The New Jersey Gubernatorial Race: Why You Should Care

Attention political junkies — the New Jersey GOP gubernatorial primary is Tuesday. Two reasons you should care, even if you aren’t a Republican and you don’t live in the Garden State:

1) The New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial campaigns are this year’s only major races. There is nowhere else to get your political fix.

2) This primary will test the viability of Republican candidates who try to play to the party’s extremes, as opposed to taking a more centrist approach. The winner will try to unseat Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in November (this race was previously considered a sure-thing for Corzine, but recent polls show he could be vulnerable).

In New Jersey’s  Republican primary, one of the contenders is the very conservative former small-town mayor, Steve Lonegan, up against relative moderate Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney. Lonegan, whose campaign argued yesterday that Republicans should support him because the “liberal” media endorsed Christie, intends to lure voters by trotting out people like the anti-illegal immigration Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrest and ideas like a flat income tax rate of 2.9 percent to inspire the far-right.

Lonegan today accused Christie of ignoring the “illegal alien” problem because he only brought 13 cases against illegal immigrants in seven years as U.S. attorney. From a Lonegan campaign statement:

Chris Christie thinks illegal immigration is not a crime and his record as U.S. Attorney –virtually ignoring the problem–proves that’s his real position. As Governor, I will roll up [current Democratic Gov. Jon] Corzine’s red carpet for illegals and take back our state, before it’s too late.

Christie, who’s been bashed for having a foggy agenda and changing his abortion stance (he’s now pro-life), is expected to be endorsed Thursday by former GOP presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (who is no stranger to abortion flip-flopping himself). However, some suspect Romney made the last-minute pick to shore up Garden State support for a potential 2012 presidential campaign.

Lonegan also recently won the backing of another Republican who sought the presidential nomination last year: fellow tax foe, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

Although polls have long called Christie the favorite, recent reports note slight movement to the right by Christie — indicating he may be worried about the effectiveness of Lonegan’s strategy with some Republican primary voters.