ELECTIONS ARE FOR LOSERS!:

GOP Sees Opportunity in N.J. Governor's Race (Keith B. Richburg, 5/17/09, Washington Post)

[I]n an echo of the party's national internal debate, New Jersey Republicans aren't certain whether their best chance for success is with a candidate who can appeal to independents or with a staunch conservative who advocates a flat tax, would ban abortion and expresses disdain for moderates.

Much of New Jersey's Republican establishment has lined up behind Christopher Christie, a former U.S. attorney who built a reputation as a crusader against political corruption, putting 130 New Jersey politicians behind bars. Christie said he would bring that prosecutor's toughness to the state government with a plan to cut taxes, reduce regulation and trim the size of government. "There'll be a new sheriff in town when I come in January," he told factory workers at a recent event here.

"I think my background and my personality fit these times," Christie said later in an interview. "I don't really care about being popular. I care much more about being respected."

Recent polls show him defeating Corzine 45 percent to 38 percent in a hypothetical November matchup, and GOP leaders see him as the most electable Republican in a reliably Democratic state.

But first Christie must win the Republican primary, a smaller universe of voters more conservative than the statewide electorate. And Christie's main primary opponent is an unabashed conservative, Steve Lonegan, a former mayor of the small town of Bogota. Lonegon's main campaign proposal is a 2.9 percent flat tax, and he has the support of some national conservative groups. [...]

From the mid-1990s until the early part of this decade, Republican governors were in charge in Trenton, Albany, Harrisburg and even Boston, with moderate or business-minded leaders such as Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey, George E. Pataki in New York, Tom Ridge in Pennsylvania, and William F. Weld, Paul Cellucci and later Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.

The intraparty dispute is over how to win now. Some Republicans say the key is to run candidates with crossover appeal, like those past successful governors, who can win among independents and some Democrats while holding the Republican base. Conservatives such as Lonegan and his backers say the formula is to run staunch conservatives and paint a sharp ideological difference between the parties.

For the true believers, it isn't about winning elections but validating their own ideology.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 17, 2009 8:26 AM