Steve Lonegan & NJ's 44% Ceiling

 

"There is a clear choice between Steve Lonegan and Cory Booker for the United States Senate.  One will support the president at every turn. The other will make principled judgments that he believes are not only in the best interests of America, but in the best interests of New Jersey, and that guy is Mayor Steve Lonegan." - NJ Governor Chris Christie on August 20, 2013 speaking about Tea Party candidate Steve Lonegan to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Frank Lautenberg

 

"This has sparked what is by far the most important & consequential political event since last year's presidential contest." – Steve Lonegan on September 23, 2013

 

  click on images to enlarge

 

Tea Party candidate Steve Lonegan's strategy for winning Wednesday's special NJ Senate election was set right @ the start – work his fingers to the bone to get out his base & hope for a low turnout.  There never was a doubt how hard Steve would work & he did not disappoint in this regard – he barely slept during the entire campaign travelling tirelessly from one end of the state to the other.  Steve got his base out in an election that had 24% turnout of registered voters – pitiful for "by far the most important & consequential political event since last year's presidential contest."  Steve lost 55-44.

 

Had the turnout been higher I believe the margin of loss would have been greater – Lonegan got his base to the polls & his opponent, Cory Booker, barely knew there was a contest going on being out of state on many occasions as Steve pointed out every chance he had.  Also, Biden passed up a Booker campaign appearance to play golf instead in Washington.  But there was plenty of money coming in for Booker – a lot from Hollywood.

 

My analysis of recent contests is that 44% is all the last three top notch Tea Party candidates that ran on the Republican ticket could muster in NJ – Anna Little @ 44% in her congressional race in 2010 before falling to 35% in a repeat of the same race in 2012, Mike Agosta @ 40% in his congressional race in 2010 after putting in six figures of his own money, Steve Lonegan @ 42% in the NJ governor's primary against Christie in 2009, & now Lonegan again @ 44%. 

 

Based on knowing these three candidates, working directly with them, & actually working for them I can attest that you could not find three better people for America.

 

One of the common themes in all of above listed races is that the Republican establishment provided next to no help in any of the races except possibly Anna's second try where she did even worse than the first effort that had no Republican help.  Lonegan was outspent 8 to 1.

 

Lonegan did have campaign help with visits from Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, & Mark Levin – none of which are establishment Republicans.

 

So what does such defeats & the above graphs tell us?  To me it says that the Tea Party which really stands for our liberties & founding principles (Tea Party Patriots goal – "constitutionally limited, fiscally responsible government where free markets thrive") is not wanted by the majority of the electorate – the first graph shows 27% of all adults had a positive impression of the Tea Party even right after the IRS scandal broke last spring.  Do your own analysis of the graphs – there is a lot of information on them.

 

Most Americans have replaced their love of liberty with the imagined promise of security & they view BO's government programs as security to protect them from the ravages of the capitalist world that BO's policies have produced.  As the monthly unemployment figures & weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance continue to be terrible people are not wanting to replace the cause of these ravages – namely BO's intentional economic design – but rather are running to it for protection.  At this late stage of Death Of Democracy the opposite economic instincts of survival of what took place in the other stages are appearing (e.g., after the terrible economy of the late 1970s people replaced Carter with Reagan – if Carter had the current American mindset & as many government programs as BO has Carter would have won reelection in 1980).

 

None of this worked in Lonegan's favor.

 

Now there is one very prominent Republican in NJ who did not help Lonegan – Chris Christie.  Christie had the option of holding the election – which was handing the Senate seat to Booker – or he could have appointed Lonegan to finish the vacant term starting last June.  Christie's chose the election route & made a lukewarm endorsement of Lonegan.  Now if Christie really endorsed Lonegan why didn't he just appoint him to fill the last 18 months of the vacant term?  Who knows - people in NJ may have found that they actually liked Lonegan & if not he could be replaced in 18 months.  But Christie's goal is to win his own reelection in three weeks by a large margin thereby cementing himself in his mind in the 2016 Republican presidential field.

 

As Christie said in the quote above – there is a "clear choice" to be made between Lonegan & Booker - & Christie made his.  Steve Lonegan is too good for NJ.