Steve Lonegan is getting good press—again–from Star-Ledger pundit Paul Mulshine. Mulshine asserts that Lonegan, a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in the August primary, is a hard-core civil libertarian and advocate for limited government constitutional principles.
Nonsense. Lonegan supported the disastrous Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act, one of the greatest assaults on civil liberties in American history. In short, when it counted, Lonegan was on the side of the neoconservatives, supporting their interventionist foreign policy and egregious dismantling of our civil liberties. Mulshine constantly rails against the neoconservative agenda of big government at home and abroad. Yet he now supports one of New Jersey’s leading neocons, Steve Lonegan.
And in his gubernatorial campaign in 2009, Steve Lonegan advocated a flat income tax that would have raised taxes on low and middle-income families. In the U.S. Senate campaign, Lonegan revealed his embrace of crony capitalism, when he called for the prohibition of gambling outside of Atlantic City.
Clearly, Mulshine has a soft spot for Steve Lonegan, New Jersey’s perennial candidate for Congress, state Senate, governor and now U.S. Senate, who is anything but a free market, limited government, fiscal conservative.
There is a better choice for Republicans in the U.S. Senate primary, that is Dr. Alieta Eck, who has revealed in both words and deeds that she is a proponent of free markets and limited government.
Lonegan may be able to fool Mulshine and others in New Jersey, but his candidacies are wearing thin for those who know the real Steve Lonegan.
In other words, a vote for Dr. Alieta Eck on August 13 is vote for free enterprise and limited government and proven local solutions to a whole host of issues, including providing health care to the uninsured. A vote for Steve Lonegan is a vote for more of the same in Washington DC, the unholy alliance of Republican and Democratic neoconservatives.