About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

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.
 
 

7 comments:

  1. We are outnumbered as RTE has been stating for some time. The American people want security and the free stuff. When the kitty is empty what will these people have - a big fat nothing. And they will have learned not to take care of themselves. I think you keep on talking about the founding principles of free market capitalism, personnal responsibility, and the rule of law. When we all have nothing we may find our way back to the founding principles.

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  2. Doug - Congratulations on another brilliant political analysis re: the Lonegan-Booker Senate race.

    If NJ had a process similar to the Electoral College the outcome would have been different. Lonegan won virtually every county except the welfare leach counties in the North East. Similar to the results in Gore-Bush Presidential race in 2000. Gore won the popular vote but Bush won the Electoral College & the presidency.

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    1. Go to http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/10/booker_vs_lonegan_county-by-county_voting_results_in_us_senate_election.html#incart_river for county by county election results. Make up your own NJ electoral college. All those interested - please share the outcome of your work. I'd be interested to see it.

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    2. Doug - I have egg on my face, I was not able to invent a scheme to make Lonegan a winner via an imaginary NJ Electoral College. My wishful thinking got the best of me. . .I wanted to make him a winner in the worse way.

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  3. I totally agree with what you've said. Steve Lonegan had a great many people engaged in his campaign. People in my Tea Party, and other tea party groups walked neighborhoods passing out brochures and talking with people about Steve. I received more phone calls in one day from different groups who supported Steve than in any other campaign I can remember. He had a lot of support, but he did not get support from the New Jersey Republican establishment. If he had help from the Republican establishment he may have won this election. I drove through my neighborhood and looked for Lonegan lawn signs on the lawns of our Republican township committee members and did not see one. This is a terrible loss for Steve, New Jersey, and the country. He would have made a fantastic Senator.

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    1. Other than Mike Doherty & possibly one state assemblyman there were no other Republican elected reps - congressmen, mayors, freeholders, senators, or Christie @ the Lonegan post-election affair @ the Bridgewater Manor on Wednesday night. Another indication of the lack of support for Steve by his fellow Republicans.

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  4. Booker won mainly because he stands for increasing taxes on the 'greedy uncaring' rich while increasing wealth distribution. With increasing proportion of the electorate receiving wealth distribution, those like Lonegan,who champion free markets as the best approach to grow the economy, find it very difficult to win elections. most of those receiving wealth from the gov are oblivious to risk of continuing growing our debt much faster than GDP. This is the main reason this week that China's Dagong Global Credit Rating agency cut its credit rating on the U.S. by one notch to A- on par now with Brazil. Each day the US borrows average of $4 billion per day in treasury certificates and has the Fed buy $1.5 trillion of these treasuries in secondary markets to artificially keep interest rates low! is a day closer to a $ collapse. The debt ceiling agreement ensures this daily risk continues. This week also China signed a $300 billion trade swap agreement with the European Central Bank. The ultimate goal? Replace the $ with the RMB as the world prime currency. Momentum is building.

    What to do? Brace for an economic collapse under BO that will be more severe than the 2008-9 Great Recession. Upgrade your job skills with immediate urgency and passion. Competition for decrease labor force will be intense. make this commitment today. Then you will also be in a position to lead the US back to prosperity after all economic hell breaks loose on BO's watch.

    Reference

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/10/17/Why-China-Wants-to-Dump-the-Dollar

    http://www.infowars.com/33-stats-that-prove-that-something-desperately-needs-to-be-done-about-the-national-debt/

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