steve Lonegan to a moderate Republican like Giuliani.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

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.

I came across an interesting article today from Philly.com. The article essentially gives a preview of the kind of all-out assault the Democrats and Corzine will launch against Chris Christie if he becomes the nominee. You can take anything that has been said on this blog or by other conservatives about Christie and multiply one-hundred fold in terms of what the Corzine camp will throw at him. As the article says:

“In the end, [Corzine] will have enough money and find enough stuff on this guy [Christie] to take the bloom off the rose,” said Philadelphia-based political consultant Neil Oxman, who has run races in New Jersey and around the country.

Because Corzine is behind in the polls, he can’t simply tout his record to voters, Oxman said.

“The important thing is you define him, you can’t let that guy define himself,” he said.

This is why Chris Christie needs to come out now, during the GOP primary, and face his opponents open and honestly. Not only do GOP voters deserve the right to vet all of the candidates, but this process will prepare whoever the nominee is for the onslaught of attacks that the Democrats will launch.

Furthermore, this will provide Mr. Christie the opportunity to earn the respect of the party’s conservative wing that considers him a moderate– and who are rightfully upset by the unfair GOP convention processes. Personally, I do not harbor any animus toward Mr. Christie. But what I do want to see from him is more open and honest debate; a willingness to engage his opponents. If he does this – and he does go on to secure the nomination – then, I’m sure, more conservatives would be willing to give them their support despite any misgivings they might have about his candidacy.

So, Mr. Christie, I urge you to take my advice. Come out now. Earn our respect. And if you win the nomination then you will have a better chance in the Fall when the Democrat attacks will begin in earnest.